the senior gentleman sitting next to me sighed audibly enough times to telegraph his disinterest to every audience member within a two-row radius. and though i did experience some moments of flatness in alina troyano and branden jacobs-jenkins’ give me carmelita tropicana!, it’s hard for me to walk out of soho rep disappointed.

in fact, soho rep’s 2014 production of jacobs-jenkins’ an octoroon is probably the play that solidified my longstanding creative investment in the organization. in that production, i saw a fierce commitment to artists, artistry and the profound joy of theatermaking. as soho rep flies into this new chapter, i feel confident that the same commitments have guided them to a soft landing at playwrights horizons.

give me carmelita tropicana! tells the very-true-and-not-at-all-embellished story of when real life branden jacobs-jenkins tried to buy the rights to the performance persona of his former nyu teacher and iconic performance artist, carmelita tropicana (née alina troyano), who has threatened to kill carmelita entirely. the storytelling is complete with flashback reenactments that send us into carmelita’s phantasmagoria, which is ultimately defined to us by a recurring — and constantly evolving — goldfish; and it all ends with enough reflections on the state of experimental theater and performance to make even the most emotionally repressed downtown stalwarts (ahem, that’s me) well up with tears.

some of the most memorable passages of text in give me … describe the cultural and historical contexts of the nyc that troyano & jacobs-jenkins came of age in as queer artists of color. they both write with personal detail, down to name dropping the performance theorist josé esteban muñoz, which was warmly received with snaps and “hmmms” by nearly half the audience on the evening i attended. i also relish in niche nyc experimental theater and performance history; that is the bulk of my training as a theatermaker, though the intersection i studied contains loads more dance. even so, i had not learned about carmelita tropicana until recently. so, and perhaps because i was already emotionally tender when i entered the theater to see one last show in that prestigious space on walker street, it was especially painful to feel like i wasn’t “in” on all the downtown jokes. though the recurring jokes about jacobs-jenkins being “not rich” were a welcome equalizer.

in give me carmelita tropicana!’s interrogation of the value of nostalgia, i think that the storytelling lost its momentum. i wondered if the real-life troyano and jacobs-jenkins could have anticipated that the divine duo they would create would attract a truly game audience, ready for more muscular (or less apologetic) twists and turns in the narrative structure. without that forethought, multiple characters stopped the action of the play to explicate past action in the play on multiple occasions, which felt about as redundant as this sentence. and after the third explication, that senior gentleman sitting next to me huffed and sighed again.

ugo chukwu’s performance as branden felt grounded and accurate (which i’m basing on collected knowledge of jacobs-jenkins, not personal history). it was particularly thrilling to follow chukwu as jacobs-jenkins into the phantasmagoria, which was, to me, like a carmelita tropicana metaverse. as an aging queer black fem, i craved more time with alina (troyano) and carmelita. at times, the scale of jacobs-jenkins’ character’s persona simply overpowered carmelita’s onstage legacy, which in turn represented its own queer dynamic that demands unpacking. is the feeling of the play’s narrative imbalance indicative of generational shifts in cultural values? how does queer culture honor its elders — and its fem elders, at that? is it possible for intergenerational queerness to equitably share performance space onstage? is there a dominant voice right now and how do we dance through that dynamic?

theater craft is on full display in this production. scenic designers mimi lien and tatiana kahvegian bless the walker space with one last ingeniously transformable set, put to use with wit and energy by eric ting’s focused yet breezy direction. the actors find a nice ensemble vibe by the end of the play, having moved through ad hoc shadow puppetry, exquisitely mediocre choreography, and what are, i’m sure, some absolutely batty quick changes offstage. greg corbino’s work on both costumes and puppets is responsible for several notable moments, especially where the goldfish is concerned.

i think i went to sohorep to hallucinate one last time. as jacobs-jenkins puts it in the final act of the play, “i went because there was something almost mystical for me in the act of sitting with a bunch of strangers in the dark and hallucinating together a thing that wasn’t really happening”, which was most fun for me at soho rep specifically (i mean, did you see the perfect fever dream that was montag?!). i wanted to hallucinate a reality that keeps all of my old theater stomping grounds intact and frees me from ghostly walks through the east village, les and alphabet city. since seeing the show, i keep thinking about nostalgia. and what to do with mine. and if that was the play’s ultimate goal, maybe you’ll hallucinate a successful production. i’m fairly certain that “success” wasn’t apart of the experiment here, though … either way, a senior in a theater somewhere is sighing.

give me carmelia tropicana! — soho rep’s final production in their venue at 46 walker street — plays through december 15.