Review: SpeakEasy Stage Company Serves Up Well-done LAUGHS IN SPANISH

SpeakEasy Stage Company is opening its 34th season, the final for artistic director Paul Daigneault, with a fresh, lively, and funny production of “Laughs in Spanish” that has something for everyone.

It’s a telenovela-style art heist, a romantic comedy, and also a touching look at family dynamics and how we identify ourselves. Written by the award-winning Miami-born, Boston-based playwright Alexis Scheer (“Our Dear Drug Lord,” the book for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Bad Cinderella”), the play will be at the Roberts Studio Theatre, Stanford Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, through October 12.

Under the marvelously fluid direction of Cuban-born, Miami-reared Mariela López-Ponce, co-producing artistic director of Teatro Chelsea, the one-act production’s pacing is near perfect as is its five-member company of actors.

Set in Miami on the eve of Art Basel, gallery owner Mariana (Rebekah Rae Robles) is about to open a show of potentially career-changing significance. Before that can happen, however, all the paintings by her featured artist are stolen. And as if that weren’t enough, her movie-star mother Estella (Paola Ferrer) suddenly arrives on the scene with her own initially unclear agenda.

In the hands of the gifted Robles, Mari is both fierce and insecure as she bats back against her often-absent mother’s relentless self-focus in scenes which find Robles and Ferrer figuratively taking to their character’s respective corners, and then fighting their way back toward each other. Ferrer exudes a magnetic appeal that’s hard to resist, even when the nicks in Estella’s ego-fueled armor are visible.

At the same time, Mari must keep her ambitious gallery assistant Carolina (Luz Lopez) in check – not easy to do when it comes to the young aspiring artist whose boyfriend Juan (Daniel Rios, Jr.) is not only the police officer investigating the art theft, but also Caro’s biggest supporter. Lopez and Rios are perfectly paired as youthful romantics who see the future as theirs if they can just grab it.

Mari is also spun around by the presence of her long-ago girlfriend Jenny (Brogan Nelson). Nelson’s understated Jenny clearly still longs for Mari, pondering what once was between them and what there could be now. Nelson is also a hoot when Jenny hits the dance floor. Indeed, like any truly talented actor, Nelson makes full use of her every onstage moment.

Scenic designer Erik D. Diaz’s set captures the upscale aesthetic of Miami’s art scene and is enhanced by Amanda Fallon’s lighting, especially when the action moves to a palm tree-encircled lanai. The set design also benefits from Emilia Amador’s props which range from bakery boxes and barware to decorative bric-a-brac.

Rebecca Glick’s chic dresses and gowns and summer suits help delineate the characters and are wonderful to look at in the dance interludes – to the faint sounds of salsa and dance music provided by Anna Drummond – and throughout.

Photo caption: Luz Lopez, Daniel Rios, Jr., Brogan Nelson, Rebekah Rae Robles, and Paola Ferrer in a scene from “Laughs in Spanish.” Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

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