A NY Theater review of interest

[Guest lurkerspeaks]

A friend of mine who is lucky enough to make it Broadway occasionally, forwarded me this review:

Boy Toys Yearning to Be Free ‘Mariquitas’ at Theater for the New City By CLAUDIA LA ROCCO

Mariquitas Liam Torres in a scene from Eduardo Machado’s new play about young hustlers in Havana at Theater for the New City.

“Gloria Estefan, I will never meet you,” the young hustler Cristobal calls out to the ocean during a particularly plaintive moment in “Mariquitas,” Eduardo Machado’s new play at Theater for the New City. “I am too scared to get on a raft and leave here, and I will never win the lottery that gets you out of this place.”

This place is Cuba, where Cristobal (Ricardo Dávila), in lieu of the lottery, settles for the euros doled out by his visiting Spanish lover, Jacinto (Ed Trucco). He does so in return for sexual favors in transactions that tend toward the begrudging and sulky end of the spectrum.

No one is really getting any satisfaction in “Mariquitas” (slang for homosexuals), Mr. Machado’s latest examination of life in the country he left as a child. Directed by Michael Domitrovich, this drama explores the currencies, monetary and otherwise, through which a small group of men in contemporary Havana try to game the system, one another and, ultimately, themselves. It is probably unnecessary to state that the system is winning, and handily.

Another Spaniard, the cloyingly sentimental Jose Maria (Oscar Hernandez), has returned to the island to die in the arms of Tito (Carlos A Valencia), another hustler. The two imagine themselves to be in some sort of real relationship, and perhaps are, even if Jose Maria declares Tito “my property.”

The colonial and class implications are clear. And the relationships between Cubans are no less compromised.

“I turned you into a human being,” the frustrated theater director Ramon (Omar Chagall) tells Ricardo (Liam Torres), who has wearied of his leash. Ricardo has his riposte at the ready: “I made you feel more like a proletariat.”

All of the hustlers have a slippery relationship to their sexuality: they may engage in gay sex but are disinclined to see themselves as homosexuals.

Mr. Machado has doggedly detailed his themes, and Mr. Domitrovich hammers them home — repeatedly, over the course of more than two and a half hours, so that the play’s rich, often ribald material slowly sinks beneath the production’s leaden pacing. Cristobal’s purgatorial malaise evokes a tad too much empathy in viewers, who may be reminded that time is money, even for nonhustlers.

“Mariquitas” runs through Sunday at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, East Village; (212) 254-1109 , theaterforthenewcity.net.

A version of this review appeared in print on May 14, 2013, on page C2 of the New York edition with the headline: Boy Toys Yearning to Be Free.