In My Mañana Comes, playwright Elizabeth Irwin puts a face on the hidden world of restaurant kitchen workers. During long days of routine tasks and nonstop motion, four busboys at this upscale Madison Avenue eatery face perpetual problems of illegal immigration, poverty, cultural discrimination, and unequal pay scales. Director Chay Yew does an admirable job of keeping the characters vivid, their peppery humor underscored with apprehension even as they dream of something better and collecting small stipends for shift labor.
In this Playwrights Realm production, the characters are led by Peter (an excellent Jason Bowen), an industrial African-American from Harlem. The other three are Mexicans, including Brooklyn-born audacious Whalid (Brian Quijada) who is concentrating on the EMT exam to earn money for a better social life and good clothes. Jorge (José Joaquín Pérez) has assiduously saved his money for four years so he can return to Mexico and buy his family the house he promised them. Jorge, like the eager-but-nervous newcomer, Pepe (Reza Salazar), is here illegally. At different points, one worker steps forward into a personal spotlight to tell his personal dream of "mañana."
Considered the leader by the others, Bowen is magnetic as Peter, focused on giving his young daughter a good education but constantly battling ongoing problems. The others count on his leadership, especially when they are unexpectedly threatened by a cut in their shifts. Pérez plays the wiry, tightly wound Jorge, hugging his bags closely, indicating that his belongings, probably his savings, are always with him. Usually reticent, he occasionally scolds the outgoing Whalid for occasional careless spending and disdains Pepe's new sneakers even though Pepe insists they were discounted.
The time frame in My Mañana Comes is summer, a slumping time for upscale New York restaurants. The four workers get along well, teasing each other and trading tales as they swerve around the kitchen, carrying plates, picking up empties, filling salt shakers, prepping the lemons, folding napkins, filling bread baskets and hoping for more customers in a slow season. More customers mean more shifts and more money.
When the restaurant owners reveals there will be a cut in shifts, the workers panic, knowing their pay will now depend totally on waiters' tips. They turn to Peter who is outraged about the cut. He pleads for the others to join him in facing the restaurant owner and walking out, sure that the owner would back down if no one was in the kitchen. "This is your real life, man. It's what you're living today, right?" If they don't all walk out together, Peter emphasizes, they will just continue to be disrespected. How each worker reacts speaks to their maturity but also to the force of their individual mañanas.
Wilson Chip has designed a realistic kitchen setting for this well-framed character-driven play. Nicole Pearce provides fluorescent lighting for the kitchen. The black uniforms for the workers are by Moria Sine Clinton. Chay Yew's direction keeps the book's political/economic issues always simmering until it ignites for the haunting finale. It's a provocative work with characters you have to root for and well worth seeing.
