A tale of two mothers

In outgoing Boulevard artistic director Mark Bucher’s curtain speech for Living Out, the company’s final production this season, he repeatedly referred to the play as “important.” To paraphrase Gandhi, Bob Dylan, and about a million other people, I usually think art is something that should speak for itself. If Living Out was half as important as Bucher claimed, I felt he wouldn’t need to say it.

I spent the next two hours eating my hat. Living Out is a remarkable production and a must-see for anyone interested in witnessing a local theater address large political issues.

Ana and Bobby (Marion Araujo and Nigel Wade), Salvadorian refugees in the U.S., struggle to reunite their separated family in “Living Out.” All photos courtesy Troy Freund Photography.

Lisa Loomer, a playwright of Spanish and Romanian heritage best known for co-writing the screenplay for Girl Interrupted, wrote Living Out in 2003. The play examines the complex relationship between entertainment lawyer Nancy Robin (Rachel Lewandowski), and her nanny, Ana Hernandez (Marion Araujo), a Salvadorian refugee who entered the country illegally amid the Salvadoran Civil War.

Nancy has a newborn; Ana has two sons, one of which is still in El Salvador with his grandmother. Both women are smart, hardworking mothers struggling with the roles traditionally assigned to them by society. Their repertoire is fresh. The setting, contemporary Los Angeles, is familiar, as are the challenges both women face.

Nancy and her husband have just moved to a nicer part of town and are looking to return to the normalcy of their careers, following the birth of their first child; Ana and her husband are grappling with the immigration process, living separated from one son, while trying their best to provide safety and a sense of security to the other. Those partners – public defender Richard Robin (Jason Will), and blue-collar laborer Bobby Hernandez (Nigel Wade) – are equally concerned for their families, caught awkwardly in the position of wanting to support their wives but unsure how.

Nancy and Richard (Rachel Lewandowski and Jason Will), new parents, find it hard to understand the circumstances facing Ana’s family, and are focusing on concerns of just getting back to work.

Director Beth Monhollen masterfully handles the play’s structure: 20-plus sitcom-like scenes, where Ana and Nancy’s lives parallel each other, often with more than a touch of irony. On the periphery of those scenes are Nancy’s entourage of diaper-bag toting, nanny-cam endorsing mothers and Ana’s fellow nannies. Both groups, but especially the nannies, keep Living Out moving, thanks to Loomer’s keen ear for dialogue. They pepper the play with everything from humorous asides on American parenting to profound statements about racism and class struggle.

But rather than being merely a humanist melodrama about the shared multicultural experience of Ana and Nancy, Living Out provokes thought by focusing on the irreducible differences between the two women and their families. Richard and Nancy can’t comprehend the circumstances that forced Bobby and Ana away from El Salvador any more than they can comprehend their own privilege as Americans.

In order to land a job with the Robins, Ana lies, telling them that both her sons are in El Salvador, thinking having no children would improve her prospects as a nanny. It’s a decision that will lead to the play’s critical moment, when Nancy pressures Ana into doing a favor that forces her to neglect her own children for the sake of another woman’s.

It’s with this irony that Living Out becomes more than a light-heartened, slice-of-life piece about multicultural America. It becomes something much better – a production you shouldn’t miss.

The Boulevard Theatre is located at 2622 S. 2622 S Kinnickinnic Ave.“Living Out” runs through May 12th. For tickets visit boulevardtheatre.com/gettickets or call (414)744-5757.