Among the various and inventive elements of “Mother of Exiles,” Jessica Huang’s new play at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, what’s especially satisfying is the tidy, intriguing structure: It’s divided into three acts over 90 minutes without intermission.
The first act, set in 1898, focuses on Eddie, the character that will weave the plot together over a century and a half. She’s a pregnant young Chinese immigrant (played by Michele Selene Ang) held for deportation on Angel Island.
Huang also shows some of Eddie’s backstory in California prior to her arrest. Disguised as a man (due to rigid and uncomfortably contemporary-seeming anti-immigration laws—no Asian women permitted), she worked on a farm, with ramifications that trickle down the centuries. And she converses with her ancestors, pictured in projections presiding over the action on the upper back wall. That upper level becomes the stomping ground for dead characters.
The second act, which aims to be a rip-roarin’ farce, jumps to 1999, where Eddie’s great-grandson Braulio (Ricardo Vázquez) is a border guard at the Miami port; he’s guarded over by Eddie on the upper tier.
The legacy continues in the third act, in 2063, when the late 21st-century branch of Eddie’s family is stranded at sea in a world of environmental catastrophe. It’s a deeply existential scenario, in odd contrast to the wacky second act.
The continuity of love and guidance handed down from generation to generation, all within an ethnically mixed family in a deeply flawed world, is ever so poignant.
The many characters, too—except for the cartoony ones in the second act—are diverse and carefully wrought. There’s tough, tart Eddie in her various modes; border guard Braulio (who breaks free in private moments to sing and dance to “Livin’ la Vida Loca”); and the at-times preternaturally cheery family stranded (maybe in the Gulf of Mexico) in a futuristic era where the rain carries more chemicals than water, and Cuba is washed away.
The actors excel at diversifying their multiple roles.
If only the dialogue were better able to reflect Huang’s inventive approach to troubling contemporary issues. In that last act, for example, the circumstances are dire, but the writing feels hackneyed. My heart should have been breaking for the plight of these last survivors at sea, but the circumstances felt more like a playwright’s construct than a horrifying human dilemma.
And as lovely as it potentially seems, the whole concept of the ancestors watching over their progeny veers toward cliché, their voices at times echoey, or in unison.
Director Jaki Bradley and the actors have created memorably diverse characters in this world premiere, and the action—which plays out beautifully on scenic designer Riw Rakkulchon’s spare, elegant set with its circular, rotating platform—is full of promise.
Huang has crafted an imaginative story with themes that speak directly to us, to our own future. But the writing itself never matches Huang’s aspirations.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s “Mother of Exiles” continues through Dec. 7 at Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $25-$135 at berkeleyrep.org.
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