Bees & Honey
Guadalís Del Carmen
Marin Theatre Company
“Love me as I love you,
Give me your love beyond measure,
Find me like a bee to a honeycomb,
Long live the honey of my life!”
Inspired by this chorus from “Como Abeja al Panal” (“Like a Bee to a Honeycomb”) by the Latin song writer Juan Luis Guerra, Guadalís Del Carmen has penned a sweet-and-sour, slice-of-life play about the romantic journey of one couple living in the Dominican Diaspora of Washington Heights, New York. Via a rollercoaster mixture of charm and comedy, electricity and eroticism, twists and tragedies, Bees & Honey follows a couple from the moments of first club-sighting, first body-to-body dance, and first long-and-hard kiss through the sweet joys, the day-to-day realities, and the harsh challenges of married life. In its West Coast premiere by Marin Theatre Company, the near-twenty short scenes of Bees & Honey are a mildly enjoyable, somewhat predictable history of the inevitable ups and downs that follow this couple’s initial “I do’s.”
On the surface, Johaira and Manuel are the most unlikely of couples to get beyond that first drink and dance at the local club. She is a summa cum laude college graduate who then starred in law school and is now the first Dominica to have a chance soon to be named a Deputy Chief Prosecutor. He owns a car-repair shop and regularly hits the clubs with his neighborhood chums looking for hook-ups with hot women. But something palpable happens when their eyes meet as he hangs “with his boys” and she enters “with her girls.” That initial attraction is sealed into the real deal when the two dance to the bachata rhythms playing – a sensual genre of Dominican Republic music that all but requires dancing with bodies touching and hips moving in total sync.
Soon the two are setting up household in an apartment, with our most often seeing them as they begin and end their respective days at work. The initial, magnetic draw between the two is fun and even hot to watch – as ably directed by Karina Gutiérrez – as in one scene where Manuel tempts Johaira toward the bedroom keeping her an inch or two away from a needed, desperately wanted kiss. They are each impressively understanding and supportive of the other’s outside pressures – she has a major, sexual abuse case to prosecute in court while he is obtaining a loan to open a new shop in the Bronx. Their life is at first much like watching a sexy, romcom with Dominican-born music occasionally playing in the background.
But a frozen-action scene where the music is “Strangers in the Night” with the two at opposite sides of the room, their backs facing the other, is a first, not-at-all-subtle warning that even the big hug and all smiles that follow are not going to be enough to keep the feel-good vibes totally alive. To Manuel and Johaira – just like to all married couples – life happens. Be it a difficult mother-in-law, a judge who is fraternity brothers with the defense lawyer, a skeptical banker, or just the pressures of two ambitious people trying to hold it together day after day – tensions and the room temperature of course rise.
Not far into the ninety-minute series of scenes, Bees & Honey begins to feel like a Netflix or Prime series on television. A couple of references to “The Jeffersons” reinforces this association, coupled with many scenes ending on some cliff-hanger that just begs us to hang in to see what happens next when the stage lights brighten again. The life events that occur are more and more dramatic as well as the raised-voice arguments between Manuel and Johaira; and while it is fairly easy to stay engaged, the trajectory becomes more and more obvious. The tragedies of life that occur begin to feel as “of course” events, given the nature of the TV-like sequences.
But what keeps us engaged is not so much the script but the acting of Katherine George and Jorge Lendeborg, Jr. as Johaira and Manuel, respectively. Each brings qualities easy to like and to admire, making it easier to accept and forgive the ones that are much less so. Johaira cares deeply about repairing the wrongs of the world, especially those that women must face in abusive relationships. Her driven mission above all is to seek justice for those wronged; and her passion and commitment to do so is embedded in Katherine George’s excellent depiction. At the same time, Johaira can totally unwind in the presence of her husband, challenging him in a furiously competitive video game or suddenly moving her hips in just the way she knows drives him nuts.
For his part, Jorge Lendeborg’s Manuel is a delightful mixture of a playful boy full of tease, a teen with hormones near out of control, and a young man serious about reforming his former machismo self into one more feminist-sensitive. His Manuel is also the serious, business owner who is hard-working, entrepreneurial, and visionary in regard to his future.
Their depictions enable us to care about them as their individual and mutual difficulties mount. Even as each reacts in ways difficult to approve, each has built a foundation with us that compels us to forbear the faults of the too-predictable script and to hang in to see how these two play out the non-surprising surprises of life.
Even the inconclusive ending of Guadalís Del Carmen’s Bees & Honey seems to be beckoning us, the audience, to tune in next season to see what happens to the couple we have gotten to know. Maybe if watching from our living room couch, we would be tempted to do so, given who Johaira and Manuel have come to mean to us; but as a play, the need for a “Part 2” is much less so. Their stories in the end do not do much to add new insights either about the Dominican Diaspora experience in the U.S. or what it means to travel through life together as a couple who has promised “through better and worse.”
Rating: 3 E
Bees & Honey continues through March 10, 2024, in West Coast premiere production by Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA. Tickets are available online at https://www.marintheatre.org/ , by phone Tuesday – Friday, 12-5 p.m. at 415-388-5208, or in person at the box office noon-intermission on performance days.
Photo Credits: Kevin Berne
