Labor Pains

Timely play pits aliens versus alien busters

Comments (0) By Robrt L. Pela Thursday, Sep 4 2008

A local day-labor center is about to close, bowing to the pressures of anti-immigration advocates. The immigrants who rely on the center for their crummy incomes fight to keep the facility open. When one of the workers gets arrested, all hell breaks loose.

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Sound plausible? Los Illegals is a ripped-from-the-headlines play with a pedigree. Written by Los Angeles-based playwright Michael John Garces, Illegals was inspired by Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna, in which a small town rises against the tyranny of a local lord. Garces, the artistic director of Los Angeles’s Cornerstone Theater, developed the play using actual members of the local immigrant community, Spanish-speaking day laborers who worked alongside professional actors to shape the story that became Los Illegals.

Directed by Andres Alcala, the play launches Teatro Bravo’s ninth season and will be performed in blended English and Spanish. Alcala is familiar to Teatro Bravo as an actor in such productions as Places to Touch Him and Men on the Verge 2. He’s an artistic associate doing a two-year residence with Childsplay.

Fri., Sept. 5, 8 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 6, 8 p.m.; Fri., Sept. 12, 8 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 13, 8 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 14, 2 p.m., 2008