Prototype Issue
You Don't Know Me Confronts The Truth Behind Addiction
By Kamren Curiel
(page 1 of 1)Set in the Aliso Village housing projects of Boyle Heights, Santa (Erica Beas)is a 17-year-old senior who escapes the depressing circumstances of having a drug- and alcohol-addicted mother with her passion for spoken-word poetry.
I’m almost always surprised when I see a play because they’re like that; you just never know who’s going to be on stage doing what. I was shocked though to see two young Latinas—who brought back memories of my own childhood—from the ‘hood falling in love amidst a world of hurt.
The kissing scenes came as a slight shock, but that’s only because for Latinos, homosexuality is usually just swept under the rug. If someone (or you) are gay, you talk about it behind closed doors. It was cool to see a cultural institute like CASA 0101 exposing the community to real life issues. The sexual preference of the very writer, Patricia Zamora, who’s spent time locked up in Eastlake Juvenile Hall as a young woman growing up in Boyle Heights, is revealed in this play.
Santa’s story is that of a young woman trying to get through her last year of high school so she can escape the ghetto, her deteriorating mother Jovita, (Lora) whose lover/dealer/creepy boyfriend Joey (Diaz) hits on her and eventually steals her girlfriend Sonia (Deras) and go to college.
Santa’s a good student who’s talent for the written word lands her in a CASA 0101 poetry contest and is her aspiration for wanting to study English at a UC despite her mother’s discouragement.
The story is close to the heart of playwright Zamorano; it’s her story. Zamorano grew up in Boyle Heights and wrote her play under the tutelage of writer Josefina Lopez whose “Real Women Have Curves” went on to become a successful HBO film.
Issues of drugs, gangs and the male struggle (Joey’s insecurity with not being able to read or write leads him to a life of drug slanging), are all thrown out here for the community to see.
If I were you, I’d open my eyes, confront homosexually, the realities of drugs and alcohol and go see this play. It’s real. It’s life.
Directed by Emmanuel Deleage, written by Patricia Zamorano and starring Erica Beas (Santa), Eddie Diaz (Joey), Alma Deras (Sonia) and Jennifer Lora(Jovita); Edward Padilla is the Artistic Director at CASA 0101.
Casa 0101, 2009 E. First St., Boyle Heights, 323-263-7684, www.casa0101.org. Photos: Top (L to R) Eddie Diaz & Erica Beas; Bottom (L to R) Erica Beas, Alma Deras, & Jennifer Lora.
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