MOTHER OF EXILES BAFFLES AT BERKELEY REP

Jessica Huang’s world premiere Mother of Exiles has posted a closing date of December 21. The lengthy run may not be a blessing for a disjointed production said to have been in re-writes up to the night before the opener.

Michele Selene Ang

On a simple two-level set that takes advantage of a turntable floor, we meet Eddie Loi (Michele Selene Ang), a Chinese immigrant held in San Francisco Bay’s Angel Island in 1898. Pregnant, she’s arrived disguised as a man, and is being held by immigration officials until she can be put on the next ship back to China. The waiting period consumes several months, long enough for Eddie to give birth. She hands over her newborn to Tata (Camila Moreno), a Latina worker who speaks little English.

FCamila Moreno and Michele Selene AngRicardo Vázquez and Michele Selene Ang

Fast-forward to Miami, Florida, 1999, where a rowdy bunch of US Border Patrol agents cajole each other about hitting a karaoke bar after work. Newbie agent Braulio Loi (Ricardo Vazquez) flirts with a Cuban refugee girl named Claudia (also Moreno) who has an infant. He succeeds at hiding them from his comrades, including “Sarge” (Monica Orozco), who does a deadly impression of tough-talking glamorpuss Kristi Noem, current head of the US Department of Homeland Security.

Emma Kikue and David MasonCamila Moreno and Ricardo Vázquez

Braulio is also the object of affection by Border Patrol teammate Sophia (Emma Kikue), who tries to seduce him, aggressively but unsuccessfully. He also takes an ungodly amount of razzing from another teammate Mick (David Mason), who won’t relent until Braulio agrees to do karaoke when their shift is over. The whole setup is quite funny and with some revisions would make a great Saturday Night Live sketch.

(front) David Mason and Monica Orozco (back) Michele Selene Ang and Ricardo Vázquez

Fast-forward again to 2063, where we meet a family in a sailboat somewhere in the Caribbean. Miami has been destroyed, as has Cuba—from an unnamed ecological disaster or global war, the cause never specified. The father and his wife have onboard their daughter, with an infant of her own. They hope to reach South America, but their navigation system is unreliable and they have only enough water and supplies to last eight days for a projected eleven-day journey. Crisis!

Emma Kikue

All three acts include the interdiction by benevolent ancestors, who observe  each scene from above—an acknowledgement by the playwright of the importance of family history in both Asian and Latin cultures. Each act also includes a single mother with a newborn, all of them in dire straits. That’s the through-line tying three otherwise unrelated acts together.

Ricardo Vázquez and Michele Selene Ang

Mother of Exile contains some interesting concepts but is basically a muddle. It’s a production that doesn’t know what it wants to be—a piece of plausible historical fiction, a raucous comedy, or an apocalyptic suspense story. It’s a three-act sandwich whose ingredients don’t go well together despite the playwright’s best intentions and the admirable efforts of veteran performers. Each of the three acts could and should be expanded into separate plays, but they don’t belong together. There are some redeeming aspects, however: immersive sound design by Jake Rodriguez is tremendous, especially in the third act, and projections by Nicholas Hussong are superb.

(front) Monica Orozco, David Mason, and Emma Kikue
(back) Ricardo Vázquez and Michele Selene Ang

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photos by Kevin Berne

Mother of Exiles
Berkeley Repertory Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St.
ends on December 21, 2025
for tickets ($25-$158), visit

Info: berkeleyrep.org/shows

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Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: barry.m.willis@gmail.com