Mother Road
Octavio Solis
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| Mark Murphey & Tony Sancho |
Seventy-plus years have past since the Joad family of
Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath joined a
parade of desperate migrant farmers, all leaving their starving lives in
Dust-Bowl-ravaged and looking for the lush life they saw painted on fruit
crates from California. Two Joads – a
mother and her little boy, William – did not join the clan in 1939 but instead remained behind to eek out a living and wait for a
husband/father who never returned. William
is now old and dying of a liver too long abused; but before he passes on, he
wants to find a Joad to inherit his vast farmland in order to keep it from
being sold to developers. His national search
finds that Joad, a great-grandson of William’s first cousin, Tom; but this California-born
Joad is now a Jodes named Martín.
Moreover, Martín is Mexican-American, leading to the cracker-white, Okie
William to gasp and then spit out a disgust-filled, “Oh, sweet Jesus.”
With this opening premise, Octavio Solis begins his newest
play, Mother Road, now in a totally
captivating, deeply affecting, and crucially timely world premiere at the 2019
Oregon Shakespeare Festival. When
William reluctantly decides to give Martín a chance to prove he deserves to
carry on the Joad name and land ownership in Oklahoma, the two set out in
Martín’s old pick-up, following in reverse order the road that brought the
original Joads to Southern California, Route 66. As they travel this “mother road” that
birthed so many stories of migrant migrations, the septuagenarian and the late
teen each undergo a transformative journey full of difficult and sometimes
painful acknowledgements and discoveries.
But in the end, facing their pasts helps each to find a present where first-blush
differences begin to blend together to allow deep-rooted similarities to
emerge. In doing so, the two help us all
to see what a future America can and will look like – one where our many differences
along every possible spectrum are the norm, the hope, and the salvation.
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| Tony Sancho & Mark Murphey |
Mark Murphey – a celebrated, thirty-two-year veteran of OSF
– is grippingly compelling as the gruff, growly William Joad, whose pale, bony
face is a gnarled map of a life marked by hard work, too much drink, and now the
ravages of cancer. He has a rattlesnake
manner of quickly striking before he thinks about how insulting a racially or
socially biased comment may actually be; and he would rather grunt an
abbreviated no-answer that answer the question actually asked. At the same time, his eyes and slight smirk of
a smile sometimes give away creeping inclinations and growing satisfaction that
maybe this Martín is a real Joad at heart, especially when Martín says that it
is “in the hands” how he knows how to farm and that “farming her own land” was
a dream of his mom’s that he now wants to fulfill.
Equally impressive to Mark Murphey’s depiction of the
bent-over but stubbornly-spirited William is Tony Sancho’s of a cocky,
smart-alecky Martín, a still-boy fast becoming a man. Martín sports a quick tongue for hot-headed
outbursts – especially when he comes across “shit broken and I gotta get it
fixed.” But it does not take too long
for him to reveal a soft heart for family and a strong loyalty for
friends. His first reaction to William’s
offer is not exactly the one the old man wants to hear (“You telling me I am
going to own a honky farm in bum-fuck Oklahoma?”); but he begins to see
something in this old, crotchety man that makes him eager to get the two of
them into his trusted, open-back pick-up, Caesar, and start the trip eastward
to his new maybe-home, Sallisaw, Oklahoma.
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| The Chorus/Ensemble |
Director Bill Rauch sends the two of them and all of us in
the audience on a journey like none we have traveled before. An ever-watching chorus of the various town
and farm folk they meet along the way serve literally as mile markers along the
famed Route 66, their both chanting and singing descriptors of scenery and
skies, motels and cafes, events and people.
They step in to propel in stage-crossing twists and turns the jalopy
Caesar while also becoming such items like a hilariously gurgling gas tank at a
service station, an open mouth for an ejecting CD in the car, or headlights to
guide Caesar on his way at night. Behind
all is a giant, old billboard one might see along any lonely highway in the
U.S. (part of Christopher Acebo’s fun and inventive scenic design), with this
one touting journey-enhancing projections of sign posts, passing fields, and
starry nights, all designed by Kaitlyn Pietras.
