Coming of Age Play, muy caliente!!!!!
For all of us, the summer between high school and college was filled with lots of conflicting emotions: relief to be finally finished with high school, anticipation about going to college and taking the first step to make our own way in the world, sadness about leaving home, terror and excitement about what is to come. Gerald Alejandro Ford’s solo show, El Ultimo Coconut explores all these themes in the immigrant context, specifically a Mexican family living in Arizonia. Coconut means brown on the outside, white on the inside in the Arizonia Spanish dialect, however my Cuban friend tells me that in Cuban Spanish it means “airhead”.
Like all the best Coming of Age stories, the “hero” is an not a happy well-adjusted teen-ager but is different from the rest of his family and aquaintances . Coco or George lives with his very macho twin brother, Gabriel, his widowed mother, his father’s brother as well as with his computer and video games. His only friends seem to be the online gaming crew and he is torn by the decision about where to go to college. He has been offered a full-ride to Arizonia State University, right around the corner from where his family live, which pleases his mother mucho. But he holds out for MIT despite the financial burdens of having to take out loans and have a part time job. During that summer, he goes through a few growing up experiences, which toughen him up and in the end everybody is reconciled to his going toBoston.
Ford plays all the roles, with just a change of glasses and accents, and well written dialogue which differentiates the characters. The play slips in and out of Spanish with humorous effects. At one point he even plays a Mexican stripper, which is hilarious because he looks very like Michael Moore.
In my opinion, the show got off to a very bad start, with loud unpleasant hip-hop music, and some gross-out jokes of the sexual nature; however, very soon it turned into a rather serious, but very funny piece about coming of age experiences.
El Ultimo Coconut, by Gerald Alejandro Ford, Annex Theatre 1100 Pike, Capitol Hill Seattle, Tues & Wed. 8 pm. PWYC Industry Night August 20. July 31-Aug 22. www.annextheatre.org