Don't Eat The Mangos Reviews

The Boston Globe - Highly Recommended

"...The Huntington cast delivers strong performances all around, especially considering that they have to juggle the play’s contrasting elements as it moves from comedy to horror and back to comedy and then…"

WBUR - Highly Recommended

"...Directed by David Mendizábal, the cast and creative team succeed at making “Don’t Eat the Mangos” a story full of laughter that sharply pivots into horror and back again. As the sisters reminisce and try to remember the words to a tune Ismelda used to sing to them growing up, their bond disarms. I forgot to steel myself for what’s to come. When old wounds are revealed so casually, it left me reeling."

Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended

"...Ricardo Pérez González’s Don’t Eat the Mangos—a tragicomedy brimming with revelation, rage, and retribution—transforms the Calderwood stage into a site of reckoning. Directed by David Mendizábel, this gripping family drama unfurls within the walls of a Puerto Rican home, where three adult sisters contend with the burdens of caregiving, long-held grievances, and the unspoken histories that have shaped them."

The Arts Fuse - Highly Recommended

"...Richardo Pérez González’s powerful one-act play teeters between the tragic and comedic. The play explores a family long burdened by hidden secrets, now reaching a pivotal moment where they must reclaim the matriarchal force that has been denied them for too long. But it is rightfully theirs to claim. Under David Mendizábal’s insightful direction, the cast skillfully channels this force, culminating in a powerful revelation. It can no longer be held back. And, when that liberating exhalation arrives at the script’s dénouement, it comes with a brute force that knocks us back in our seats. It involves a one-two punch that invites us to witness a shattering of the roles of inherited cultural repression and superstition. At the final curtain, we asked to be witnesses at a scene of healing and transformation."

The Sleepless Critic - Highly Recommended

"...With stirring direction by David Mendizabal, The Huntington continues Ricardo Perez Gonzalez's tragicomedy Don't Eat the Mangoes live and in person at Calderwood Pavilion in Boston Massachusetts through Sunday, April 27. This bilingual production contains strong language, adult content and runs 1 hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. Though the production mostly delivered in English, you may enjoy it more thoroughly if you are familiar with Spanish. Click here for more information and for tickets."

The New England Theatre Geek - Recommended

"...Don't Eat the Mangos, like many plays, has many themes. Puerto Rican political ambiguity is one of them. Domestic violence is another. There are layers of PTSD worked into Ricardo Perez Gonzalez's play. Director David Mendizabal enhances it through equally as layered character work and ominous staging: A bell rings in the first 20 minutes of the play, and the family stops what it is doing. The bell rings again, and the family shares a tense look. It's the kind of look a spooked family shares when it knows emotional unrest is nigh. We don't know why the bell has meaning, but we aren't keen to find out."