Caught between two worlds in ‘Alma’

At Curious Theatre, a self-contained immigration story powerfully depicts a common struggle

The notoriously jacked-up immigration system in this country is the backdrop to this slice-of-life story about a mother and daughter in the netherworld between the American dream and slipping through the cracks of an uncaring society.

Set during the unsettling interregnum between Trump’s election and inauguration in 2016, Alma is the story of a mother, Alma (Laura Chavez) and her 17-year-old daughter Angel (Ilian Lucero Barron). It’s late at night in their tiny apartment on the outskirts of L.A., and the next day is a pivotal one for Alma: Angel will be taking her SAT exam, all but ensuring, she believes, a spot for her daughter at UC-Davis. As an undocumented immigrant who entered the U.S. from Mexico while pregnant with Angel, Alma is also poised to take her own test for citizenship. And so we find the two women at a pivotal moment in time, where the reality of their expectations plays out over 80 minutes.

The third show of Curious Theatre’s 25^th season, Alma is a relatively quiet study of the pickle so many immigrant families find themselves in. Alma is the mother bear who cleans toilets and sleeps on the couch to allow her daughter to have more opportunities than she ever could while projecting onto Angel hopes and dreams she may not share. Coming home late on the evening before the SAT, Alma finds Angel isn’t even there studying, as she expected. When she finally gets home from a friend’s house quite drunk, Alma begins to suspect the next generation isn’t quite as ready as she’d hoped.

For while Alma’s rosy vision of America, however flawed, has her convinced prosperity and legitimacy are just around the corner, Angel sees mostly the ugliness that has decent people like themselves sidelined as undesirable others. With the malignant rhetoric of Trump poised to turn into what they can only assume will be actions against them, the daughter is more concerned about protecting her vulnerable mother than she is advancing her own cause.

Benne based this play on his own mother’s story as a Guatemalan immigrant living in L.A., and it’s an impressive feat of writing for a young man to depict the relationship between two women so thoughtfully and realistically. The story is aided greatly by two strong performances and the direction by Denise Yvette Serna, who artfully boosts the words with an intense physicality between mother and daughter in the cramped space of their apartment. Even when they’re tearing at each other as mothers and teenage daughters are wont to do, their hearts are always on their sleeves as their love brings them back around to civilized conversation.

Chavez is fantastic at portraying a mother so invested in her child’s success that she loses much of her own self. With an open face that shows all and a resonant voice that swings between English and Spanish, Chavez commands a lot of attention even as Barron soaks up a lot of the oxygen in the room as the frenetic teen. Together, the two actors are an ideal pair to relate this highly personal story illustrating the other end of the spectrum from the highly publicized battles in Washington or at border crossings. Perhaps nothing shows it better than the sound of Trump braying about the wall on TV as the two women try to map out their own future as people, not sound bites.

Alma may be set in a small space, but the evidence of the outside world’s intrusion is always present. Much more so than her mother, Angel sees the darker forces aligned against them, and her façade of going along with Alma begins to crack as the time for decisions and actions draws near. The outer world is also manifested by startling banging at the door, flickering lights that ultimate lead to a blackout and other indicators that they are never safe even in their own home.

For those of us who will never experience the fear of being targeted as a group and scapegoated politically, Alma is a beautiful and disturbing exploration into that reality experienced by so many almost-Americans and their Dreamer offspring. Funny in many places, Alma also functions as a tragedy when taken as a depiction of millions of other marginalized lives. There’s no happy ending here, only a grim perseverance by Alma and Angel that, no matter what, sticking together is their best defense.