“Dear Dead Drug Lord” deals to the heart but not the head

So four schoolgirls in a treehouse attempt to conjure the ghost of Pablo Escobar….

No, not a joke, but the premise of Dear Dead Drug Lord, where playwright Alexis Scheer bets the house that if she parades teen female identity crisis in front of you, you’ll focus on the feels and miss the thinness of story/character/substance.

Full disclosure: The above is a nicer version of the opening of my 2024 review of Cal Rep’s production, which until I checked just now I would have sworn was pre-pandemic. The good of its leaving so little memory trace was the chance to see it a second time with relatively fresh eyes. But…

It’s 2008, and the Dead Leaders Club has been suspended from campus because its current members — Pipe (Sam Farfán), Squeeze (Jenilee Flowers), and Zoom (Ryan Hollon) — have departed from its tradition of celebrating the lives of JFK and MLK to favoring the likes of Josef Stalin and now “Pablo fucking Escobar,” the cocaine kingpin who met his end at the hands of Colombian police in 1993. Because the club recently lost a member and needs a new third to have the standing to be reinstated (yes, third: Pipe says she doesn’t count because she’s president. Huh?), they initiate Kit (Alejandra Peñaloza), who believes she may be Escobar’s illegitimate niña.

Or is it because they need a human sacrifice to bring back Pipe’s dead sister? And what does Pipe’s family’s gardener’s resemblance to Escobar have to do with anything? There’s a lot of confusion in Dear Dead Drug Lord — and however apt that may be vis-à-vis the girls’ difficulty figuring out who they are and how they fit in the world, it’s also in the writing, which ultimately doesn’t amount to much. Okay, they’re confused, hysterically confused. And?

What works best about the Garage’s production (in addition to some nice lighting by Maddy Wilson and Rawb Young’s super solid treehouse set, which is kinda wow to see in a black box) is the quartet’s energy. While at times they may err on the side of being over the top, that’s definitely the right instinct. Clearly, director Skylar Alexis did a fine job in rehearsals helping them search for the sweet spot of frenetic liveliness. Actors simply looking at each other waiting for their cohort to deliver their lines is not a sin of which this cast is guilty. 

The standout is Sam Farfán in the lead role, especially in moments of emotional extremity. And that was opening weekend. I expect she — and the entire cast — will be even better as the run progresses. Also worthy of note is Joshua Sandoval’s turn as the title character. Despite little stage time, he makes an outsized impression.

This staging’s main shortcoming falls under the heading “fight choreography,” the most consistent failing I encounter on my beat. What the Garage offers here is nowhere close to the worst I’ve seen, but if someone’s having a foreign object shoved inside her against her will while she’s fully conscious, she’s going to really struggle, so someone(s) better really hold her down, you know? Overall, if the cast loosen up a bit when it comes to physical contact, get a little rougher with each other, it will go a long way.

To give the playwright the benefit of the doubt, Dear Dead Drug Lord is not designed to be watched with a critical eye. But blur your focus enough, and who knows what you’ll feel? Evocative is in the whatever of the beholder.

On that score, the Garage couldn’t do a lot better with it. You don’t have to love this script for this to be an enjoyable theatrical experience.

Dear Dead Drug Lord at the Garage Theatre
Times: Thursday–Saturday 8:00 p.m.
The show runs through April 4.
Cost: $23–$28 (Thursdays 2-for-1); closing night w/afterparty: $40
Details: thegaragetheatre.org
Venue: The Garage Theatre, 251 E. 7th St., Long Beach