Second Stage Uptown scored big a few years ago with “Bachelorette,” which became a movie and launched the career of playwright Leslye Headland. Now the company’s unearthed another gem with Tanya Saracho’s “Mala Hierba,” a dramedy so fast-paced and involving that it’s easy to overlook the bumpy bits.
Like Headland, Saracho has experience writing for the small screen, in her case HBO’s “Girls” and “Looking.” More important, the two share a taste for female characters with big emotions and even bigger mouths.
Marta Milans (of TV’s “Killer Women”) makes an assured New York stage debut as Liliana, the Mexican-American trophy wife of the rich, much older Alberto (who remains unseen). The job’s perks are good enough to keep Liliana in their Texas “narco compound,” despite the fact that Alberto’s an abusive pig and his daughter from an earlier marriage, Fabiola (Ana Nogueira), is a horrid brat.
This delicate balance is thrown out of whack by the visit of Liliana’s childhood pal and true love, Maritza (Roberta Colindrez, late of “Fun Home”), a Chicago-based artist who exudes confident, androgynous cool.
At last, Liliana has a chance to follow her heart and rebuild her life, but she must make her decision, stat.
But luxury’s addictive — plus, as Liliana’s maid and confidante, Yuya (Sandra Marquez), points out, “You can’t go anywhere. Too many of us depend on you.”
The women are bound by love, resentment and power plays, and sometimes the melodramatic plot twists feel too obvious.
But “Mala Hierba,” competently directed by Jerry Ruiz, is never less than absorbing. The dialogue zings at full speed, and although the characters are archetypes, they also have an electric energy.
Fabiola, in particular, is a hilarious monster of narcissistic entitlement. In her mid-20s, she flaunts her generation’s worst traits, down to an idiotic tattoo on her backside. “It means ‘bulls - - t’ in Chinese,” she tells Maritza. “Or like the equivalent.”
Whatever happens to Liliana and Co., at least one woman in the bunch should have a bright future — and that’s the playwright herself.