May 21, 2008
By Louis Weisberg
Contributing writer

For Koreans of Boo-Seng Lee’s generation, success in life is measured by the accomplishments of one’s children. Toward that end, he turned his back on his deepest yearnings and yielded to a traditional arranged marriage. He yoked himself dutifully for 20 years to a job he hated in order to provide a leg-up in life for the two sons he raised alone after his wife died.

But on a family road trip—a trip he’d planned many years earlier under much different circumstances—Boo learns the consequences of living through others. His American-born sons don’t share his aspirations. The traditional roadmap he’s charted for their lives is foreign to them. The trip becomes a metaphor for his badly planned life.

Simple in concept, this one-act play’s power lies in the suspenseful, eloquent unfolding of the Lee family’s secrets. Playwright Julia Cho approaches these revelations as if she’s peeling away layers of an onion, and “Durango” becomes more poignant as it gets deeper to the core.

As the central protagonist Boo, Joseph Anthony Foronda sets just the right tone for this production. His Boo is a masterfully physical creation of graceful rigidity struggling to contain Vesuvian emotions. Beneath his hectoring exterior, you can taste the bitterness of Boo’s regrets.

As Boo’s younger son Jimmy, Erik Kaiko provides an affecting emotional counterpoint to Foronda’s harshness. His Jimmy is sweetly plaintive and his longing for what he calls a “real family” gives the audience an opening to feel its way through the play. Dawen Wang as the older brother Isaac reflects both Jimmy’s tormented sensitivity and his father’s caustic harshness. As the rebellious third angle in his family triangle, Wang is called upon to foment much of the play’s tension and he shoulders the job effectively.

Director Carlos Murillo gets this road trip off to a slow start, but once it’s underway he accelerates the pace and uses the brakes in all the right places. The scenic transitions are aided by haunting bridge music from sound designer Robert Steel.

While not as edgy or provocative as some of the work that’s made Silk Road Theatre Project a unique treasure on the city’s theater scene, “Durango” is a solid, absorbing production that reflects the company’s usual quality and thoughtfulness. Like other Silk Road productions, it offers penetrating insight into the generational struggles of immigrant families in America.