Theatergoers have an opportunity this weekend to see something that doesn’t happen often on professional stages in St. Louis: an all-Latino cast and director presenting a show about life in a Spanish-speaking community.
Metro Theater Company has been touring the show at area schools — producers recommend it for audience members ages 5 and up — but will give performances that are open to the general public on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the theater’s home base in Grand Center.
“Carmela, Full of Wishes” is a one-act play by Alvaro Saar Rios, based on a children’s book by Matt de la Peña with illustrations by Christian Robinson.
It depicts a day in the life of a young girl who walks around her neighborhood with her big brother, interacting with neighbors and shopkeepers and planning out her birthday wishes. Carmela’s biggest wish is for a phone call from her father, a onetime immigrant to the U.S. who isn’t allowed back until he, in Carmela’s phrase, “fixes his papers.”
St. Louis Public Radio’s Jeremy D. Goodwin spoke about the show with the production’s director, Adam Flores; Fabi Cabrera, who plays Carmela; and Alex Tash, who portrays her big brother. Carmen Garcia and Daniela Rodriguez round out the cast.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Jeremy D. Goodwin: Is there anything about the show or your characters that you relate to in a particularly personal way?
Alex Tash: Two days before we started rehearsal, my own father passed away. And then this script has the idea that there's this father figure that isn't there. Carmela says at one point that our Papi’s smell isn’t in the house anymore. That has definitely affected my performance.
Fabi Cabrera: I really connect with it. I don’t have any extended family here. Most of my family is in Puerto Rico. I think missing people is a really big, universal experience for people who don’t live in the original place where they were born.
Adam Flores: The Latine diaspora is like living in a space of missing people and not having people connected. At the same time, we're understanding that community is where we find those other people, that it's not just about the people that we are related to by blood, but the people that we're related to by culture, by values, by care, by compassion. And so this play really foregrounds the fact that even though Carmella is missing her Papi, there's all these other people in her life that are showing up.
Goodwin: What’s special about performing this show right now?
Flores: We're really excited to be telling this story in this moment, to have all Latine cast going around and engaging with young people — engaging with Latine students, engaging with students of all different backgrounds.
To get to see representation of themselves is so important. Especially to get to see representation that isn't wholly based in our trauma, that is also really based in our joy and our community. Yes, we want to admit that there are difficulties within our population as it relates to immigration, and that is becoming more and more fraught. But at our core, we want to show young people that there's joy, that there's community, that there is family still there.
Goodwin: The play is mostly in English, but as Carmela walks around her neighborhood doing errands with her brother and planning out her birthday wishes, the characters use some Spanish. How have audiences responded?
Tash: The first school we went to had a lot of Spanish-speaking kids that were really excited to just hear Spanish in the play. That was something I just didn't even think about, because I think all kids will like it and relate to it. But especially if you are from a community that is a Spanish-speaking community, and hearing all this stuff that you might hear in your everyday life, seeing it on stage might be something new and really exciting.
Cabrera: I really love the way that Matt de la Peña approached it. She's talking about paletas, and most kids will be like, “Oh, a popsicle.” Paleta, popsicle. Boom. They just learned a new word without it turning into this very teachy, “Dora the Explorer” kind of moment.
Flores: It also uses Spanish music in an interesting way. They sing different songs, like Spanish birthday songs and stuff like that. When we were at the first school, we clearly had some young Spanish speakers in the audience who recognized the songs and recognized the music. And so that's also really exciting when someone gets to hear, you know, the song that's “Happy Birthday” in their family being sung.
Goodwin: What can a show like this do for young audiences?
Tash: I think part of what Metro Theater Company really wants to do through all their work is to have the audience build empathy through watching these plays. So I think that if you aren't in that community, seeing people in that community helps build empathy in a new way.
Kids will watch it and see there is an opportunity for them in theater. It was a whole opportunity I didn’t even realize existed, not only to be an actor but to be an actor telling Latino stories.
Cabrera: I truly believe that I'm just planting a little seed in the back of their heads. Like there’s this first grader, and they grow up and they'll face something similar to what Carmela does. And maybe they won’t even remember specifically where it’s coming from, but they’ll have something in the back of their head saying, “I'm going to open up my heart to this person.” That's my main goal and objective when I'm doing this show, that I'm planting a little empathy seed in the back of a kid's head.
