Making sancocho, a Latin American stew, requires plenty of physical labor. Corn must be shucked. Yuca must be chopped. Peppers, onions and broth must be added at the right times.
And then there’s the waiting. Sancocho requires patience.
Luckily the play “Sancocho,” Christin Eve Cato’s simmering family drama based around the dish, needs neither labor nor patience on the part of the audience. Its tender, realistic approach to topics like intergenerational trauma and unconditional love gives rise to a complex flavor profile that allows it to transcend the baggage of being a “family drama” in the first place.
“Only someone who has a connection to these root vegetables is willing to understand the work,” Cato wrote in the show’s program notes. “It’s an ultimate symbol of love and survival.”
The play, which runs at Geva Theatre through November 23, primarily concerns those two topics and how they inevitably mingle even when secrets, betrayals and indiscretions seem to put them at odds. As the play’s only characters, Puerto Rican sisters Renata and Caridad, circle a conversation about their dying father throughout the 100-minute runtime, they stay busy with their hands. The sancocho they prepare sits on a stove for the entirety of the action, filling the theater with a warm, rich aroma.
Like Colman Domingo’s “DOT,” which Blackfriars Theatre staged in 2024, “Sancocho” centers a kitchen table and the various secrets and insecurities unspooled there. But unlike “DOT,” “Sancocho” rests entirely on the weight of its dual anchors: sisters from different generations and tax brackets who love each other despite vastly different experiences.
Younger sister Renata (played by Ashley Alvarez) balances a law career with the impending birth of her first child, as well as the duty of caring for the family’s ailing patriarch. Elder sister Caridad (played by Cindy Peralta), meanwhile, spends much of the play wielding a knife — for cutting through both tough root vegetables and her sister’s bullshit — while embodying the complex emotional palette at the heart of the text.
Peralta is both light on her feet (especially during an unexpected salsa dance number) and visibly burdened by the weight of her family. In character, she makes a home so lived in with both love and grief — not to mention the sancocho — that it’s easy to want to stick around long after the end of the show to grab a bowl and hear a few more stories.
As the more idealistic Renata, the bright Alvarez creates plenty of internal conflict via the many times she shifts a wide smile into a furrowed brow. Both performances are distinct and wonderful, especially considering each character’s respective balancing acts. How does one convey strength and vulnerability?
“Sancocho” is a gripping show. The unseen familial characters feel just as lived-in as Renata and Caridad, thanks to their conversations. There’s a set of far-from-perfect parents whose failings are bemoaned even as reconciliation attempts waft up like steam from a stew pot. There are husbands and children, distant possible relations and departed abuelas.
As much as “Sancocho” is about healing, it likewise presents opportunities for examination. Parents might’ve done their best or they may have failed as protectors. Children grow up trying to avoid those mistakes — and then maybe make them anyway with their own kids. Terms like “gaslighting” and the concept of being “triggered” are mentioned, with the requisite amount of sincerity (and mild skepticism) that characterizes this kind of sisterly dynamic.
To that end, profanity is used frequently, which is fine and fitting, but occasionally it’s deployed less than convincingly. This may be an issue with the dialogue more than the performers. Frankly, it might be the only issue with the play.
Cato’s work is thoughtful, wrangling several big ideas into a show that maintains a coziness throughout difficult conversations with no intermission. Alvarez and Peralta essentially complete an emotional half-marathon during the performance, making their grace and honesty even more impressive.
The scents of garlic, cilantro and bouillon that dance in the air seem to symbolize the spirits evoked by these two performers in Cato’s story. They’re patient. They labor. And they survive.
“Sancocho” runs through November 23 at Geva Theatre. Ticket information and show schedule is available here.
sancocho was excellent and the two performers were a subtle but genuine tour de force. real lives matter.