Miss You Like Hell – Public Theater, New York

Gizel Jiménez and Daphne Rubin-Vega in Miss You Like Hell at the The Public Theater, New York. Picture: Joan Marcus

Miss You Like Hell continues at The Public Theater, New York, until 13 May 2018.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The cloud of deportation hanging over immigrants is a topic of great import in the United States right now, and it gives Miss You Like Hell an of-the-moment currency. But the wonderful thing about this Off-Broadway musical is that it makes its point without political ranting or overblown dramatics.

The show features a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes, who also co-wrote the lyrics. She has the distinction of being the first Latina to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was awarded for her play Water by the Spoonful, which dealt with the struggles of an Iraq War veteran to find meaning upon his return home to his recovering-addict mother. Hudes also claimed a Tony Award nomination for her book for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. As such credits indicate, Hudes is a writer of seriousness with a penchant for fun as well.

In Miss You Like Hell, Hudes unfolds a sympathetic story in affecting human terms, and with the help of a catchy and smartly varied score, she enfolds you ever-so-gently in the harsh predicament of its leading characters. The music is by Erin McKeown, who also co-wrote the lyrics.

Taking place in 2014, the script avoids any mention of the uproar caused by the immigration policies of the current inhabitant of the White House, but its argument against the frequent cruelty of immigration rulings is crystal clear. It also is a poignant examination of the sometimes tangled web of mother-daughter relationships, and a demonstration of how the large political forces at work in the world can affect the most intimate of relations.

The story concerns Beatriz, a free-spirited Mexican woman who has long lived in the United States. She has not seen her teenage daughter, Olivia, who lives with her father, for years, but now she has turned up on her daughter’s doorstep in Philadelphia proposing to reconnect on a cross-continent trip in her truck to her home in California.

Olivia is an obsessive-book-reading loner, reaching out to the world through her blog. Beatriz’s proposal, she claims, is based on concern for her daughter’s recent blog threatening suicide.

Olivia’s feelings for her mother are deep and complex. Recalling the close times she spent with Beatriz years before, Olivia sings early in the show: “She’s my negative space/She’s my hole in the world… But I remember Saturday/Her weekend visit/The way she’d scoop me up in her arms…”

And Olivia does hop into Beatriz’s truck, and off they go on a picaresque journey, meeting a variety of characters and coming up against a variety of experiences across the breadth of America. And binding again with each other.

However, Beatriz has another reason for the journey. As an undocumented immigrant, she is facing a deportation hearing, and she hopes that the presence of Olivia will help her cause. It’s a threat that informs much of the journey. There’s a brush with the highway police, and Beatriz is briefly arrested for her lack of a driver’s license. There’s a stop in South Dakota, where Beatriz tries unsuccessfully to have removed from her record an arrest for marijuana smoking years before. There they meet Manuel, who comes from Peru and now is a widowed vendor of tamales in the courthouse. He also has a valid driver’s license and joins them on their journey.

They also meet up with an elderly gay male couple and help them with their goal of having a marriage ceremony in each of the states. They make a short stop in Yellowstone National Park, lured there by Pearl, a passionate reader of Olivia’s blog. Pearl’s song describing the wonders of Yellowstone in a lilting semi-blues style is one of the musical highlights.

The travellers do make it eventually to California and a poignant heart-rending outcome, mitigated, however, by the full blooming of Olivia’s and Beatriz’s love for one another.

Directed by Lear deBessonet, the script comes to life in imaginative but unforced story theater style on the bright, open set designed by Riccardo Hernandez. Stools, set side by side, suggest the truck in which Beatriz and Olivia are traveling. The various supporting players emerge from the ensemble situated upstage throughout much of the show along with the six musicians, and often provide vocal backup to the plentiful musical numbers. They also take stage to join in Danny Mefford’s pleasantly unpretentious group choreography.

The proceedings are ignited by the two deeply drawn lead performances, Daphne Rubin-Vega as Beatriz and Gizel Jiménez as Olivia. Rubin-Vega’s Latina spitfire demeanour immediately wins you over, but it’s the soul she gradually reveals that keeps you in her thrall. Jiménez brings to Olivia an equal amount of soul along with an arresting combination of teen rambunctiousness and vulnerability.

Among the folks they encounter, David Patrick Kelly and Michael Mulheren bring vintage virility and a dose of sweetness to the gay marrying couple. Their love song duet ‘My Bell’s Been Rung’ bubbles with 1940s pop nostalgia.

Latoya Edwards is a spunky and engaging Pearl, and Danny Bolero scores as Manuel with his rhythmic number ‘Tamales’, recalling how he and his late wife joined together to make the dish. Completing the cast are Miranda Anderson as Beatriz’s helpful lawyer, Andrew Cristi as a motel clerk, Shawna M. Hamic as an officious legal clerk and Marcus Paul James as the highway cop.

While it has some fierce moments, Miss You Like Hell, for the most part, provides a happy alternative to the high-decibel clamor that pervades a lot of Broadway these days. It also tells a crucial story with immense quantities of heart.

Ron Cohen