Anything but escapist

In a time of increasing economic uncertainty, it’s tempting to turn entertainment into a purely escapist pursuit. With El Grito del Bronx, Portland’s Miracle Theater emphatically rejects this temptation, and chooses instead to stage a challenging play that packs an emotional wallop.

Migdaliza Cruz’s play is a look at the impact of domestic abuse, poverty and the immigrant experience on a young Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. The action shifts between Lulu (Cristi Miles) on her wedding day, and her brother, Papo, (Matthew Dieckman) who is dying of AIDS on death row.

The play is sometimes brutal in its depictions of abuse and murder. Lulu and Papo’s childhood memories are difficult to stomach, not only because of the scenes of emotional and mental abuse, but because of their culmination (the death of their father, at Papo’s hands, onstage). In another particularly gut-wrenching scene, Papo beats a service station worker to death.

The prison scenes are similarly disturbing—masturbation becomes a masochistic, violent act as Papo speaks about the sores and bleeding caused by his illness, and his cellmate gets off listening to him. Although this rawness is somewhat tempered by more lighthearted, domestic scenes between Lulu and her boyfriend, it gives the play a gritty, disturbing streak that has a profound impact on its audience.

Cristi Miles’s Lulu carries the play with her innocent, yet haunted character. Her transition from a young girl to a troubled, haunted woman parallels Papo’s journey from a boy into an angry man who kills at the slightest provocation, although their final destinations are quite different.

Lulu is an accomplished storyteller and aspiring poet. Her brother channels his experiences into violence. The differences in the way the two cope with their past is thoroughly explored in the play, which ultimately celebrates individual resilience and self-determination. Lulu is troubled by her relationship to her brother, who she sees as a monster, but manages to face her demons and come to terms with her family.

Papo, on the other hand, deals with his problems by killing them. These two disparate responses are linked by the suffering of a cast of supporting characters, notably women who have lost their sons to the whims of a world that they come to view as a dark, capricious place.

Cruz is an accomplished playwright, and an important Latina voice. She is intimately concerned with the importance and universality of family relationships, and uses them to underscore her belief that the human experience—however unpleasant—ultimately connects everyone, whether they are white, black or Puerto Rican.

Stellar performances by Lisamarie Harrison, Ithica Tell and Marjorie Tatum as grieving mothers both serve as a traditional dramatic chorus that lends the play additional presence, and nicely parallel Lulu’s story as she comes to terms with herself and the men in her life.

At intermission, many in the audience seemed noticeably uncomfortable—a rarity, especially now, when so many theaters rely on lighter fare to appeal to recession-hardened audiences. Like the best theater should, El Grito del Bronx forces its audience to think and feel.