72 Miles to Go . . .
Written by Hilary Bettis
Directed by Jo Bonney
Roundabout Theatre Company
Laura Pels Theatre
March 8, 2020
Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.

I really wanted to love this play; I really did.  I was thinking it was time for a good play to really deal with the DACA debate and the personal stories of those who are living through the experience and the fear.

72 Miles to Go . . follows a splintered family over 10 years of strength, struggle and love, as they face the profoundly personal drama of immigration.   Seventy-two miles. That’s the space between Nogales, Mexico and Tucson, Arizona—and the world of distance that separates a mother at a shelter and her American-born husband and children.

The play began with a most engaging “sermon” by our father in the story as he worked as a Unitarian minister in Tucson.  He reminded of us of the preciousness of family and the valuing of very little moment.  We then met his family and were told that their mother is missing from the family picture because she was picked up for being an “illegal immigrant.  now the family is separated by those 72 miles to the border and all interactions now are limited to infrequent visits and lots of conference calls on their mobile phone.  Proms and graduations were going to be missed.  Sons were going to go out without their mother’s love and guidance.

My favorite scene in the play was an anniversary dinner between husband and wife separated by those 72 miles as they each had a separate meal and shared with the time by conference call – they even had a touching dance at the end, the husband dancing with his tiny phone.

I wanted to love this play – but noted in the final moments in the story when they set about saving the son from deportation by extreme and dangerous means, I just didn’t feel anything.  I looked around the audience fully expecting my fellow audience members, or at least some, to be in tears, at this separation of mother and son – but no tears were found.  The problem may be in the play being so overwhelmed by dialogue that we never experienced much in silence.  It may be that the characters just didn’t click: the young b oy just “played” at being young and the older son just pushed a bit too much – perhaps because he was just starting previews and felt a bit untested in the role.

I wanted to be moved.  I just wasn’t.