Oscar Wao is a nerdy guy and a wannabe writer with a big heart. He’s open to friendship and longing for love. We even get to experience his loss of virginity during his story, which depicts Dominican life in America. The Goodman Theatre’s world premiere play, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is adapted from Junot Diaz’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The stage adaptation is by Marco Antonio Rodriguez. Director Wendy Mateo, artistic director of Teatro Vista, may have struggled a bit with this too-long adaptation that needs some script doctoring.
Oscar is sweetly played with a big vocabulary and an awkward physicality by Humboldt Park native Lenin Izquierdo, along with a majority Dominican cast. Oscar is obsessed with science fiction, fantasy novels and trying to meet women. He wants to be a writer and is constantly scribbling in his notebook. Vividly colored projections, done in comic book style by Stefania Bulbarella, create a visual backdrop for his story.
Oscar, who came to New Jersey with his parents as a child, is now ready for college. But he’s hesitating to leave because his mother Mami Beli (Yohanna Florentino) has cancer and he feels he needs to stay and care for her. But Beli disagrees. “You got full tuition from that school and I already paid for the dorm….” His sister Lola (Julissa Calderon) has already started at Rutgers.
Oscar’s roommate is Yunior (Kelvin Grullon), a more worldwise young man who tries to introduce Oscar to flirting and succeeding in the dating world. Yunior meets Lola and the two become a couple. Meanwhile Oscar meets Jenni (Jalbelly Guzman), a goth girl who reads books; he falls in love with her and they become friends, just friends. Later, visiting Santo Domingo, Oscar meets Ybon (also played by Guzman), a woman who is paid for her services. Oscar falls in love with her too, and they share some tender scenes (including what Oscar admits is his first real kiss, with sound and visuals of fireworks and starbursts). But Ybon’s life is complicated and presents dangers to Oscar.
Act two opens with a lively dance party in Santo Domingo, where the whole cast swirls around the stage to music composed by Satya Chavez.
The Santo Domingo scenes are vibrant and colorful and Oscar finds that he loves his native country, where he stays with his grandmother, La Inca (Rossmery Almonte), who believes in spells, spirits and curses. Sadly, the play’s title foretells its ending.
The female cast members provide a colorful and exuberant backdrop but they can’t cure Oscar’s woes. Florentino and Almonte are terrific as the elders of the family. Calderon is a charming and flirtatious Lola. Grullon is an experienced actor from NYC who performed in an early version of Oscar Wao. He’s a compatriot and contrast to Oscar and an actor who surely has a bright career ahead of him.
Wendy Mateo is a strong director and showed her mettle in Teatro Vista’s 2023 ¡Bernarda!, an adaptation of Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba. But here she’s dealing with a script that’s a half hour too long and could focus more closely on Oscar’s intellect and his dreams. The pacing on opening night was much too slow. The script also includes a lot of Spanish and Dominican language; not all of it is understandable in context. The 30-year dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, an important theme in the novel and a nightmare for Oscar’s elders, is barely referenced here. (Yes, it’s hard to condense a 335-page novel into an almost-three-hour play so some things are omitted. But this is an important omission.)
The costuming choices also are odd. Oscar wears the same overalls and striped rugby shirt throughout the play, only changing to overall shorts and a short-sleeve rugby shirt when he’s in the DR. His costume suggests he remains a child without any emotional growth. Yunior, his more adult mentor, wears the same Scarface t-shirt and jeans through most of the play although he changes to tropical garb for the DR scenes. The women, on the other hand, wear a variety of colorful costumes and change them occasionally. Costume design by Raquel Adorno. (The crew members who move furniture on and off the stage wear Oscar-like outfits.)
The set design by Regina Garcia is simple and highlighted by Stefania Bulbarella’s projections noted above and lighting by Maximo Grano de Oro. The small stage in the Owen Theater is set with four doorways for moving furniture and people on and off the stage. When I saw all those doors, I almost thought we were going to see a farce instead of a drama. Sound design is by Willow James. Stage manager is Isabel Patt.
This is the second version of the Junot Diaz novel by playwright Marco Antonio Rodriguez. His Spanish version of the play has been running off and on for five years at the off-Broadway Repertorio Espanol. His other plays include Ashes of Light and Barcelo on the Rocks.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao continues at Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., through April 12. Running time is 2 hours and 45 minutes including one intermission. More information and tickets ($34-$94) are available here.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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