The Southern Directurg Blog

“Not a metaphor,” the writer-director Jimmy A. Noriega warns just before Wooster College begins the aptly named CAGED at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. For the next hour, the large, looming cages onstage will hold children.

CAGED is Noriega’s telling of the stories of the emigration, arrest, and daily lives of the children held hostage in cages at the Mexico-United States border–which started with the Trump Administration but has not ended to date–in the children’s own words, sometimes including their native languages. This play’s dealings with harrowing themes (such as the refugee crisis, forced family separation, and sexual assault of minors) deftly forego graphic description in favor of maintaining a childlike naivety and distance through simple vocabulary.

The visual design is excitingly the strongest aspect of this show. Scenic designer Naoko Skala’s cages are largely transparent, yet they dominate the space. Above them hang a foreboding trio of emergency blankets and drawstring backpacks giving the essence of futuristic children’s mobiles, which transforms the cages below them into cribs. Dale Seeds’s simple, if stark, lighting provides a rectangular playground in front of it all.

Meanwhile, Suwatana Rockland’s costume designs are understated, relying on simple colors to differentiate the three characters, who are named simply Child 1, Child 2, and Child 3. While wearing different colored tops, the characters live in youthful uniforms of blue jeans and pigtails full of color-coordinating barrettes.

Everything in this production–from the language of the script to the visual designs–is desperately screaming, “These are children!” precisely because the actors are obviously not children. The performers’ very own bodies are working against them in moments when the characters are very young, as all three performers are clearly post-pubescent, fighting against the illusion set up by all other aspects of the production.

While told through the viewpoints of children, Noriega is trying to represent thousands of children. Therein lies the problem. The individual actors are left attempting to toggle between what appears to be characters as young as 5 and as old as 14, which is a feat rarely conquered. The fluctuation of maturity levels is disorienting.

The actors do commendably commit to playing the children wholeheartedly, but, unfortunately, even with the supporting work of the design, they do not prevail. Working hard to maintain the childlike nature, the performers consistently come across as disingenuous, often by attempting children’s vocal inflections. Teresa Isabel Ascencio stood out as Child 3 in her authenticity when speaking fondly of her father early on, but even she struggled to keep from slipping into a hollow caricature of a child.

For all the effort to make sure the cages of CAGED are not a metaphor, the “children” residing in those cages are certainly not believably real. However, the masterful concreteness of the design prohibits the play from losing touch with the troublesome reality which begot it.