‘Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!’ Seizes The Full Potential Of The Theater

I want to tell you about Walt Whitman in denim cutoffs doing Lana Del Rey karaoke. I also want to tell you about the goldfish puppet who monologued about his existence for about three times as long as I was expecting. But first I should probably explain at least the basics.

Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!, the final production for Soho Rep in its extremely intimate space on Walker Street, is a delirious supernatural caper written by Alina Troyano and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Troyano plays herself and Ugo Chukwu plays Jacobs-Jenkins as they chase the incorporeal title character—a real-life performance persona of Troyano’s—through both New York City and a fantasy universe inhabited by Troyano’s past characters. Both of the psychedelic experiences I mentioned appear before you in its intermission-free two hours (a good thing; you won’t want to escape), along with so much more that can’t be done justice as written words, and maybe shouldn’t. The momentum and elements of surprise never falter. This is a kaleidoscopic celebration of freedom, of all you can do with craftsmanship, imagination, and an audience willing to join you on the journey.

Troyano is relatively restrained through most of the show for the sake of the plot, but at the end Carmelita gets free rein to make the night of at least one lucky audience member in the first row and reminisce on seeing the performer Jack Smith do gasoline art in the 1980s. Chukwu, meanwhile, is the comic ideal of a successful, critically acclaimed playwright’s avatar: a little vain, a little clueless, a little neurotic. He gets to do some hysterical slapstick, particularly when it’s revealed that Carmelita can move between host bodies, and he has a lived-in chemistry with Troyano that makes you buy that Chukwu actually is her former star student turned Broadway playwright. But despite all the maximalist goofiness, the show never gets too high on its own surrealism. There are no bullshit ironic “We’re all being so silly!” winks. If you’re willing to buy in, they’ll reward you: This whole cast is on a mission to entertain and imprint.

On that note, toward the very end Chukwu-as-Jacobs-Jenkins addresses the audience directly to tell us “what the play’s all about.” Normally, this kind of thing would make me want to sink deep into my chair and think about where I’m going to grab a slice on the way home. But instead of a condescending gesture, we get a concise and beautiful explanation of, presumably, what really led Jacobs-Jenkins to co-create this project. He talks about being young, going to cheap experimental theater in the city, sitting in the dark to hallucinate things alongside other people. He talks, too, about growing up, the melancholy of losing exactly who you were at that time, and being left with only impressions of what it used to feel like. As an obsessive theatergoer approaching 30, I took the hit right to the heart. You get older. Theaters close. People like Jack Smith die. All a stage demands of you is to try as hard as you can to create exactly what you want, then try again and again for as long as you’re able. When I stepped out of Soho Rep’s doors and into the cold night, fully conscious that this was the last time I’d ever be there, I knew this crew had done just that.

Give Me Carmelita Tropicana! is at Soho Rep until Dec. 21. Rush tickets only, it seems.