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<\/a>Hudes\u2019s play \u201cElliot: a Soldier\u2019s Fugue\u201d was produced in its West Coast premiere by ion theatre company in 2010, and Hudes wrote the book for the Tony Award-winning musical \u201cIn the Heights,\u201d seen here at San Diego Repertory Theatre, and earlier in its Broadway tour when it was presented by Broadway San Diego at the Civic Theatre.<\/p>\n
Currently, Hudes\u2019s 2012 Pulitzer-winning play, \u201cWater by the Spoonful,\u201d may be seen until May 11 at the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, produced by The Old Globe. \u201cWater by the Spoonful\u201d is the middle part of the playwright\u2019s trilogy concerning Elliot Ortiz, a veteran of the Iraq war and member of a family with origins in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
Elliot\u2019s adoptive mother, Ginny, a nurse during in the Vietnam War, was introduced in \u201cElliot,\u201d along with Elliot\u2019s father, a veteran of that war, and Elliot\u2019s grandfather, who fought in the Korean War.<\/p>\n When \u201cWater by the Spoonful\u201d begins, the unseen Ginny is dying. The play is set in 2009, six years after Elliot\u2019s original deployment. He still suffers from a serious leg wound and possibly from PTSD and addiction to painkillers. Unable to get on with his life, he works making sandwiches at Subway, lives with Ginny and hangs out with his cousin Yazmin (Sarah Nina Hayon), an intelligent, high-powered academic and composer.<\/p>\n A separate plot line threads its way among Elliot and Yazmin\u2019s scenes. Elliot\u2019s birth mother Odessa Ortiz (Marilyn Torres), who uses the screen name Haikumom, runs an online support group for other cocaine addicts in various stages of recovery. Their sobriety ranges from one day to many days. All are hanging in, dependent upon one another\u2019s cyberspace presence. Among them are Fountainhead (Robert Eli), a businessman on the downward spiral to losing his company and his family, and Orangutan (Ruibo Qian), a Japanese immigrant who is sweet on Chutes&Ladders (Keith Randolph Smith). With the possible exception of Haikumom, none of them has met the others face to face.<\/p>\n When Fountainhead receives unkind criticism from Chutes&Ladders, for instance, Haikumom meets Fountainhead face to face, armed with brochures from a number of recovery facilities, trying to convince him he needs treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cOur family may have been fucked up but at least we had someplace to go,\u201d Elliot says. He does not approve of Odessa\u2019s online home and her family of addicts. When it comes time to pay for Ginny\u2019s cremation and flowers for the memorial service, Elliot berates Odessa unmercifully for her lack of ability to contribute monetarily.<\/p>\n M. Keala Milles, Jr. plays several roles, most chilling of which is the ghost of Elliot\u2019s first kill in Iraq. In fact, everyone in Hudes\u2019s play is haunted in some way. We discover the ways they have betrayed themselves and others as they expose their pain and human need for love and connection.<\/p>\n Initially, the play requires much of us, but once we\u2019re hip to its jazz-inflected rhythms and riffs, its complexity is a joyous challenge. Directed by Edward Torres, the Globe\u2019s acting company is magnificent; each character has a backstory fathoms deep. We already know Elliot\u2019s. Even the wisest and proudest among them falls from grace and because of the respect accorded them by the playwright, we identify with their failures, struggles and triumphs. And lest you think oh, how bleak, we laugh a lot too. These people are treasures.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>