Review: Littleboy/Littleman Looks at the Immigrant Experience of Two Brothers

The world premiere of Littleboy/Littleman at the Geffen Playhouse deals heroically with identity and immigrant safety. Led by Alex Hernandez and Marlon Alexander Vargas, the riveting new drama by Rudi Goblen is funny, heartbreaking, and timely.

Bastian (Hernandez) struggles to keep his head above water in a US city while also tracking the comings and goings of his younger brother Fíto (Vargas). Fíto, a street performer, acknowledges how his art fuels his life, but Bastian sees his brother as aimless. The two argue about finances, family history, and responsibility of heritage while the climate of modern xenophobia suffocates them both.

The play evokes an earthy, lived-in chemistry of two people bound together by blood  who dance to their own beats. Bastian’s speech is measured while Fíto’s is staccato, to match his excitable energy. Goblen’s dialogue blends street poetry and neo soul to form a tapestry of second chances, dead ends, and inevitabilities.

The audience gets a glimpse of Fíto’s poetry, and his talent is palpable, but the brothers’ relationship never quite comes into focus. Bastian’s life in Nicaragua is touched upon and weighs on his shoulders, but the story might have been deepened by focusing more on the tragedy that polluted Bastian’s childhood.

Hernandez is full of sorrow as the brother trying to bury his past even though his present is straining. Hernandez shows us Bastian’s frustration as he performs his telemarketer day job. Using a bland, anglicized voice, he allows customers and their hate to suck him dry, and he battles composure over vehemence, with Hernandez really showing us Bastian’s blood boiling. Vargas is all energy, a bursting balloon of exhilaration and promise. When he performs Fíto’s poetry, which includes audience participation, he’s dazzlingly confident and provocative.

Director Nancy Medina leaves the stage mostly bare, with only a couch that comes and goes, so that the audience can focus on the brothers. The music (featuring Dee Simone on drums and Tonya Sweets on bass guitar) offers kinetic energy, but the sound design is deafening. Earplugs are offered upon entering, but that proves to be cumbersome and unnerving when they have to be taken out to hear dialogue. The music would have had just as much impact at a lower volume.

Still, Littleboy/Littleman is a rewarding continuation of the Geffen Playhouse’s season about families in crisis, and it sheds further light on the precarious lives of immigrants in current America—a melting pot that has tipped over and is burning those who came here for protection.