Home can be a complicated place. For teenagers G and B, home is Newark, New Jersey, where they’ve spent most of their lives. But both were born outside of the United States, brought into the country as young children. Without citizenship or legal residency, they live in fear of deportation and governed by limitations because of their legal status.
It’s why G can’t report her mother’s boyfriend for physical abuse, and why B can’t apply for federal aid to go to college. This fear is amplified by the recent events of 9/11, which has sparked a wider anti-immigrant sentiment.
The two lead characters in Next Act Theatre’s Sanctuary City begin to rely on each other. G often sneaks through B’s bedroom window for refuge and companionship. B waits for G to bring back food from work, chicken Milanese if they’re lucky. They laugh, they vent, they lower their guards. In a country where they must hide their true selves, G and B understand each other.
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The first act of Sanctuary City, the theater company’s season opener, is told in out-of-order fragments. The setting is stark, and there are few props – reflective of their circumstances. Time is conveyed instead through lighting and sound. Careful staging and deft emotional switches from G (Ashley Oviedo) and B (King Hang) keep the play’s engine humming. Phrases and scenarios repeat – these patterns contain moments of love and levity, but the few comedic lines hardly cut through the undercurrent of tension present via the act’s pacing. Still, the character’s frenetic energy carries a glimmer of hope.
G and B are never named in the play – practically speaking, it’s so the characters could be from anywhere in a given production, but it’s also a reminder of how their status renders them invisible, even nameless.
In a turn of fortune, G attains citizenship. It means security and autonomy – the chance to choose her future, something that remains out of reach for B. Or does it? G makes a proposal to him that’s generous and perilous, a promise that could upend their relationship.
Throughout the play, B faces impossible decisions, none with a clear path ahead. Hang potently conveys this inner strife with handwringing and strained expressions, but it’s his evident warmheartedness that lends his character pathos. Oviedo plays G with verve and a sense of yearning, both of which become tinged with guilt. Their conversations and little moments feel candid and sincere, but they two are never not complicated by outside forces.
The second act is one long scene, taking place years later when they’re both adults, but similarly contains a series of overlapping choices made more difficult by the introduction of Henry (Joe Lino). Henry works skillfully as a foil to Oviedo’s G, giving rise to complicated motivations and feelings attached to life-changing sacrifices. Here, everyone stands something to lose.
Certain elements keep the play rooted in the early aughts, but Sanctuary City is undoubtedly a story about the present moment, one marked by large-scale immigration raids. There are few audience members who don’t know what G and B mean when they discuss fears of being locked up and deported somewhere unfamiliar. Director Jake Penner knows this, so there are few embellishments – just an unflinching portrait of reality for many who call America home.
