Review: Gloucester Stage Company and Teatro Chelsea Join Forces for Fine Co-production of THE HOMBRES

It is not uncommon to live or work near people we never seek out or even speak to. This happens, of course, for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that we can’t or don’t want to imagine that we have anything in common with them. Unlikely friendships, though, can be some of the most satisfying.

Award-winning playwright Tony Meneses explores that premise in “The Hombres,” his New Jersey-set play about the convergence of five disparate men – three construction workers on scaffolding and an instructor and client at an adjacent yoga studio – now being given an impressive regional premiere at Gloucester Stage in a National Hispanic Heritage Month co-production with Teatro Chelsea that will run through September 22 in Gloucester, with the final weekend of performances being presented at Chelsea Theatre Works, September 27-29.

The baked-in machismo of the construction crew begins to melt when the needs of their lives draw them to the yoga studio, where Meneses’ insightful writing sets up a funny, sometimes fraught journey of self-discovery. At first, Héctor (Arthur Gomez), Beto (Jaime José “JJ” Hernández) and Pedro (Luis Negrón) seem only to notice the physical appeal of the women at the studio. Before long, however, they also see the positive impact yoga has on the students.

Héctor, a multi-layered laborer who is estranged from his wife for possible spousal abuse, makes an after-hours visit to the yoga studio in search of both inner peace and fitness. It is there that he encounters Julián, the studio’s openly gay instructor and an aspiring dancer played with confidence and sensitivity by Ricardo “Ricky” Holguin.

Directed with affecting naturalism by Armando Rivera, co-artistic director of Teatro Chelsea, Gomez and Holguin do wonderful scene work together as very different men whose openness with each other about their insecurities leads to mutual respect.

Julián also has another unexpected relationship, this one with Miles (a murky Patrick O’Konis), a non-Hispanic yoga student with eyes for his instructor and a wife and baby at home. Not surprisingly, Julián and Miles struggle with their shared attraction. This subplot is weakened because the writing, acting, and costuming of the Miles character never fully gel.

Also struggling is young hot-head construction worker Beto, played with seething edginess by Hernández, whose scrappy instincts complicate things for everyone in his path. As the even-keeled Pedro, Negrón provides the story with balance and warmth.

Kristin Loeffler’s effective scenic design consists of multi-level scaffolding and a well-appointed yoga studio, both shown off to full advantage by John Holmes’s mood-setting lighting design and accented by Carolyn Ferris’s realistic array of props. Chelsea Kerl’s costume design is mostly spot-on, except for some of Miles’s outfits which aren’t especially well-suited to his straight or perhaps bisexual character.

Photo caption: Arthur Gomez and Ricardo Holguin in a scene from Gloucester Stage and Teatro Chelsea’s co-production of “The Hombres.” Photo by Jason Grow.

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