It is the plight of the employee. You have plans, important plans, and right as everything falls into place, your boss looks you in the eye and requests “a favor of you.”
In Lisa Loomer’s play, “Living Out,” the lines between employer and friend and their respective obligations are twisted and contorted until everyone involved is scarred in some way.
Nancy, a new mother and Hollywood entertainment lawyer, received that call. The vague concept of family and its importance was only beginning to coalesce in this woman’s mind so leaving her baby son with a caregiver (she finds the word nanny too “British”) one more night would be tolerable. After all, the nanny had essentially raised the child alone for eight months.
The role of Nancy is played by Laurie Gambero, a guidance counselor at Clovis East High School. Gombero described Nancy, “She tries to do good but she’s still a little snobby and stuck up you know…fake,”
In the play, Nancy and her husband, both lawyers (but he is more the ACLU type), have recently moved into an expensive house and are forced to both work to pay the mortgage. The baby strains the relationship providing them with the first problem it cannot throw money at and make better. They resolve to Band-Aid the problem with Ana, the nanny.
Ana is a bright young mother of two and an undocumented El Salvadoran immigrant.
She came to the United States and left her eldest son in El Salvador with his Grandmother. Her plan was for her husband to gain citizenship as soon as possible which would make reuniting the family possible.
Unfortunately, once Nancy hires Ana, she finds her valiant effort to better her family has only caught her in a work/sleep cycle painfully reminiscent of Nancy’s “motherhood.”
Santiago is her youngest son who was born in the U.S. He loves to play soccer but unfortunately is asthmatic. When Ana begins work her husband is forced to take Santiago to and from soccer. Ana’s 18-year-old sister-in-law whose driving she does not trust is the last resort if her husband cannot go.
The role of Ana was played by Laura Castro, a second-year Linguistics major. After taking a break from theatre for a year, she decided to join the play. “I felt rusty…you always feel like you’re doing a crappy job and when it’s over, it was fine,” she said.
It is her first show since highschool and now Castro is playing the lead. “There is a lot of pressure, you sort of feel like the weight of the play is on your shoulders,” she said.
When Nancy obliged to work on the day she knew Ana had previously requested off (so she could finally get to see her son play soccer), the burden was shifted to Ana. Indeed, Ana was now sitting in the hot seat Nancy was in earlier, only Ana had a soccer game to attend.
Nancy began throwing out incentives meant to entice employees: a bonus, a different day off, etc.
What she did not understand was the fact that Ana had her own motherly responsibilities to attend to; Ana had lied about both of her sons living in El Salvador to make herself seem more hirable.
And then Nancy shot the poison arrow, the sole set of words that would get Ana to ignore every instinct in her body and work overtime: “Can I ask this of you, as a friend?”
