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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > April > 13 > Entry
Review: ‘Keeping Track’
Janet does not like that feeling that she has lost control of her own home, her husband and the swirl events that make up her modern life as a modern wife.
But control is the last thing Janet gains in “Keeping Track,” Erica Saenz’s heart-warming comedy now getting its premiere at Salvage Vanguard Theater in a Teatro Vivo production.
Saenz, a founding member of the ground-breaking Austin sketch comedy troupe the Latino Comedy Project, trains her considerable comedic talents on an upwardly-mobile Latino family for her first full-length play.
Janet (Karen Alvarado) likes things her way and that means an organized house for just her and her husband, Albert (Rick Olmos), a successful attorney. But nothing has been organized since Albert’s widowed mother Carolina (JoJanie Segura) has moved in, Carolina is omnipresent and messy: Albert and Janet have no privacy and Janet’s tidy housekeeping gets thrown outta whack.
But Albert loves his mother’s traditional cooking over his wife’s health-conscious fare. So does the couple’s extended family who regularly assemble for a regular Sunday dinner: Janet’s half-brother Jack (Matt Sadler) and his wife Melinda (Matinique Duchene) and Yolie (played by the irrepressibly funny Saenz herself), a forever single family friend.
So when Janet declares at Sunday dinner that she wants her mother-in-law out of her house and into a retirement home, she’s met with resounding opposition from everyone at the table. And what’s worse, Janet wants Carolina to go to a home where she’ll be implanted with a micro-chip, allowing Albert and Janet to track her from the comfort of their own home.
That situation sets off an hysterical series of situations and interactions within the circle of family and friends.
With considerable playwriting panache, Saenz weaves a charming portrait of contemporary life where technological advances are often many steps ahead of our emotional, psychological and interpersonal capabilities. Baby monitors, cell phones, micro-chipped elder parents. What does that do to boundaries between family members?
Ultimately, Saenz is examining the seismic shifts within a traditional close-knit Latino family that finds its closeness challenged by modern — and independent — lives. And she does so with kindness, not judgement nor hamfisted politics.
Saenz herself is a bit a show-stealer as the wise-cracking, irreverent Yolie. Though like any good ensemble sit-com — which “Keeping Track” bears plenty of resemblance, in a good way — the funniest moments come when the cast clicks together in an energetic way. If the energy slagged at moments at Saturday night;s show, it may have been just a temporary snag in the ‘je ne sais quoi’ element that comedy relies on.
Still, with “Keeping Track” Saenz delivers a delightful, humor-filled take on the modern family.
“Keeping Track” continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays through April 25. Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. $13-$16 (Thursdays pay-what-you-wish). www.teatrovivo.org
Image: Karen Alvarado as Janet (left) and Erica Saenz as Yolie (center). Photo by Alberto Jimenez; courtesy Teatro Vivo
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