The Romance of Magno Rubio

It would not be inaccurate—though some might call it un-American—to say that the history of the United States is a history of exploitation, starting with the Native American population and continuing with wave upon wave of immigrants who were welcomed as a source of cheap labor but denied full citizenship privileges. Each group has had to learn to assert its own identity and demand its rights. Filipinos have often been called the Silent Minority, because they attempted to assimilate without making waves. Now they, too, are staking their claim to a role in the story of America.

Lonnie Carter's play, based on a story by Carlos Bulosan, examines the lives of early Filipino emigrants, who came to the U.S. as migrant workers, seeking the American dream, but were discriminated and legislated against, condemned to "stoop" labor, and forbidden to own property or marry white women. The central figure and unlikely hero of the play is Magno Rubio (Jon Jon Briones), who's described as "Filipino boy. Four foot six inches tall. Dark as a coconut. Head small on a body like a turtle's." But he's feisty, funny, incurably optimistic, and in his own way indestructible. A fieldworker in Depression-era California, he falls in love with Clarabelle (Elizabeth Rainey), a woman in Arkansas he has seen only in a photograph in the "Lovelorn" section of a magazine.

He writes to her and proposes marriage. She strings him along endlessly, conning him out of his meager earnings, but he continues to believe in her—as his compatriots continued to believe in the American dream, despite their bitter experience.

Director Bernardo Bernardo gives the play a high-voltage production, enlivening Carter's rhymed text with music, robust physical action, dance, and martial arts. The cast performs with infectious enthusiasm. With his beaming smile and high energy, Briones charms the audience from the start. Erick Esteban plays Magno's handsome but treacherous false friend, who fleeces and betrays him, and Giovanni Ortega is the scholarly true friend. Rainey's Clarabelle is a vulgarly quintessential gold digger, and Antoine Reynaldo Diel is the older worker who longs for home. Muni Zano brings a touch of maturity and experience to the Narrator, and Eymard Cabling adds zest to the ensemble scenes.

Presented by PAE Live! in association with Good Shepherd Ambulance Company at [Inside] the Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood. Nov. 4-Dec. 11. Thu.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 & 8 p.m. (in Tagalog); Sun., 3 p.m. (Dark Thu., Nov. 24.) (323) 461-3673. www.fordtheatres.org.