Favorite Cousins | CASA 0101 | Los Angeles Theatre

The World Premiere of Favorite Cousins is playing at CASA 0101 Theatre in Boyle Heights. It was written by Lindsey Haley and directed by Vilma Villela. The premise of the play is a conversation between two estranged Chicana cousins who are packing up their deceased grandmother’s house in Santa Monica to prepare it to be sold.

Both have experienced the effects of gang violence. Gloria has lived in Santa Monica her entire life. A gang member killed her son, and she threw herself into community activism to help come to terms with it.

Her cousin Francis moved on to enjoy a more affluent life in Irvine, but her son is serving a life sentence for a gang-related killing. She wants nothing to do with her old neighborhood but has recently been served divorce papers.

Neither wants to sell their grandmother’s home but gentrification has made it difficult to maintain and they are emotionally connected to it. Their family has lived in Santa Monica since before California was a state and their great-grandfather helped build the pier.

Playwright and Creator Lindsey Haley, said of her play: “I wanted to explore the effect of gang violence from the perspective of two mothers struggling with the loss of their sons, one who has died and another serving a life sentence. Exposed is the cottage industry that relies on the incarceration of Brown and Black people.”

When director Vilma Villela was asked why the play was important to her, she remarked, “Tell me what Chicana doesn’t struggle with having a double consciousness, especially one growing up in the barrio streets of Santa Monica, where if you’re Brown, then your population is cruelly culled at the hands of other Latinos or police, ushering you into the Prison Factory.”

She went on to say, “I instantly connected to these cousins because I grew up in a similar L.A. barrio. With the help of my own immigrant family, I dodged teen pregnancy, drugs, and the Chola life. I found my axis of opportunities that were afforded to me on the backs of so many Chicano and Chicana activists and found a pathway to higher education. Similar to this story, I witnessed how gentrification priced out my family and changed the landscape of the neighborhood I grew up in, making me a stranger in my own land.”

How the play was created

Creator Lindsay Haley also had a challenging background. She was born in El Paso as the daughter of immigrants who moved to the Westside of Los Angeles where she grew up. She dropped out of the eighth grade, earned her GED, was a teenage mom, a former farm worker, and became a community activist. Despite that, she became a prolific writer of Chicano/Latino-centered poetry, short stories, and plays over a period of 40 years.

Favorite Cousins was originally a 30-minute staged reading. Haley workshopped it with the help of Josefina López of CASA 0101 where she expanded the story into a full-length 90-minute play.

The performance

The theatre at CASA 0101 was recently renamed and dedicated to council member Gloria Molina who was an active member of the Los Angeles City Council, the California State Assembly, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. She is currently in ill health.

The play has a 10-minute intermission which I felt was unnecessary due to its short length. However, small theatres including CASA 0101 are struggling, and intermission is a way to sell refreshments so it’s understandable.  

Vanessa Arias-Herrera plays Francis, from Irvine and Raquel Salinas plays Gloria, her activist cousin. They were once good friends but because Francis declined to attend Gloria’s son’s funeral, they became estranged. The entire play takes place in their grandmother’s bedroom where they are charged with packing up the dead woman’s belongings so buyers can view the house.

Both are capable actors and the emotional baggage they carry is revealed due to their individual and family tragedies.

Comadre Josephine, played by Tina D’Marco, was the best friend and bridesmaid of the cousin’s grandmother. She provides light comedic relief as she leaves the two cousins to work while she tends to her menudo in the kitchen.

At one point, bullets begin to fly near the house forcing the cousins to hit the floor. This gives the audience a glimpse of the volatility of the rough neighborhood they are in.

An artificial tree is set up next to the stage where audience members are invited to hang cards of family and friends who were killed or affected by gang violence. When the show finishes its run, the tree will be burned in a sweat lodge ceremony so that their souls will be released.

It’s important to remember that even though Latinx immigrants are persecuted and demonized in this country, they were in California and other parts of the U.S. before Europeans arrived. They also helped build its cities and infrastructure.

CASA 0101 Theater 2102 1^st Street, Los Angeles, California 90033 – 323.263.7684 info@casa0101.org – Find out what is currently playing here.