Whether or not Hilary Bettis’ 72 Miles to Go… is the first DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) play—and it very well might be—it’s certainly welcome. The work follows, quite effectively, one Tucson, Arizona family from 2008 to 2016 as they fight the currently worsening United States immigrant policies and their effect on families involved.
Multiply it by, say, upwards of 700,000 times, and 72 Miles to Go… represents that many families in its fearful, continuing DACA grip. Not a bad accomplishment of Bettis’ to depict that many under its rule as well as to expand understanding to audiences surely aware of the problem but perhaps not to the up-close-and personal extent the playwright observes.
In 2016 Billy (Triney Sandoval), a Unitarian preacher steps in front of Rachel Hauck’s version of a compact middle-class kitchen and living room to give his last sermon. He tells a few lame jokes to jolly his parishioners but doesn’t really get around to his reason for retirement.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
Next thing the audience knows, it’s 2008, and Billy is surrounded by his three children—the smart and possibly college-bound Eva (Jacqueline Guillén), cut-up yet timid early adolescent Aaron (Tyler Alvarez), and the older Christian (Bobby Moreno), actually Billy’s stepson, whose biological father has long since disappeared.
Christian’s mother Anita (Maria Elena Ramirez) isn’t present in person. She’s been deported and is living in a small Nogales, Mexico space with only a hot plate to make the tamales for which she’s known. She can be reached by phone and can call in to remind the children to eat vegetables, et cetera. She can also update her reentry-application status, which too soon turns completely unpromising.
From that first flashback, Bettis jumps months or years right up to the month of Billy’s retirement and what immediately follows, none of which will be revealed here.
What will be revealed are the many events that occur in the 2008-16 meantime. Eva becomes her class valedictorian but refuses to go to college. Neither does she marry longtime boyfriend Jay, maintaining that she will not marry without her mother at the ceremony. Aaron becomes interested in biology, narrows his concentration to parasites and their parasitical interests, enlists in the Marine Corps, and slowly matures from an awkward teen into a fine young man.
Christian continues his difficulty accepting Billy as his acquired dad and spends more than four years refusing even to speak with the frustrated man. He marries, has daughters, and worries about ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and his continuing status as undocumented. (He entered the country with his mother.) That’s until he also has to make a significant choice about whether he’ll live north or south of the ominous border. Billy does what he can raising Eva, Aaron, and Christian (while his preacher duties, incidentally, are not at all discussed). All the same, his less-than-rib-tickling jokes frequently surface.
Along the way, Bettis composes many arresting (no pun intended) scenes. Eva’s valedictorian speech, where she dispenses with her planned remarks to expound on her family’s plight, is one. Another is a phone call Billy has with Anita on their anniversary when he dines on the tuna-heavy-on-the-mayonnaise dish he prefers and she makes do with SpaghettiOs. This is before they dance together at that 72-mile distance from Tucson to Nogales—Billy holding his cell phone to his chest. Yet another affecting sequence is a joke-swapping exchange Billy and Christian have during a later bonding session.
Bettis wants to look closely at an American family confronting its problems and rewards. Put another way, she is writing about a dysfunctional American family. In that endeavor she produces a play that falls neatly into the Dysfunctional-American-Family-Play category and holds it’s own there.
As directed by always sure-handed Jo Bonney, the cast members are strong and include Ramirez, who makes a brief late appearance after all the telephoning. They all bring a natural dignity to the circumstances in which the assailed characters are trapped. A special word goes to Alvarez (of Netflix’s American Vandal). He has the most changes to achieve and gets there with impressive ease.
Though Bettis is speaking to DACA families as well as to the wider population who have followed the issue without being profoundly immersed in it, the likelihood is that more of the latter than the former will make a point of searching out the piece, as they’re encouraged to do. So besides offering an unflinching look at the now-pressing-more-than-ever condition, Bettis supplies a worthy PSA.
Surely, 72 Miles to Go… is the only drama in town where exiting patrons are handed “FACT SHEET: Know Your Rights With ICE.” The message is clear: Right now there remain far more than 72 miles to go….
72 Miles to Go opened March 10, 2020, at the Laura Pels Theatre and runs through May 3. Tickets and information: roundabouttheatre.org
