"On the way out of The Other Americans, the new drama written by and starring John Leguizamo, I overheard a man about my age talking to his friend as they shuffled up the aisle. "If that isn't my family," he said, trailing off. He looked a little shell-shocked. I don't know what he thought of the play as a play, but he had seen something of his own experience on stage and it had moved him."
"The show certainly contains cultural observations that sound notes of truth on both the communal and domestic scale, and whatever identity you're bringing to the room as a viewer, it's possible for those echoes to stir you. The play itself, however, is a mess. Not that he necessarily needs my sympathy, but as The Other Americans wore on, I found myself feeling for Leguizamo."
"Aspects of his own biography swirl through the play-like him, the patriarch of the family he's created, Nelson Castro, is of Colombian descent, born and raised in Jackson Heights-and there's the sense that Leguizamo is searching for a means of elucidating and humanizing, if not forgiving, the inflexible, self-defeating machismo of a community he knows and loves."
A man in the audience recognized his family on stage and was visibly moved. The production contains cultural observations that sound notes of truth across communal and domestic life, allowing echoes of shared identity to stir viewers. The overall play is structurally messy, with execution that drags and audience energy waning across two laborious hours. The performer, known for high-energy irreverent solo shows, tackles the American dream through a Latin lens. The central patriarch, Nelson Castro, is Colombian, born and raised in Jackson Heights. The work searches to elucidate and humanize inflexible, self-defeating machismo in a beloved community.
Read at Vulture
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