There’s no shortage of creative ambition in Valentina Andrade, Elizabeth Alvarado, Lucy Wray, Tommy Ross-Williams and Joana Nastari’s play exploring the experiences of Latinx women in modern London. In the style of a pop concert, four shadowy figures pose to the pulse of techno beats mixed with options from the UK census. “White, Black, Asian, Mixed,” it says – Latinx is notably absent.
Then comes a clash of identities inside what looks like a giant hairband. Notting Hill carnival or Rio carnival? Brazilian bikini or swimming costume? The actors stretch the elastic in different directions in an image that depicts the constant push and pull of feeling like you belong to two places at once. Later, the audience is asked to answer questions from the British citizen test; of course, barely anyone knows the answers.
It’s a pity, then, that such striking visuals about what it feels to be a Latinx immigrant are eclipsed by the main body of the show: a fictional narrative loosely inspired by the 2012 HSBC scandal. It centres on Ale (Yanexi Enriquez), who is juggling her A-levels with early-morning shifts as a bank cleaner, and her investigative journalist sister Cata (Lorena Andrea), who is visiting from Chile and recruits Lucia (Cecilia Alfonso-Eaton) to go undercover, join Ale’s team and look into the bank’s exploitative practices.
It is a Scooby-Doo-esque bank heist with moments that are hot with tension, as the trio – joined by fellow cleaner Honey (Nathaly Sabino) – race to complete a data breach while a lavish party unfolds around them. There are some inventive uses of props including a toy chihuahua and a plastic mask, and yet it feels like a mesh of ideas rather than something fluid.
Perhaps that’s down to the fact that five writers are credited; occasionally, we hear from some of them in voiceover, in this production also directed by Wray and Ross-Williams. There’s sibling tension, the feeling of not fitting in anywhere, and an immigration subplot dropped in at the last minute. But the message the writers are trying to leave us with gets lost along the way. We need more stories from Latinx people – the fastest-growing population in the UK – on our stages. But this play lacks a unifying focus.
