There must be ten plays buried in Matthew Paul Olmos's new script. The core story—about a Mexican couple confronting an American couple in a Tijuana alley—balloons out to include teens in love, a doomed pole dancer with a heart of gold, a street singer, a drug dealer, a lisping policeman, and others. Olmos also careens from genre to genre, hitting social satire, absurdist comedy, dead-serious drama, and magic realism, complete with snakes roiling in the gut. Trouble is, none of it is convincing. Director Ricardo Gutierrez brings some order to the chaos in his program note, but not in his 95-minute production for Teatro Vista. Six adept actors strain mightily to no avail. —Laura Molzahn

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