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| Catherine Castellanos & Mark Murphey |
Along the way, William and Martín try to pry from the other
answers to questions they each have about who the other really is. Why did William and his mom not leave
Oklahoma with the rest of the Joads, and where was his missing dad? And by the way, who was Martín’s dad, and
what is that wrapped package with a bow he carries everywhere he goes? How did Martín get that Joad family Bible –
one that is mysteriously missing a page and has verse numbers circled in
strange places? The answers to these and
many other secrets both known and not-yet-known become part of the journey’s
pivotal markers, the revelations of which are aided greatly by stories that
start to be remembered by each and slowly to spill out. These stories are often enacted in a sidebar
on the stage, giving us a chance to meet William’s mom (Catherine Castellanos) as
she tells young William (played with cute kid effects by Mark Murphey himself)
about his Dad. We also meet several
times Martín’s once-bride-to-be and still love of his life, Amelia (Caro
Zeller), whom he five months prior left standing alone at the altar.
 |
| Mark Murphey, Amy Lizardo & Tony Sancho |
Other revelations and answers are uncovered by the help of
people the two meet along the way – especially those that further fill up the
front and back of good ol’ Caesar. The first
additional passenger is Mo, a migrant-working cousin of Martín, whom he swings by
to find and to bring along as his future farm foreman ... uh, forewoman. Amy Lizardo immediately leaves a strikingly
likeable impression as the talkative, back-slapping, warm-hearted Mo, a lesbian
as unashamedly out and butch as she is forever fearless, friendly, and
frisky. Somehow, her open spirit, no-b.s.
approach, and even her firm commitment to turn his traditional farm into one
fully organic quickly wins over William – long before he is yet sure how he
truly feels about Martín. The three
become an oddball trio of musketeers whose loyalty and love begins to grow in
ways that will prove life affirming and life fulfilling for each.
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| Cedric Lamar, Amy Lizardo, Mark Murphey & Tony Santos |
Other people enter the scene to leave their mark and/or to
join the troupe. Catherine Castellanos
is also a ‘bless-your-heart’ roadside cafe waitress who is ecstatic to meet one
of the Route-66-famous Joads but who loses some of that awe when she becomes
highly indignant and then eruptive in angry over William’s less-than-kind
remarks about her former, Okie family. Armando
Durán is a hotel clerk, Abelardo, who is fighting to overcome anti-Okie
prejudices his dead father (Fidel Gomez) still constantly pumps into his head. Cedric Lamar is James, another long-time
friend of Martín, and an African-American who brings a New Age respect for
Mother Earth that he is prone to express with the rise-and-fall rhythm and
passion of an evangelical preacher.
James finds a seat in Caesar as a future Oklahoman as also does a
gun-toting, quick-fingered farmhand named Curtis (Fidel Gomez), whose Choctaw
heritage becomes an unlikely ticket to join the traveling band.
Together, this assortment of vagabonds becomes the America
of today and especially of tomorrow that William could never have imagined
possible when he first meets his Mexican-American, sole-surviving relative,
Martín Jodes. Octavio Solis gives to the
world a vision of the earth-honoring, people-respecting, and solidly-united
future that makes his Mother Road the
timely and worthy successor to John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath with its vivid portrayal of class-rooted divisions
that still exist in our current politically polarized world. Following this impressively directed, beautifully
produced, and especially stellar-performed world premiere, may Mother Road now have long, theatrical
legs, making its own journey across the stages of America and bringing its
positive, powerful vision that must be more than just a pipe dream in a play’s
script.
Rating: 5 E
Mother Road
continues through October 26, 2019 in
the Agnus Bowner Theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Tickets are
available at www.osfashland.org.
Photos
by Jenny Graham
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