Put on by The University of Edinburgh School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, Hotel Juarez tells the story of Angela, a Kansas-born “secretary” with a dark and mysterious past who comes to the US-Mexican border town of Juarez in search of her missing sister Aurora. As she meets a whole host of shady characters in the confines of the claustrophobic hotel, she uncovers horrifying truths about the corrupt and seedy underbelly of this decadent town.
As a work put on by linguistics and foreign language students (as opposed to theatre ones), the aims of the play appear to be twofold. Firstly, it seems to have been devised, produced and performed with the explicit intention of giving the actors a novel opportunity to practice the language under the bright lights and in public, and in this goal it must be deemed an unqualified success. Each of the actors delivers their lines with practiced aplomb, with barely any slip-ups or mispronunciations in an hour-and-a-half’s worth of heavily Mexican dialogue.
A secondary aim of the play appears to be to raise awareness of the very real problem of victimisation, prostitution, human trafficking and murder that occurs in towns such as these. On this score, the piece is somewhat less successful; certain scenes, such as the Commander’s intimidation of Angela and Angela’s reunion with her long-lost sister are communicated with pathos and power, but their juxtaposition with sillier, more humour-driven scenes jars slightly and detracts from the seriousness of the play’s message.
What’s more, the characters are, for the most part, somewhat one-dimensional; with the possible exception of Angela, we never delve too deeply into anyone’s backstory, while others are introduced only for a single scene and then dismissed, never to be seen again. With such a small cast, this can lead to confusion at times, though the outline of each specific scene in the programme does help to alleviate that confusion, albeit a little clumsily.
In terms of theatrical merit, again the play is a little inconsistent. Charlette Prudent, in the play’s lead role, is also its standout performer, exuding believability in each of her various scenes. Ruth Brown and Frankie Allan also show evidence of their theatrical backgrounds, while Wang Lihe’s depiction of El Johnny is entertaining, if a little over-the-top in its bravado.
Similarly, the direction hits some notes and misses others. Angela’s introduction to each of the hotel’s inhabitants is handled superbly, with all of the cast onstage simultaneously to bring the ramshackle guesthouse to life. Elsewhere, certain set pieces don’t quite work as well – for example, Aurora’s exit doesn’t quite achieve the sombre mood it was aiming for and instead serves to diminish the emotion that had been building throughout the scene, while the final denouement of the piece comes off as hurried and contrived.
All in all, Hotel Juarez is an entertaining and useful Spanish language play which serves its primary purpose excellently. However, a mixture of inexperience and inconsistency means it never quite grasps the gravitas for which it is striving.