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OSF's 'Mojada': Greek tragedy meets the immigrant experience Armida (Vilma Silva) gives a final ultimatum to Medea (Sabina Zuniga Varela) as Tita (VIVIS) looks on in "Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. [OSF photo by Jenny Graham] Monday Mar 6, 2017 at 2:00 AM By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Medea stands out as a tough nut for a contemporary audience, even among the flawed heroes of Greek tragedy. It’s hard to spin-doctor killing the kids. But she’s the focus as playwright Luis Alfaro takes on his third Greek tragedy in “Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles,” which opened Sunday on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Angus Bowmer stage. In tragedies like Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” and Euripides’ “Electra,” both of which were earlier redone by Alfaro, the ancient Greeks cut close to the bone. Dramatizations of murder, rape, incest and the cruelties of fate didn’t send audiences home with a smile. But as Aristotle famously explained, the aim of tragedy is to create a catharsis, purging viewers’ fear and pity and achieving a sort of emotional reboot. “Mojada” — a derogatory term meaning “wetback” — is a taut little drama that crams a lot of complexity into about an hour-and-a-half with no intermission. And Alfaro has judiciously seasoned it with some humor before the wheels come off in the most horrific way imaginable. Medea, her lover Jason (here pronounced ha-SONE), their child, Acan, and Medea’s family’s housekeeper, Tita, immigrated illegally a year ago from corrupt, violent Michoacán in southern Mexico to cross into the United States in a harrowing journey that scarred them. They’ve settled in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, where Medea (Sabina Zuniga Varela) has a low-paying piecework job sewing clothing in the family’s small yard while Jason (Lakin Valdez) pours himself into his construction work for rich, older (but still sexy) female contractor Armida (Vilma Silva), the villain. Alfaro’s tale, concisely directed by Juliette Carrillo, deftly parallels Euripides’s adaptation of Greek myths. There are star-crossed lovers. There is a shocking act of off-stage violence. There is enchanted apparel. There is just enough salty Spanish to keep it real. The original Medea, a Barbarian among Greeks, was an outcast. This one is an illegal immigrant in a culture she doesn’t understand. This Jason, like the original, is a social climber who will betray his love. In Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece, Medea was in part a helper the hero met after crossing the threshold into his adventure. Euripides’ brainstorm was to focus not on Jason but on Medea, making it her story. Medea’s children have here been consolidated into one son, Acan (Jahnangel Jimenez), who tellingly swaps his soccer ball and juaraches for sneakers and a skateboard. Tita (VIVIS), who doesn’t quite function as a chorus most of the time, trained Medea as a curandera, or healer (the original Medea was a sorceress), and Medea remains attached to the old ways of family, land and honor. A little sorcery also comes in handy when you want revenge on your lover’s lover. Jason, in contrast, has readily adapted to the California hustle of a dog-eat-dog world and the worldview of the cynical parvenu Armida. Varela and Valdez are compelling as Jason rationalizes his behavior and lies to an increasingly distraught Medea, and the tension mounts. As the play hurtles toward its unhinged climax, Alfaro makes some crucial choices. The horrors of the family’s immigrant journey — and the act that prompted it — are told rather than shown, not as the play’s inciting action but in the middle as a long aside. We need the backstory, but the lengthy narrative interrupts the action of the present. Alfaro creates a sympathetic Medea, no mean trick. Varela plays her as shy, loving and a fish out of water in her materialistic new environs. She does the unthinkable only after being betrayed or abandoned by everybody in her life except Tita. Euripides’ “Medea” is sometimes considered a sort of proto-feminist play. “Mojada” nods in that direction while exploring themes of trauma, betrayal and vengeance, all in the context of the immigrant experience. Alfaro is more interested in posing questions than providing answers. What price do immigrants pay? How should one live in a new land? How does a woman cope with a patriarchal culture? How does a love story fall apart? What is the American Dream? All this consciously re-casts the pejorative term “mojada” much as the LBGTQ community did with the word “queer.” The play’s timeliness has skyrocketed with the actions of the new Trump Administration, which wasn’t around when Alfaro was writing. The play is in its third incarnation, following “Bruja” (Witch), which premiered at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in 2012, and “Mojada,” a rewritten version for Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre in 2013. It plays through July 6 in the Bowmer. — Bill Varble writes about arts and entertainment for the Mail Tribune. He can be reached at [email protected].