By Julio Martinez
The Ballad Of The Bimini Baths: Mexican Day opens at 4pm on Saturday, May 26th
Award-winning playwright/historian Tom Jacobson has created a trilogy of plays to be simultaneously produced by three Los Angeles theatre companies, chronicling the history of the Bimini Baths. From 1902 to 1951 Bimini Baths was the premiere hot springs resort in the city of angels, serving everyone from movie stars to maids. Admission was just 25 cents, but only if you were white. A tragedy to triumph epic, this new play trilogy (Plunge, Tar, and Mexican Day) traces 50 years of social change in Los Angeles.
“Los Angeles history is underexplored,” says Jacobson. “The core of all three plays is based in absolute truth, examining conflicts related to race, gender and sexuality. Although elements are fictionalized, four of the characters in the trilogy were real people strongly represented in the historical record. I was able to use the actual writing of Hisaye Yamamoto, Bayard Rustin and Everett Maxell as inspiration for those characters, some of whom appear in more than just one play in this trilogy. In 1948, Los Angeles Tribune reporter Hisaye Yamamoto put her job at risk when she joined forces with civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin to desegregate Bimini Baths.”
The main character of the trilogy The Ballad of Bimini Baths is Zenobio Remedios, who first appears in the play Plunge as an adolescent in 1916. His family is from Oaxaca, but Zeno was born in Los Angeles. After serving in World War Two, Zeno returns to Bimini Baths, defending the Baths’ policy of racial exclusivity against the sit-in protest of Hisaye Yamamoto and Bayard Rustin. “People of color are only permitted once a month on Mexican Day, the title of the third play,” says Jacobson. “Zeno eventually joins forces with Hisaye and Bayard Rustin to desegregate the Baths to make every day, Mexican day.”
Directed by Jeff Liu, the cast of Mexican Day includes Darrell Larson (as Everett Maxwell), Jully Lee (as Hisaye Yamamoto), Jonathan Medina (as Zenobio Remedios), and Donathan Walters (as Bayard Rustin).
The Ballad Of The Bimini Baths: Mexican Day by Tom Jacobson opens at 4pm on Saturday, May 26th and runs at 8pm on Fridays and Sundays, 4pm on Saturdays through July 1, 2018. Pay-What–You-Want on Friday, June 1 ($5 minimum starts 7pm, at box office only). Rogue Machine is located in The Met, 1089 N Oxford Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90029. Tickets are $40.Reservations: 855-585-5185 or at www.roguemachinetheatre.com. Mexican Day is part of a trilogy, Plunge, running simultaneously at Son of Semele Theater, 3301 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90004, and Tar at Playwrights’ Arena in Atwater Village Theatre Complex, 3269 Casitas Ave. LA, CA 90039. Trilogy reservations: http://www.biminitrilogy.com.
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