Theater review by Tim Teeman
At the very start of Public Charge, a 6-year-old Julissa Reynoso tries to leave her native Dominican Republic in 1981 to join her mother in the Bronx. But a consular officer has other ideas: The Public Charge Proviso, he points out, stipulates that the sponsor of a person coming to the U.S. must possess “sufficient financial resources” that her mother does not possess. This key moment from Reynoso’s life—a collision between emotion and bureaucracy—implies a promising theme for Public Charge, Reynoso’s autobiographical drama (co-written with Michael J. Chepiga) about a political crisis that she had to solve as a senior diplomat in the Obama Administration. But the play seems to misrecognize the potential of its own opening scene. It tables the emotion to focus on the bureaucracy.
Public Charge | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus
The play’s main story begins in 2009, when Reynoso—now a Harvard-educated lawyer, and played with brisk charm by Zabryna Guevara—begins working in Hilary Clinton’s State Department. It goes on to depict what Reynoso may see as the crowning achievement of her five-year stint at State: the complex negotiations that led to the release from a Cuban prison of an American aid worker named Alan Gross. (The Cubans wanted America to release prisoners in return.) It’s a hostage crisis of sorts, but without the tension and high stakes that term implies; the tone is dry and administrative.
Public Charge | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus
That may be the grinding reality of diplomacy, but it drains the highly accomplished Reynoso—and characters like Cheryl Miller (Marinda Anderson), Clinton’s Chief of Staff, and Ricardo Zuniga (Dan Domingues), a nemesis turned trusted colleague—of dramatic life. There are endless meetings and conversations, but scant depth in the fleshing out of relationships and personalities, and little visual interest; director Doug Hughes stages the play on a series of unfurnished platforms (designed by Arnulfo Maldonado), with projections that include sections of immigration documentation. Deirdre Madigan provides welcome emotional crackle as Gross’s wife, and there’s a wittily written revelation of conjugal prison visits and trafficked sperm samples. Mostly, though, Public Charge feels like a tease of juicy subject matter kept firmly obscured—the work of a public official constrained by habitual discretion. There is something to be said for a play that argues for the value of government service, but good theater is not always diplomatic.
Public Charge. Public Theater (Off Broadway). By Julissa Reynoso and Michael J. Chepiga. Directed by Doug Hughes. With Zabryna Guevara, Marinda Anderson, Dan Domingues, Deirdre Madigan, Maggie Bofill, John J. Concado, Armando Riesco, Al Rodrigo, Nate Betancourt, Yesenia Iglesias, Paco Lozano, Nairoby Otero. Running time: 1hr 40 mins. No intermission.
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Public Charge | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus
