Interview: David Mendizábal Talks Directing DON'T EAT THE MANGOS at The Huntington

In playwright Ricardo Pérez González’s comedy-drama “Don’t Eat the Mangos,” three Puerto Rican sisters are living outside San Juan as a hurricane approaches and family tumult causes secrets and ugly truths to spill out.

By Zoom recently, David Mendizábal – who directed The Sundance Institute-developed play’s world premiere production at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre, where Loretta Greco was then artistic director, in 2020 and is now helming a new production of the work at the Huntington through April 27 at the Huntington's Wimberly Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA – recalled how a storm of a very different type forced the early closing of that first production, and what it means now to be part of a team that’s giving the play new life in Boston.

“When we opened, we kept hearing murmurings that because of the pandemic, San Francisco would soon be declaring a state of emergency and shutting everything down,” explained Mendizábal. “We were like a boat out in the water. We were so focused on making a play that we were oblivious to what was going on around us. In some ways, we were just like the play. We got some really wonderful reviews, and Ricardo won the Will Glickman Award, given in the Bay area, for Best New Play. That all happened and then in no time, we had to close down.”

As a public health emergency, Covid took an enormous toll on human lives. According to Mendizábal, it also had a dramatic impact on theater and the arts.

As well as that first production of ‘Don’t Eat the Mangos’ did, it played so briefly that it felt like it was one of the plays that would get lost in that time,” says the director. It didn’t get much focus, because nothing in the arts got much focus in that period, especially plays. When theater started to come back, we sent it around to several companies. But even though only a couple of years had passed, I think the idea around it was ‘Oh, it’s an old play.’”

A lot may have happened in two years, but the play hadn’t actually aged, instead remaining relevant to many, including Greco, who became artistic director at the Huntington in 2022.

“Both Ricardo and I continued the relationship that we developed with Loretta when she was artistic director at Magic. And when she came to the Huntington, she kept talking to us about the play, which, as she put it was ‘just too good’ to be forgotten. Finally, she said, ‘Let’s do it.’ This has been a great experience so far, too, because Loretta is one of my favorite producers to work with. She’s such a champion of new voices.

“And she has the best laugh. There’s a lot of humor in this play – even though it’s a tragedy of sorts, it’s also very funny, so when Loretta comes to watch a run-through and I hear her laughing out loud, I know that I’m doing my job and we have her support.”

For Mendizábal – director, Costume Designer, Associate Artistic Director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre, a Producing Artistic Leader of the Obie award-winning Movement Theatre Company, and founding collective member of the Obie award-winning Sol Project – Greco’s call to action marks only his second time directing the play, which was co-produced locally in 2022 by Apollinaire Theatre Company and Teatro Chelsea.

“I heard that the Chelsea production was beautiful, but I wasn’t able to see it. Ricardo was going to go see it, but they had to cancel the performance and he ended up not seeing it either,” says the Boston-born, first-generation Puerto Rican/Ecuadoran. “Our hope is that this Huntington production will get the attention it deserves because it is such a beautiful play and it has roles for a community of artists that often get overlooked.”

“As Ricardo has said, ‘This is a deeply personal story. It's my story and my family's story, too. It's an allegory for the story of my people. And it speaks to the story of our moment that uses humor and grist to offer a look at what healing could look like. It's not pretty, it's not easy, but at its heart, this is the story of a family trying to heal itself,’” points out Mendizábal who first crossed paths with the playwright when they were both students at NYU.

The director agrees with his longtime friend and collaborator about the play’s message, conveyed through three adult sisters whose father has had a stroke and whose mother is battling cancer. The three sisters have assumed familiar roles, with the resentments that accompany them. The eldest sister, Ismelda, bears most of the hands-on responsibility for her parents’ care, while middle sister Yinoelle is married with two children and contemplating leaving Puerto Rico in search of a better life for her family. And the youngest, Wicha, has perhaps the easiest life because of what her sisters have endured before her.

“I think this is a piece that resonates incredibly deeply with the Latina community, and beyond that community, too, if the audiences who’ve come to see it are any indication. At Magic Theatre, people kept stopping Ricardo to share their thoughts on the play,” says Mendizábal. “People relate to this story because it’s about family and family trauma, but through a lens of healing, and a breaking of the familial curses and familial legacies and cycles. It’s also about what it means to stay true to self, to family, and to one’s homeland.”

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