Quiara Alegría Hudes’ stage adaptation of her much-lauded memoir is a joyous celebration of Puerto Rican womanhood in 1990s West Philadelphia.
Rather than attempting to tell the story of an entire life in ninety minutes, Hudes selects key moments that mark subtle changes in her sense of self and her place in the world. Through Hudes’ eyes we witness her discovery of her mother’s Santería practice, her realization that her cousin cannot read despite having graduated from high school, and her own gradual self-discovery through books by Pabla Neruda, Sanda Cisneros, and William Shakespeare. Interlaid between these stories are moments of song, dance, and ritual that evoke Hudes’ boisterous girlhood in a house filled with “the Perez women.” Five actresses alternate between playing Quiara herself and the other women of the story, emphasizing the communal nature of autobiography. Through this piece, we come to understand how Hudes’ plays are in many ways continuations of the stories she was surrounded by as a child.