LA Times

Immigration debate takes to L.A. stages

Like In the new 'Detained in the Desert' and the old 'La Victima,' the plays revolve around current and historic views on undocumented workers and residents and their experiences in the U.S.

Dying of thirst and stripped to their underwear, the headstrong Latina and the immigrant-bashing talk-radio host are staggering through the northern Mexican desert. How they got there is a story of karmic comuppance involving a brutal kidnapping, a vicious hate crime, a romantic betreayal and the unappeased ghosts of guilt and shame that haunt both characters.

Like trails in a dusty landscape, those narrative lines converge in Josefina Lopez's two-act satirical drama "Detained in the Desert," which opens Friday at the tiny Casa 0101 theater in Boyle Heights.

Set in summer 2010, "Detained" derives much of its passionate point of view from America's current immigration debate, including the fierce polemics surrounding Arizona's pending immigration-related statute...more