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In this case, however, that isn't always a good thing. Coppel pulls no punches in depicting two Mexican-American families living in Los Angeles who are united by the tightly intertwined relationships of the parents and the fervent friendship of their two daughters. But she goes so far in charting their heartbreaks, humiliations, and psychoses that as the show plods on you may find yourself wishing she'd contained her ambitions a bit. The exact breakdown of, well, the dual-family breakdown she's crafted is more than a little on the far-fetched side. That's part of the point, considering that Sonia (Zabryna Guevara) disappeared after the night of her 40th birthday, leaving everyone wondering how they contributed to her mania. Her husband Ricardo (Teddy Caņez) and teenage daughter Jackie (Carmen Zilles) each blame themselves for different reasons: He was having an affair, she admittedly she was a lesbian mere hours before mom vanished. Meanwhile, Jackie's best friend Penelope Lopez (Xochitl Romero) and her father, Alejandro (Alfredo Narciso) are struggling themselves. Sonia drove their carpool, now Penelope is pregnant and the underemployed Alejandro (he works nights as a bartender) isn't just on the verge of bankruptcy but also of having his own illicit dalliances with a married partner found out. I probably shouldn't divulge much more about the story, just in case you can't guess the general directions in which it moves. (And if you can guess, you're almost certainly right.) What Coppel does well is define the boundaries against which these people are chafing, and explore how their culture—both inborn and inherited—affects their public and private choices. All five are naturalized Americans, but still have problems fitting in and living the lives they think they're supposed to. Responsibility is a major silent force throughout, and seeing how everyone deals with theirs is where most of the work's insight is found. Beyond that, Chimichangas and Zoloft is not especially spicy. Its mysteries are half-hearted and, in one too-crucial case, eye-rolling. (Among other things, would Alejandro really carry on his fling in the living room while Penelope is home?) And although it employs a slightly off-kilter structure, in which Sonia's monologues alternate with the real-life scenes about the people she left behind, Coppel doesn't use them to strengthen her central conceit of the way secrets break down rather than preserve bonds. In fact, Sonia is so removed from the action that it's hardly clear how she fits into both the Martinez and Lopez families. Coppel doesn't address with any particular thoughtfulness the mounting stresses that led to Sonia's departure, and though Castaņeda's staging and Lauren Helpern's sunny scenic design are otherwise clean, it's difficult to be sure exactly from where Sonia is speaking to you. At least Guevara's portrayal is satisfyingly rich and layered, with Sonia's tamped-down spirit appearing just often enough from beneath her prevailing depression to convince you she's worth saving; you see in her the wife, the mother, and the individual woman who's losing her sense of self, so as a result you want her to overcome her challenges. The other performances are much more strained and much less affecting, with Zilles and Romero hinting at a sisterly union that never reaches full blossom and Caņez and Narciso believable in neither their simmering romances or the bitter rivalry that characterizes the men early on. They're victims, but less of their own appetites than Coppel's wanting to cover too much ground when a more focused approach might better help her reach her goal. Chimichangas and Zoloft is an admirable examination at how we too often let our communities, both macro and micro, define us when we can't even pinpoint ourselves. But a play about searching for the heart we have rather than the one others want for us would greatly benefit from a more identifiable heart of its own.
Chimichangas and Zoloft
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