North County: A CSUSM Performance

North County is short play written by Jose Cruz Gonzalez addressing the controversies of life for Mexican Americans in Northern San Diego. This brand new performance confronted important issues regarding discrimination, opportunity, and personal circumstances. Raising awareness about these issues through performance art is inspirational, but this performance took it a step further by also presenting a call to action for the audience.

The artistic choices and acting section for North County made this production motivating and emotional. The acting was very authentic and well done, especially for a younger group of actors. All the actors played their roles with intense commitment. This was a very crucial element because there were not many props or other stage elements to assist the actors and help relay the scenes. The actors also had to construct the scene changes themselves and use their believable acting to center the viewer’s attention away from the transitions. A great acting example I can recall is when the Latino soldier dies and he is laying an stiff as a board on the wooden prop as the other men lay him down slowly. This is a particularly hard scene to make believable because the actor playing the dead solder is playing a very lively school counselor in the scene directly prior to this one. He did such a wonderful job of accomplishing this transition through his strong commitment to his actions despite the abrupt scene change, the undistinguishable props, and uncostumed surrounding actors. He made the scene real and emotional.
The stage production of this performance was extremely creative. The set designers were faced with the task of accommodating multiple storylines and events with very rapid transitions. They accomplished this quite successfully through the use of three large wooden structures, which seemed to resemble something between an art easel and a ladder. This structure transformed into everything from a doorway to a car and more.
I feel that North County touched on so many issues it provided every person in the audience a way to connect with the content whether they were Latino or not and bring awareness to the community.