‘Guac’ review: A heart-wrenching case for gun reform

The image of a grieving parent is a frequent occurrence on the dramatic stage. Euripides, whom Aristotle called “the most tragic of poets,” returns to the figure of the grief-stricken parent in Hecuba, Hippolytus, and The Bacchae, to give just a few scattered examples of characters brought to their knees by the death of their child.

Shakespeare offers what has become the defining portrait of this disconsolate experience in King Lear. Taking the lifeless body of his murdered daughter in his arms, Lear can do nothing but repeat the word “never” five times, and this repetition proves the irrevocable nature of the loss.

In tragedies, the protagonist is often tormented by guilt for his role, no matter how unintentional or inevitable, in the disaster that befell his loved one. Theseus in Hippolytus and Agave in The Bacchae have reason to feel that they have blood on their hands. Lear, although he has “sinned more than he has sinned,” only after it is too late does he realize the error of judgment that has led to devastation from which there can be no return.

What's different from Guac, a one-man show at the Kirk Douglas Theater, is that Manuel Oliver doesn't just play a grieving father. He's alone.

Oliver's 17-year-old son, Joaquin, known to family and friends as Guac, was one of the 17 killed in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The play, written and performed by Oliver, turns parents' grief into activist theater.

Guac, co-written by James Clements and directed by Michael Cauty, tells the story of Joaquin's short but powerful life to audiences across the country. Oliver didn't just love his son. He liked it. Guac was his best friend. He was also his trusted guide to American culture.

A family of Venezuelan immigrants began a new life in a country that Guac helped them feel like home. To convey the meaning of Guac's life, Oliver introduces his family members through a series of photographs that he turned into works of art.

The last photograph that continues to stare back at us throughout the performance is Guac. Oliver continues to improve the portrait. By adding luxury to the background and adjusting his son's clothes, he tells us about the life they shared before it was tragically stolen.

Manuel Oliver works on a portrait of his late son in Guac.

(Donna F. Aceto)

The tragedy is absolutely real. Oliver takes on this burden, turning his grief into fuel for activism. With the heartbreaking eloquence of a father whose life changed forever after dropping his son off at school on Valentine's Day, which started out so promisingly, the play makes the case for stricter gun laws in America.

What happened to Joaquin could happen to any of us, anytime, anywhere in a country that has allowed elected officials to evade accountability for their repeated failure to pass common sense gun laws. While receiving money from the NRA, these cynical politicians are offering empty “thoughts and prayers” instead of meaningful reform. As a result, no one can go anywhere in a public place without looking at emergency exits and scanning the crowd for danger.

Oliver is not a brilliant theater professional. He is first and foremost a father. But it's his comfortable ordinariness that allows him to make such a powerful connection with his audience. He is on stage, but he may well exchange a few neighborly words with us on our street.

Oliver calls his son, joyfully recalling his virtuoso air guitar playing. Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Free Bird” reverberates throughout Douglas as he brings the portrait to life with passionate brushstrokes. Guac's T-shirt has the added words “I wish I was here” and it's a feeling we all heartily and painfully share as Oliver brings his wife Patricia onto the stage that has urgently become an extension of our national reality.

In Joaquin's honor, the couple founded Change the Ref, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of mass shootings and empowering the next generation of activists through “creativity, activism, disruption and education.” Guac is a shining example of what can be done after a tragedy that is no longer unthinkable.