Theater Review: The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latiné Vote

Latino Los Angeles10/17/2024

1 minute read

How does a presidential candidate win the Latinx vote? Are these voters a single-issue bloc? And what should they even be called?

The very title of Bernardo Cubría’s The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latiné Vote spells out the complexities of that final question. Author Paola Aguilar (Xochitl Romero) is hired by a political consulting company as a representative of Hispanic/Latino heritage, to explain the political leanings and nuances of what her boss Kaj Lutken (Steven C. Fisher) calls “your people” so they can be mined for their votes.

Wrapped in the cool breezes through Topanga Canyon, the play unspools at Theatricum Botanicum. Paola wanders through the outdoor amphitheater, asking questions and involving the audience in decisions, mostly about an overlapping IVF storyline. Yes, the show, coming on the heels of the Democratic National Convention that combined campaigning and IVF, couldn’t be timelier.

Needing to fund her expensive visits to the sperm bank, 39-year-old Paola reluctantly takes on the handsomely paying consulting gig, even though it means working with people she prefers not to make her friends: Nicola Ramirez (Emily Jerez), Bernard Robinson (Max Lawrence) and Rebecca Feldman (Laura Schein).