KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “A Driving Beat” by Jordan Ramirez Puckett, directed by Jeffrey Lo, at TheatreWorks Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts Second Stage through November 23, 2025.

TEXT OF REVIEW

​​​​​The nature of identity puzzles all of us. Who are we exactly? Are we ourselves, or the tribe to which we belong? Are you a Jew if you don’t believe in the religion? Or better yet, are you Latino if you’ve been raised in a white foster home, and live in a neighborhood with no people from your tribe?

That last question is the reason why fourteen year old Mateo wants to go on a road trip, in the world premiere play A Driving Beat by Jordan Ramirez Puckett at TheatreWorks Mountain View through November 23rd.

Mateo, we learn as the play unfolds, has been bullied by his white classmates and now he wants to go on a road trip with his mom, traveling from Ohio to the hospital in San Diego where he was adopted shortly after his birth. Who am I, he asks. If I’m going to be bullied, the least I can do is learn about my heritage.

A Driving Beat takes us on that road trip, and as the play goes on, we learn more and more about Mateo, and more specifically about his mom, Diane, and her grief and pain as they make the long journey across the continent. Mateo’s use of hip hop to communicate his inner thoughts makes perfect sense in terms of both pacing and context.

A Driving Beat uses a thrust stage similar to the one at the now closed Aurora Theatre, creating an intimacy that serves the play well, even if director Jeffrey Lo doesn’t quite understand the auditory drawbacks of dialogues in which one character’s back is to a third of the audience for long stretches.

Jon Viktor Corpuz does the impossible in making Mateo actually feel fourteen years old, and Lee Ann Payne as his mother Diane, and Livia Gomes Demarchi in several different roles all keep it interesting even through the lulls in the script, when small talk requires emotional truthfulness. But there are issues. A lesbian subplot feels gratuitous. Information is doled out slowly, creating unnecessary mysteries that detract from the events on stage. As a two or three hander, A Driving Beat sometimes feels like an inconsequential addition to the TheatreWorks repertoire. But a scene involving a citizenship search in Texas resonates in ways far greater than the playwright intended.

And the final scenes, in which all is revealed, bring A Driving Beat to both a surprising and satisfying end.

A Driving Beat by Jordan Ramirez Puckett, directed by Jeffrey Lo, plays at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts Second Stage through November 23rd. For more information you can go to theatreworks.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area Theatre for KPFA.

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