Theatre Review: Dorothea Puenta Tells All! With Big Idea Theatre

By TJ Fassler

Wow! I had no idea what to expect except being told it was a good show and left in amazement of a story I should be more familiar with as a Sacramento native and in awe of even more wonderfully talented local performers. The quick and gritty is that I HIGHLY recommend catching this show. It is unfortunately sold out for its run, but I just went hoping to get in today and at least 4 of us that didn’t have tickets were able to. It’s worth the risk and they might even add more performances.

I don’t want to go into too many plot details, but the key elements to know is that it is a dark comedy about a tragic reality of multiple deaths in Sacramento by a very narcissistic, calculating, but also very charismatic figure, one you’d least suspect. The convention is that she has come back to give her side of the tale since she didn’t at her own trial. The show clips along quickly with incredible moments of humor and just as strong moments of grief and sorrow. There are some fun storytelling elements that are leaned into since it isn’t meant to be a realistic recreation of events.

The entire cast was very strong. Jose Angulo plays an early figure in Dorothea’s story (not necessarily her life) in which Muneco De Oro gives her an outlet to gain esteem and notoriety and also provides an early highlight into the darkness that Dorothea may be hiding. Michael Sicilia played a couple roles that both allowed the audience to feel like people were noticing cracks in her facade, but still accepted her due to her overwhelming charm. Michaela Noel played Ximena who served as a constant humanizing presence for Dorothea with her efforts to help her, but Michaela also delivered one of many powerful monologues in the show in which she works through the reality of benefitting personally from someone that has done such terrible things to others.
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Joel Mario Rickert played the detective in the show, and deftly served to sometimes frustrate the audience when it seems so obvious to us, but is also limited by legal parameters. He also had multiple moments where he character is the one to remind us of some of the facts of the case as they are discovered. Lauren Graffigna played Carol and helped represent the notion of it taking time to digest the possibility of bad actions by Dorothea when all personal encounters would point to the opposite. She was pushed to that reality by Pat Morris, played by Selina Bender, who serves both as a driving force for the victims both in plot and in speaking their names, as well as seemingly Dorothea’s guilty conscience manifesting itself in her storytelling. Two of the victims were Helena, played by Shirley Sayers, and Bert, played by Robert Espinosa. Both were able to very quickly humanize their characters and bring a light and life to them, and just as strongly (and painfully) demonstrate their decline, abuse, and exploitation by Dorothea.

And with that, Dorothea herself. Janis Stevens gave what is one of my favorite individual performances I have seen live. The character was multi-faceted, believable, understandable, yet also undeniably broken. Even in the moments where Dorothea seemed to be altruistic in action, it was clear that she was narcissistic by nature. Yet she was captivating, as the real Dorothea Puenta absolutely had to be in order to do what she did, use who she used, and get away with it for the time she did. Beyond the personality characteristics of Dorothea, Janis brought her to life with her physicality, expressions, and such a wonderful ebb and flow of energy. She reacted to the other characters in a multitude of ways, very much like her character would attest, in the ways they needed. It was genuinely a masterclass of a performance amid a show full of other excellent performances, an engaging tale, and sublime production and direction.

It has to be clear how much I enjoyed the show and recommend making an extra effort to see, however you are able. The show is currently running until November 1 (unless extended). Tickets and info at: https://bigideatheatre.ludus.com/index.php?sections=events

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