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CM: Jorge, can you summarize the plot?
JH: This play with music tells the story of a fictional trio, three older Mexican musicians and singers who have been together for 50 years. At the top of the play we see the trio singing in a restaurant but they sound so bad the couple they are serenading get up and leave. The restaurant owner fires them and the story ensues from there with flashbacks that show how they first met.
CM: In the middle of Act I we are introduced to the trio as young men in their twenties, newly arrived to the U.S. during World War II as part of the Bracero program. They quickly realize they are being exploited in that ten percent of their pay is held back. Also they suffer humiliation in a "debusing" program that requires them to stand naked and be sprayed by pesticides. One night on the radio they hear a group called Trio Los Panchos and, nostalgic for Mexico, they start playing music themselves. In time they discover they can also make a living playing guitar and singing; the actors who played the younger Trio were Josh Duron (Young Nacho), Gilbert Rodriguez (Young Lalo), and Adrian Quiñonez (Young Paco.)
In the program notes López writes, "my father was a bracero and this is his music. He played it every evening and I grew to love it." (My mother played this music and I grew up hearing it as well.) Although the author wrote it as a hommage to her father (she confesses many disagreements over his "macho views of the role of women") she has since come to realize that "sometimes machismo is the way a man survives when he is being dehumanized. "
JH: .We grow to love these old codgers and the first act ends with a crisis when Lalo suffers a stroke. You could hear audience members react to the bad news, as if it were their grandfather. In characteristic well-made play structure, the second act opens with Lalo sitting in his...