In a fleeting moment but one that will last forever, Manuel Oliver found out that his 17-year-old son was shot dead, one of the 17 people killed on Valentine’s Day, 2018 at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The next year, Oliver began performing “Guac,” a solo show about his son that has just finished its latest run as the inaugural production of The People’s Theatre: Centro Cultural Inmigrante. The pairing was inspired, a thrilling example of how theater itself can be both fleeting and forever.

Neither “Guac” nor The People’s Theatre are new. The theater company has been around since 2009; this is its 18th season. What’s new is its venue, a permanent home located on the bottom two floors of the newly built Miramar, a massive residential apartment building one block away from the 207th Street station of the number 1 subway line in Inwood. The brightly decorated theater features two flexible performance spaces, including one that can seat as many as 208 theatergoers, as well as rehearsal studios, sound-proof practice rooms, a café, and a community space that winds through both levels, dubbed the Rampatorium. During the run of “Guac,” the Rampatorium filled with bold breathtaking art installations and interactive exhibitions curated by Change The Ref, the gun control campaign that Manuel and his wife Patricia founded just weeks after the mass shooting.

Even before he began performing “Guac,”  Oliver, an immigrant from Venezuela who worked as a corporate creative director, had become a full-time activist, quitting his job and his career the day he learned of his son’s death. It’s not wrong to call “Guac” an outgrowth of his activism, but that might leave a misleading impression. The play is surprisingly entertaining. Manuel Oliver is lively, often outright amusing.

A year ago, when he was performing the show in California, a reviewer noted his “comfortable ordinariness,” and wrote that Oliver was not  “a polished theatrical professional. He’s a dad, first and foremost.” 

If the implication is that he was stiff or awkward as a performer, maybe he was having an off night when the critic saw him, or maybe he’s achieved a breakthrough seven years after the show’s debut. On the night I saw him, Manuel Oliver was a master showman.  I’ve rarely seen a more polished performance.  Yes, his approach was informal, playful, chaotic. He routinely mixed Spanish and English.  He spent much of his time painting a mural. He told us to ignore the announcement to put away our cell phone (“Fuck that, you want to keep them ON. Maybe you get sick of my accent… Or maybe you want to check your Tinder account”) At one point, he borrowed a pair of glasses from an audience member to read a letter that Guac had written advocating gun control when he was 12 years old.  But it was all scripted,  and smoothly executed.

Over the 100 minutes of the show, Manny told us about his family, one by one (including the dog Banksy.) He explains that “Guac” – it was a nickname given to his son by his American friends, who couldn’t pronounce Joaquin. He talked about why the family immigrated, and how after 15 years he became an American citizen.

“There are two things I really love when you become an American citizen: Número uno, we can vote. Y número dos, I can stand up here, talking shit about our system and not get deported.” – then added “Creo. …Espero” Then: “At least that’s how it should be.”

Much of the time, Manny painted a loving portrait of Guac, both literally and verbally. “He loved Family Guy. He loved pepperoni pizza. He loved bacon. He loved soda. He really loved eating pepperoni pizza with bacon on top while drinking a soda, while watching Family Guy.”

It’s not until halfway through that we learn about that day, and its aftermath, presented with a theatricality that is startlingly inventive, and no less moving because of it.

“Guac” has been turned into a film, which will be released on February 12. But seeing “Guac” at the People’s Theatre was one of the best arguments I’ve witnessed for why live theater is essential.

“When you go through what we went through, you don’t know if you’re ever gonna be happy again,” Oliver commented ina talkback after the final performance of “Guac” at the People’s Theater with artistic director Mino Lora and Luis Miranda. “At some point, I thought, okay, I won’t be happy again, maybe, but maybe I can find a balance in my life, and I’ll be fine with that. This is the balance. I found I can still be Joaquin’s dad. I can talk about how proud I am , funny moments with him; everything.” 

For her part, Lora pointed out that “Guac” satisfied the “three pillars” on which her theater is founded – arts, education and activism. She also pointed out that two days earlier in the neighborhood, masked agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE) shot and wounded an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic, using an AR-15, the kind of weapon also used to kill Joaquin “Guac” Oliver

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