Review: ESPEJOS: CLEAN at Milwaukee Repertory Theater

When my friend and I carpooled to this show on opening night, we briefly discussed what we imagined the plot to be. With the hit HBO show’s finale buzzing around, we wondered aloud: “will this be White Lotus-esque?” To our surprise, and delight, the play not only comments on wealth and class inequities, but also tells a deeper, unifying story of the lives of two women and their circumstances, struggles, hopes, and messy human condition.

In its final production as Stiemke Studio (to be reopened as the Herro-Franke Studio Theater), Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Espejos: Clean is the first bilingual play in the black box studio. Written by Christine Quintana with Spanish translation and adaptation by Paula Zelaya, the show features bilingual subtitles in clever and innovative ways, including a text display on portions of the back wall, sometimes foregrounded by a sheer curtain during scenes where characters are changing on stage or to provide emphasis for scenes.

Director Juliette Carrillo tells a story, both brilliantly hilarious and heartbreakingly devasting, of two women at a Cancún resort who come from worlds apart but whose stories weave at pivotal crises. Adriana (Regina Carregha) manages the housekeeping staff with an ardent precision and passion, in part because this focus serves as a distraction or

coping mechanism for her unresolved trauma she experienced at home, many miles away from the resort. Sarah (Dylan Brown) is vacationing in Cancún for her sister’s wedding and struggling with societal and familial expectations amid her own deep unprocessed trauma, seemingly packed in her suitcase alongside her bathing suits and dresses. A literal and metaphorical (and unexpected) downpour brings the two of them together, where the audience gains insight into their two vastly different perspectives. For most of the play, the two characters don’t interact, living lives just literal steps away from each other, but never quite intersecting.

Before their brief but telling encounters, viewers might question what would happen if these two characters were to meet each other, with a language barrier that spans far beyond the words that we think and speak. As the show ended, I was left in my seat contemplating how many lives mine has intersected with; we may not have spoken the same language, but perhaps we helped wash away some of each other’s internalized shame. Maybe, in witnessing one another, however strangely and briefly, we’re able to wipe each other’s mirrors clean of the residue that blocks us from healing. 

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