'The Other Americans' Off-Broadway review — John Leguizamo tackles the family drama through a Latin American lens
Read our review of The Other Americans off Broadway, a New York-premiere play written by and starring Emmy Award winner John Leguizamo at The Public Theater.
Somewhere down the line, every marginalized social group with fantasies of the American dream gets its own riff on Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. There’s streaks of it in plays like August Wilson’s Fences and Jeremy Tiang’s semi-fictionalized depiction of Miller directing the show in Beijing in Salesman之死. John Leguizamo’s new play The Other Americans appears to want to join that lineage: It depicts the not-quite-idyllic life of an average American family whose way of living is built on illusions about to shatter. Leguizamo brings the perspective of Latin Americans, ever striving on the outside, looking in at white coworkers failing upwards.
If only Leguizamo, who also plays Colombian American Nelson Castro — a deal-making, debt-ridden laundromat owner and father whose dreams of success are always just out of reach — could have wrought more insight and drama from The Other Americans. He asks for a loan from his business-minded sister Norma (Rosa Evangelina Arredondo), quells his wife Patti’s (Luna Lauren Velez) restlessness at their move from Jackson Heights to Forest Hills, and grapples with his daughter Toni (Rebecca Jimenez) soon leaving the nest with her basic fiancé Eddie (Bradley James Tejeda). As all this is happening, Nelson's son Nick (Trey Santiago-Hudson, son of director Ruben Santiago-Hudson) is about to return home after a stint in a mental hospital. Nick’s arrival forces the family to confront uncomfortable truths about both the nature of their aspirations and what they did in order to achieve them.
Despite the attempt at specificity — nods to Jackson Heights’s gentrification, a bilingual script, and a family dynamic detailed by favorite dinner recipes and classic Denroy Morgan tracks — The Other Americans has a staleness about it. The show disappointingly fails to convey the urgency it wants to, particularly in a cultural landscape where conversations about who counts as American are as potent as ever. Its alarming relevance does not compensate for a lack of momentum in the show and an often by-the-numbers script: No one knows how to communicate, characters are ticking time bombs, and dark bargains are made.
Perhaps the problem is that The Other Americans is too archetypical, its characters too flat and easily pathologized, to feel fully fresh and alive. For all the talk of Nelson wanting to get out of Jackson Heights and Patti wanting to raise her kids among a “better set of people” despite her neighbors' subtle racism, there’s a strange vapidity to the Castros. Their desires, psychologies, and even traumas are two-dimensional, with none of the characters' emotions or actions being particularly surprising. Though Leguizamo is admirable on stage, The Other Americans too often feels more like a thought experiment than a fully distinct riff on "the lie of the American dream" play.
The Other Americans summary
While Colombian American Nelson Castro tries to save his crumbling laundromat business in Queens, his family gathers to greet their son, who has recently returned from a mental hospital after an emotional breakdown triggered by a racist attack in high school. His arrival unravels the Castro family’s illusions about what it means to be American and the choices they've made in pursuit of success.
What to expect at The Other Americans
The amount of set that scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado has squeezed into the Public’s Anspacher Theater (which seats audiences on three sides of the stage) is nothing if not extremely impressive: a kitchen, living room, steel-barred windows that rise and fall on wires, and a backyard with a grill and a pool are all constructed in the modest space. The actors move with relative ease, but at the same time, there’s a nagging feeling that they could use a bit more room to more naturally express themselves.
What audiences are saying about The Other Americans
As of writing, The Other Americans has an 84% audience approval rating on Show-Score, compiled from 15 mostly mixed-to-positive reviews from theatregoers about Leguizamo's writing and the cast's performances.
- “Leguizamo's The Other Americans is the best new play I have seen in this decade. A gifted and deeply thoughtful writer in addition to his prodigious acting and comedic talents, Leguizamo builds on previous works like Latin History for Morons to give us a play that fires on all cylinders." - Show-Score user Todd Davies
- “A respectable but only partially-successful attempt at "the great American family play", adapting the devastating and punishing price of pursuing the American Dream at all cost, told from the perspective of Colombian-Americans. The main problem here is that while Leguizamo is a talented and charismatic actor, as a playwright, he’s no Miller, O'Neill, Odets, or Wilson. The play feels at times too contrived and the mechanics of the plot are sometimes too visibly on display.” - Show-Score user GreatAvi
- “Strong production. The writing is heavy with quite a lot going on. Well acted. Very strong set. The blocking with the audience on the three sides makes it hard to hear depending which way the actors are pointing. Definitely a lot to digest -- maybe too much.” - Show-Score user chris_
Read more audience reviews of The Other Americans on Show-Score.
Who should see The Other Americans
- Fans of Leguizamo’s other stage work, like Latin History for Morons, will want to experience his continued evolution as a stage writer and performer.
- Rosa Evangelina Arredondo gives an excellent performance as Norma, and those who are fans of her work on television shows like Roswell, NM, and So Help Me Todd should seek her out.
- Those interested in plays about the American dream should check out the newest entry into the long lineage.
Learn more about The Other Americans off Broadway
John Leguizamo is undoubtedly an impressive multihyphenate as actor, comedian, and playwright, but his take on the illusory nature of the American dream in The Other Americans fails to meet the opportunity to jolt audiences awake.
Photo credit: The Other Americans off Broadway. (Photos by Joan Marcus)
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