The Other Americans – 21 September 2025

The Other Americans tells a story of heartbreak as a son’s mental illness tears apart a family held together on a foundation of lies. The play shows the unraveling of Nelson (John Leguizamo) and his wife, Patti (Luna Lauren Velez)’s relationship when they take opposite approaches to their son, Nick (Trey Santiago-Hudson)’s return from ten months in a psychiatric facility. While Nick’s sister, Toni (Rebecca Jimenez) is willing to take it slow and be part of Nick’s process, his parents have their own styles of trying to force Nick to be okay. Whether or not it’s okay to talk about the assault that triggered Nick’s PTSD becomes a point of contention between his parents, which ultimately leads Nick to abruptly end his life as he loses sight of the hope and best practices he acquired in the hospital.

The Other Americans tells a story that could happen to any American family through a specifically Latin American lens. John Leguizamo’s script is full of Spanish phrases to normalize the idea that mental illness sweeps all demographics. The family seems at first to be bound together by love—dancing together, teasing each other, and sharing businesses. Yet all of the love unravels when Nelson’s pride in his laundromats and deal-making acumen supersedes upholding his son’s honor and his desire to be honest with his wife. For her part, Patti went from loving to leaving far too quickly. The play had a lot of exposition leading up to Nick’s arrival home in which the love between Patti and Nelson developed, but it shattered in an instant that could have kept them united. Structurally, the ending felt very abrupt, and it was performed at a different pace than the rest of the show. Characters who had lived in places of uncertainty jumped to surety and stopped hearing each other.

There was a side plot regarding Toni and her fiancé Eddie (Bradley James Tejeda), who were trying to leave a household that always saw them as second best. They were going to take an adventure to Los Angeles to open a dry cleaning business after working for Norma (Rosa Evangenlina Arrendondo), who is Nelson’s sister. This side plot gave Toni a more fleshed out role, but it didn’t seem (strictly speaking) necessary to the structure of the play as a whole, other than showing a large family. I wasn’t sure I understood the purpose of Veronica (Sarah Nina Hayon)’s character at all—Veronica was a pregnant family friend who was in a couple of scenes but never had a truly defined purpose. It seemed as though John Leguizamo either wanted the story to affect a broader community or was shying away from fully exploring the depths of mental illness. Nick’s story was barely developed—we knew that he got anxious when people touched him and that he occasionally had angry outbursts of vitriolic complaints, somehow connected to flashbacks from an assault when he was in high school. We didn’t get to know him; perhaps his family didn’t either.

Scenic (Arnulfo Maldonado), lighting (Jen Schriever), costumes (Kara Harmon), and sound (Justin Ellington) all did really beautiful work bringing these characters and this household to life. The detail in each design element was striking, including props (Natalie Carney), and hair and wigs (Anika Seitu). At the end of the day, despite the Latin flair in the music and the casting, The Other Americans felt very universal in portraying a family that tried so hard not to let each other down that they inadvertently let each other down. It is a timeless story told with different people, simultaneously dramatizing and normalizing what it means for parents to bury a child and lose faith in each other. It is a bold effort to bring people together by pointing out their similarities while celebrating their differences.

I attended this performance on a press pass from The Public Theater Press Team.