Dually inspired by Calderón’s Spanish Golden Age Drama The Physician Of His Own Honor and the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning, which detailed New York’s then-underground drag queen “ball culture,” this fierce and funny new play by Boni B. Alvarez is set in the heart of L.A.’s Historic Filipinotown. Miracles Malcañang is a ladyboy masseuse who “walks” for Filipinotown’s infamous House of Malacañang. When Miracles’ forbidden love affair sparks tensions between the city’s hottest political family, two families must come together to understand the power of desire, identity, and honor. Sept. 15 through Oct. 22: Fridays at 8:30 p.m., Saturdays at 8:30 p.m., Sundays at 4 p.m., & Mondays at 8:30 p.m.; The Echo Theater Company, Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90039; $20-$34; 310-307-3753; www.EchoTheaterCompany.com.
Fixed
Critics
LemonMeter
Reviews: 10
Reviews
This is not a "niche" show. You don't have to be a drag queen to connect with it. Most of us have never been in Miracles' shoes. I, for one, had never even heard of Ball Culture until this production. But this isn't a tale about drag queens and secret gay lovers. It's about the overwhelming and aching desire to be loved—and that is something that anyone, anywhere can relate to.
INTENSELY EMOTIONAL…beautiful, human, unique and relatable, I highly recommend it.
The timing is right for plays or films to address the issues surrounding variations of sexuality, and Alvarez' contribution is in the right direction, but the playwright needs to more fully explore the placement of these folk into our political and social landscape.
As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, the play, presented by Echo Theater Company in Atwater Village, percolates with ideas about identity and diversity, conveyed through a tale of two people who might find love if the world would just leave them alone.
Director Rodney To does a fantastic job with this piece. He sets it in an arena style, where parallel scenes take place one at a time on opposite sides, creating a nice rhythm. He also allows his actors enough freedom to go to the places they need to.
Once again showcasing Boni B. Alvarez's unique playwriting voice and some of L.A. theater's finest onstage and behind-the-scenes talents, Fixed packs one powerful punch.
Heavy vernacular and high drama keep us guessing. Rodney To's direction is spotty with actors often finding their own way to all being on the same page at the same time.
Wow! I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. It reached down deep within me and brought back powerful memories from over a half century ago and now here it was on stage in Los Angeles... Presenting this world takes enormous delicacy and finesse, which Boni B. Alvarez demonstrates extremely well. Failing such skill it would be far too easy to merely dismiss the world of the Lady Boys and those around them as nothing more than weirdos, but that misses the greater point. Bizarre that world is but it is also brimming with passion and joy and pain on many levels and all of that comes through in Fixed.
Fixed, as you can see, is an elaborately constructed melodrama with blocking motions to love on every side. There are many theatrical pleasures: the performance of the two principals; an initial competitive walk; the dressing-room maintenance of drag; the lyrical speech of Gigi and her workers Jenny and Carmie (Allen Lucky Weaver and Tonatiuh Elizarraraz, both splendid); the delayed, impressive entrance of Alvarez as Gigi; and in a coda, a very fine dance performance by Elizarraraz.
The Echo Theater Company proves again that is truly the "Best Bet for Ballsy Original Plays" as LA Weekly stated in 2014 with its latest production directed by Rodney To, "Fixed.
This is not a "niche" show. You don't have to be a drag queen to connect with it. Most of us have never been in Miracles' shoes. I, for one, had never even heard of Ball Culture until this production. But this isn't a tale about drag queens and secret gay lovers. It's about the overwhelming and aching desire to be loved—and that is something that anyone, anywhere can relate to.
INTENSELY EMOTIONAL…beautiful, human, unique and relatable, I highly recommend it.
The timing is right for plays or films to address the issues surrounding variations of sexuality, and Alvarez' contribution is in the right direction, but the playwright needs to more fully explore the placement of these folk into our political and social landscape.
As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, the play, presented by Echo Theater Company in Atwater Village, percolates with ideas about identity and diversity, conveyed through a tale of two people who might find love if the world would just leave them alone.
Director Rodney To does a fantastic job with this piece. He sets it in an arena style, where parallel scenes take place one at a time on opposite sides, creating a nice rhythm. He also allows his actors enough freedom to go to the places they need to.
Once again showcasing Boni B. Alvarez's unique playwriting voice and some of L.A. theater's finest onstage and behind-the-scenes talents, Fixed packs one powerful punch.
Heavy vernacular and high drama keep us guessing. Rodney To's direction is spotty with actors often finding their own way to all being on the same page at the same time.
Wow! I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. It reached down deep within me and brought back powerful memories from over a half century ago and now here it was on stage in Los Angeles... Presenting this world takes enormous delicacy and finesse, which Boni B. Alvarez demonstrates extremely well. Failing such skill it would be far too easy to merely dismiss the world of the Lady Boys and those around them as nothing more than weirdos, but that misses the greater point. Bizarre that world is but it is also brimming with passion and joy and pain on many levels and all of that comes through in Fixed.
Fixed, as you can see, is an elaborately constructed melodrama with blocking motions to love on every side. There are many theatrical pleasures: the performance of the two principals; an initial competitive walk; the dressing-room maintenance of drag; the lyrical speech of Gigi and her workers Jenny and Carmie (Allen Lucky Weaver and Tonatiuh Elizarraraz, both splendid); the delayed, impressive entrance of Alvarez as Gigi; and in a coda, a very fine dance performance by Elizarraraz.
The Echo Theater Company proves again that is truly the "Best Bet for Ballsy Original Plays" as LA Weekly stated in 2014 with its latest production directed by Rodney To, "Fixed.