Juana In A Million review, Southwark Playhouse (The Little)

The Mexican community in London is so small I've only ever thought of them in relation to  restaurants where the staff wear sombreros and offer various permutations of corn-based grains and flatbreads with refried beans. With Juana In A Million, Vicky Araico Casas and Nir Paldi have created a show that goes some way to explaining that invisibility: when you're in a foreign country without the right papers, success depends on blending in. You deliberately make yourself invisible to pass unnoticed because the minute you're unmasked, all hopes turn to dust.

Mexican Waiver

So it is that Juana, fleeing to London after her boyfriend is murdered in an increasingly threatening and dangerous Mexico City, finds herself hot-bedding with a stale and sweaty night worker in a room housing seven shift-sleepers each buying the bed for half a day a time. Within weeks, and after an unpleasant sexual assault, she loses her first job in a restaurant kitchen. She leaves without pay. Her next job is no better, even though her boss is a fellow Mexican. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king: without English language or legal rights, Juana is dependent on those who seek to exploit her.  Then her friend offers a way out: open your legs and say yes to an elderly English lothario with a large cheque book.

It's a harrowing story, but in the hands of Vicky Araico Casas the ferocity and humiliation suffered by immigrant workers is mitigated by Jauna's fighting spirit.  Lithe and physically powerful, Araico Casas slips in and out of character in a compelling and exciting performance, breaking up the darkness with Mexican myths, dance, and mesmeric sequences in which the mundanity of repetitive work is turned into a head of steam, the words and actions getting faster and faster till they fuse.

In conclusion: A mesmerising hour in the hands of a master performer. Adam Pleeth provides original and highly effective musical support and Nir Paldi's direction exploits all that is best about his star.

References

Southwark Playhouse, Tickets

Southwark Playhouse, 77-85 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BD.  Run ends June 15.