Los Otros

The CTG has had a rare miscue with its latest offering, Los Otros,a two-character musical starring Julio Monge and Michele Pawk, each of whom recites their personal history in two separate scenes. The music, played by an unseen 12-person orchestra, punctuates their arias in non-stop fashion. It's all very operatic, but, alas, it's opera without any real drama or tragedy.

Pawk plays an unnamed white woman looking back on her life in southern California, a life in which she got involved with various Mexicans (including a teenager whose virginity she took in Tea & Sympathy fashion). Unfortunately, much of what "Woman" had to say about these experiences is unintelligible: there's a reason why most operas, even those sung in English, have super-titles. Also, Pawk's big, brassy voice might be fine for Broadway musicals (she's been in Hairspray and Mamma Mia!) but it's all wrong for an intimate show like this one.

Onge, as "Man," is easier to understand, but his story, told from the vantage point of a 75-year-old, gay Mexican-American accountant who began life as a migrant worker, is packed with so many steamy sexual escapades, it becomes unintentionally ludicrous.

Los Otros tries hard to say something meaningful and moving about the Latino experience in the USA, but its good intentions are undermined by a weak book and oft-irritating vocalizing.