Somos Gringos Malos, Somos Diablos Blancos (We Are Bad Gringos, We Are White Devils), Half Cocked Productions, at the Space. In writer-director Arik Martin’s plays, the characters become more insightful when reality threatens to burst at the seams. His latest work–a gritty tale of seven escaped convicts hiding out in a villa just across the Mexican border–owes its lifeblood to Sam Shepard’s Buried Child. Like Shepard, Martin understands that naturalism is more intriguing if given a few twists, and he’s hell-bent on reestablishing high standards for apposite antiheroes, who had their heyday in 1970s antiauthoritarian art. In this play, Martin takes a murder-mystery scenario and turns it inside out, nimbly crafting characters whose actions are fairly straightforward until the end, when their motives become less clear rather than more.
