Sandra Delgado’s impassioned new theater piece “Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars” makes three points about the dysfunction of the U.S. immigration system that strike me as irrefutable, whatever your political leanings.
One is the unfairness of holding immigrants to higher standards than U.S. citizens, as distinct from holding them to the same standards, which is the American way. Another is the inhumanity of deporting someone who was brought to the U.S. as an infant and has lived their whole lives here, unaware of any other “home.” A third is the overwhelmed federal system’s cold anonymity, where record checks and AI-driven matches are privileged over looking at the actual human being in question, not just their past actions but what they might contribute in the future.
Why is this theater review talking about immigration? Well, aside from the obvious currency of the issue, it is the theme of Delgado’s self-penned show that premiered last week in a TimeLine Theatre Company production at the Lookingglass Theatre on Michigan Avenue.
Delgado, raised by parents from Colombia and now a long-standing Chicago actress of rich experience and technique, stars as Clara, a hard-working single Chicago mom who has held a green card for years but has been twice been caught smoking (not dealing) pot, a pair of minor offenses that of course predate the legalization of marijuana in Illinois. When Clara (Delgado) decides to apply for citizenship, the system kicks up those offenses and spits out a deportation hearing; had she just stayed with the green card, or permanent residency, the show suggests, none of this would have happened, which is of course ridiculous on its face. A request for citizenship is a positive act for the nation as a whole and, in this story, Clara has a 12-year-old daughter (the terrific Charlotte Arias at the show I saw) who then has to worry about losing her mom.
It’s worth noting at the start that this story is set in 2015, during Barack Obama’s second term, and thus serves as a reminder that what Chicago is now experiencing is a consequence of decades of inaction on immigration by both political parties.
How much this relates to Delgado’s own family story I don’t know, but I suspect she knows of familial anxiety around immigration law, as most immigrants do. The story isn’t 100% credible: the plot hinges on Clara needing citizenship for a trip to Paris with her daughter (who is also cared for her father, Clara’s benign ex-husband, played by Brian King), when green cards (in 2015 at least) let you come and go just the same. But it will still surprise a lot of Americans about what immigrants go through, even the ones who arrived by plane as small children, papers in hand.
Aesthetically, the transitions in the piece veer some into the pretentious, frankly, with various digital interludes involving projections of the cosmos, breathy physical movement and even the voice of the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. The script, which strikes me as a work in progress, also struggles with the need to switch back from the specific to the metaphoric, a reflection of Delgado’s understandable desire, I think, to make her character’s situation applicable to all kinds of different immigrants while at the same time wanting to root the story in a very specific Chicago situation. For example, you never know where exactly Clara is from, or much else about her backstory, and the only statement she really makes about her home is that nothing has been left. Most immigrants, of course, remain connected emotionally to the place of their birth and that hardly prohibits love and service to a new country. Delgado is striving for those themes but has not quite arrived yet.
“Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars” also has yet to arrive at an ending; there’s an abrupt finish right now to director Kimberly Senior’s production that doesn’t feel right, given all the unanswered questions, almost as is the show ran out of time, although I think the universality/specificity of the dilemma above perhaps stymied things there.
Better to keep things grounded and let audiences figure out the metaphors on their own. Indeed, the show is at its best when it tells the story of its empathetic and vividly performed central character as straightforwardly as possible, as when we hear her explain to a judge how and why she has been a Chicagoan all her life and how the city has seeped into the soul, not necessarily as a replacement for something else but as a narrative of her life. That’s both her story and one that every American needs to hear.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars” (2.5 stars)
When: Through Nov. 9
Where: TimeLine Theatre Company at Lookingglass Theatre in Water Tower Water Works, 163 E. Pearson St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
More Top Picks Best Elevated Dog Bowls
Tickets: $62-$95 at 773-281-8463 and timelinetheatre.com