Photo Courtesy of San Diego Jewish World
By Anahy J. Gutierrez
“How is everyone doing tonight? Oh come on, what the fuck was that? How is everyone doing tonight?” An obliging audience at the Onstage Playhouse wooed and whistled while others laughed at the course welcome from Chula Vista playwright Salomon Maya.
“MUGRE” (dirt) was profane, uncomfortably vulgar and occasionally funny. What was supposed to be humorous vulgarity came mostly from Pato, a young Mexican who worked at Los Mojados Car Wash in San Ysidro, along with his friends Pancho and Jerry. The play was about four individuals working together at a local carwash. It was as aimless as it sounds.
The set was the most believable aspect of the play. Los Mojados Carwash was portrayed with two screens on opposite ends showing the cars the characters were “washing.” Meanwhile, the carwash itself was made up of long blue pieces of paper that mimicked the miter curtains typical at a carwash. Dirty buckets, used rags and overused brooms provided ambiance, if that is the right word for a dirty workplace. A matte black floor of the set imitated the cold concrete of a low-grade carwash.
Pancho was like a father to Pato, so much so that he even taught Pato how to “ay ay ay” with a woman as Pancho said while demonstrating with a hip-thrusting gesture. Jokes like these, if you could even refer to them as such, along with their cliche personalities, made the characters insufferable.
Jerry became the ugly stereotype he told the others not to be. As he stole an item from a customer’s car he said, “yo no voy a la luna,” (I am not going to the moon). He was referencing his own story about the first Hispanic woman to go to the moon. Though it was clever it was even more cringeworthy.
Isabella, a young woman from Mexico City who turns out to be Pancho’s daughter, joined the Los Mojados crew after arriving in the U.S. This character was expected to introduce equality into the male-dominated workplace, but that did not happen. Machismo won again. Isabella was useful to the crew only because her hands were small enough to fix a mechanical issue inside the car wash. Sexism won again. Women like Isabella must succeed in a male-dominated environment to prove their worth and earn validation from men. Sublimation won again.
“MUGRE” missed its target on its hypothetical message that men and women are family. It showed the exact opposite. Pato made a sexual comment about Isabella’s breasts behind her back. Does a man who objectifies a woman deserve to call her family? Would a woman who knows how vulgar and perverted a man is even want to consider him family?
No amount of soap, even from the “best car wash in San Ysidro,” could clean Pato’s dirty and disrespectful mind. Sexualization is not humor, it is harassment.
Normalization of hostile behavior did not stop there. It was revealed that Pancho had failed Isabella as a father. Pancho’s absence in Isabella’s life caused her to seek revenge. She put a gun to his head, repainting Isabella from victim to villain. Pancho was racked with guilt and ready to allow his daughter to take his life.
Isabella decided not to pull the trigger because she realized it would be unfair to take a father figure from Jerry and Pato, once again denying her justice. Maya’s twisted reasoning is that the villain father is a hero for not resisting his daughter’s urge to kill him, which makes the victimized daughter the bad person.
Isabella rambled through her explanation for sparing her father and the four characters muttered short and inaudible dialogue. Then, incongruously, Isabella smiled and told the men to get back to work. They smiled and resumed washing cars, wiping away the inconvenient fact the Isabella nearly executed her father. A lazy ending to a lazy script. No lessons learned.
When the playwright said, “enjoy MUGRE,” (dirt) he meant it literally.
