Actress Christina Pumariega makes her playwriting debut with ¡VOS! It is a tightly written, brilliantly paced play, and Two River Theater is justifiably proud to present its world debut in their Marion Huber Theatre. It is a powerful look at Argentinian upheavals during the presidency of Isabel Perón, when Perónistas on both the left and the right battled through the streets of Buenos Aires and thousands of people were taken by agents of the government and put into torture centers, often before being brutally executed.
At the same time, it is a story of the nearly unbelievable strength within ordinary women and in the bonds between mothers and children.
Two stories are intertwined in ¡VOS! The first is that of Annie (playwright Pumariega), an American of Argentinian heritage, who has been trying to get pregnant without success. She travels to Buenos Aires to begin treatments with Dr. Cossi (Alexandra Silber), a female fertility doctor who has been recommended to her. While undergoing the treatments, Sofia explores the city and Argentine political history as Dr. Cossi suggests. With caring and a little bit of magic, the doctor and her patient slowly form a bond of friendship.
The other story revolves around Ana (Silber again), the teaching assistant to a leftist Perónista professor and the mother of a young daughter, and her relationship to Sofia (Pumariega again), an older grad student in art and new member of the university’s Perónist student group. As Ana and Sofia work together on student group rallies and protests — Ana delivering speeches she writes under the professor’s name, Sofia creating imagery and placards — they grow closer emotionally. But as the professor and members of the student group are being disappeared, Ana starts to wonder if Sofia really is as she seems…
¡VOS! is played out on a wide set designed by Lawrence E. Moten III. A house-shaped frame, its edges lit in bright white or red lights depending on the action, is at the center of the stage. Large blank walls with concealed doors flank this frame, while across the top of the walls are large cut-outs of prominent buildings in Buenos Aires. A sheer curtain hung behind the frame as well as the walls and the cut-outs serve as screens for the evocative time-and-place setting projections by Kelly Colburn. Raquel Barreto’s costumes, Carolina Ortiz Herrera’s lighting, and Sinan Refik Zafar’s sound design bring the city of Buenos Aires and its inhabitants to vibrant life.
In its depiction of political upheaval and fervor in Isabel Perón’s time, ¡VOS! eerily mirrors current upheavals in North America as well as in today’s Argentina. One is left to wonder how much the past may be prologue, as scenes of massive protests including labor stoppages appear as part of recent news. In this way ¡VOS! is a much-needed reminder of the powerful forces still in play in Argentina. It is also two finely written stories of the strength of women and women’s bonds with each other, with four strong characters brought to life by two extremely talented actresses under the sensitive, nuanced direction of Nicole A. Watson.
It is a pleasure to welcome Christina Pumariega into the ranks of new dramatists with such a powerful, suspenseful, emotionally gripping piece as ¡VOS! I hope this is just the first of many such plays to come. ¡VOS! is a work of art the likes of which we rarely see, and I cannot more strongly urge you to see ¡VOS! before its brief engagement ends.
¡VOS! is presented at the Marion Huber Theatre at Two River Theater in Red Bank through Apr. 27, 2025. There will be a Pride Night performance on April 18. For more information or to purchase tickets, go to tworivertheater.org.