Set in the central valleys of California in the 1930s, the play focuses on Magno Rubio, an illiterate Filipino farm worker and his pen-pal courtship with Clarabelle, a white woman from Arkansas who advertises in the back pages of a "lonely hearts" magazine. Believing he's found the woman of his dreams, Magno fantasizes about their life together, only to soon realize that reality and dreams do not always align. "If the Rainbow Coalition had a playwrights' wing, Lonnie Carter would be a leading candidate to chair it."-Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times "The high-priest of multicultural hiphop, Lonnie Carter, brought his übertheatricality to a movingly simple story of Filipino migrant workers scratching their way toward love and self-worth." -Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune "There may be no bouquets of flowers or Michel Legrand love songs in THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO, but this unusual eighty minute fable ... has much to say about the world's most delicate emotion. Playwright Lonnie Carter uses an intriguing mixture of verse, music and dialogue." -Brian Scott Lipton, The New York Post "The play is virtually musical. Lonnie Carter's text throbs with rhyme and rhythm." -Don Shirley, The Los Angeles Times "THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO is one of those theatrical gems that heals your heart even as it breaks it. A magnificent piece of deeply humanistic storytelling ... This is the tall tale of a man who may be small in stature and worldly goods, but is gigantic in his ability to believe in himself and his dreams - or at least in his ability to keep self-delusion alive. It is classic in its outline. But it is distinctive in the way Carter's lyrical yet powerfully rhythmic language (English laced with bursts of Tagalog, a Filipino language) melds sounds and cultures." -Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times "One of the best off-Broadway plays of the season." -New York Times "A beautifully conceived fable." -Variety
