Rubén C. González is old. He’s young. He’s a man, a woman. Hopeless and optimistic. A cop, a criminal.
González is all those and more in his solo show, “La Esquinita, USA,” opening in previews Saturday, Jan. 14 at Arizona Theatre Company.
“La Esquinita” — it means “little corner” — is about 11 people living in once-thriving town that collapsed after the factory that had lured them there with jobs closed. Lencho, the narrator, has watched as the dreams of the townspeople were destroyed by an economy that afforded them no breaks, and by a soulless business that saw bigger bottom lines with a move to China.
The play premiered in 2010, but González had started writing it years before that, inspired by a class of troubled high schoolers he taught in L.A.
“I first started to write it in 2007, right before the housing bubble burst,” he says in a phone interview from San Antonio, where he, his wife and children recently moved.
“You could feel this change happening and then, post-pop, people were losing their homes. So what I was writing was reinvigorated.”
And it seems as though little has changed since then, says González.
“We are still suffering from the lack of jobs. … The jobs in the big factories are gone and they aren’t coming back.”
That kind of environment breeds crime, resentment, despair.
“In this play, it’s about how it affects a community,” he says.
Through Lencho we meet such characters as Daniel, the 19-year-old meth addict at the center of the story; a Vietnam vet who lost his legs in the war; an elderly palsied woman who has known sorrow but chooses joy; a couple of policemen, and a young black man trying to outrun them.
Directed by Kinan Valdez, “La Esquinita” premiered at a small L.A. theater in 2010. Then it opened in Oakland, California. It has since traveled across the country and back again.
While all the characters are black or Latino, González has found that it speaks to audiences of all colors. “I did it in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and the audience was all white,” he recalls. “They stuck around for the questions and answers. An older woman came up to me and said, ‘You blew our minds — in a very good way.’”
He has found that the play resonates for all age groups, as well.
“It’s a very universal piece, and it speaks with a voice that youth don’t generally get to see. And when parents see it, they go ‘oh, that’s what my kid’s going through.’”
Ultimately, he said, that’s what theater, and this play can do: help us realize what it takes “to understand somebody else for you to become a better human being.”
The poetic writing, combined with González’s acting chops — he’s been in movies, trained at the London Academy of the Arts, and in plays across the country — has won high praise for the production.
This, from the Des Moines Register, is typical:
“González fully inhabited his characters, at once frantic, touching and achingly familiar in a narrative of corporate heartlessness, marginal lives, and eventual redemption.”
If you go
What: Arizona Theatre Company's "La Esquinita."
Playwright and performed by: Rubén C. González.
When: Previews are 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14; 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday Jan. 17 through Thursday, Jan. 19. Opening is 7:30 p.m. Jan. 29. continues through Feb. 4.
Where: Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.
Tickets: $30-$75.
Reservations/information: 622-2823 or arizonatheatre.org
Running time: About 75 minutes, with no intermission.
