In 2012, Latino Theatre Company produced an epic three-part play by Evelina Fernández that would go on to win the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s Ted Schmitt Award for the outstanding world premiere of a new play. It is called A Mexican Trilogy.
The company has begun streaming the first in that trilogy with the remaining plays to be streamed later this month.
The plays document several decades in the life of the Mexican-American Morales family.
Part 1 of A Mexican Trilogy is called Faith and is available through October 15th. The play begins in Arizona while World War II is raging. Esperanza and Silvestre are raising three daughters. Though the matriarch tries to keep the girls on a short leash, the attention they draw from neighborhood boys, nor the dreams of having a career as singers, can’t be so easily controlled.
Hope, Part 2 becomes available from October 13th – October 22nd. In the second part of the trilogy, Kennedy is in office and the girls are achieving a certain level of success, though not without struggles amongst the trio. At home, their parents are doing so well as their mother, Elena, seeks comfort from a close friend since her husband seems to be absent more and more.
Charity, Part 3 will be available from October 20th – October 30th. In this third and final play in the trilogy, the year is 2005. Pope John Paul II is now heading the Catholic Church. The girls are grown up and raising children, but not every marriage is going well. Nor is their mother doing well. She stubbornly clings to life. When their cousin shows up the family is forced to confront the secrets and demons that they have long refused to address.
José Luis Valenzuela directed A Mexican Trilogy. The cast includes Esperanza America, Robert Beltran, Olivia Delgado, Alexis de la Rocha, Evelina Fernández, Sam Golzari, Kenneth Lopez, Sal Lopez, Xavi Moreno, Matias Ponce, Geoffrey Rivas and Lucy Rodriguez.
Photo: Sam Golzari, Esperanza America, Olivia Delgado Young, Elia Saldana, Julio Macias and Kenneth Lopez in A Mexican Trilogy: Home, Part 2 (Photo by Grettel Cortes Photography/Courtesy Latino Theater Company)