Brothers on Brothers

An Interview with playwright Rudi Goblen

By Lamar Perry, Dramaturg for littleboy/littleman

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LAMAR PERRY: Hey girl!

RUDI GOBLEN: What’s good, b?

LP: I feel like we should introduce ourselves. Like, our actual relationship and not just our literal persons, ha ha. People should understand who we are to each other. So y’all—this is THE Rudi Goblen! Esteemed playwright, b-boy, poet, dancer, dreamer, my brother, safe place, work husband, collaborator.

RG: And this is THE Lamar Perry! A great friend, brother, collaborator, confidant.

LP: Read: husband.

RG: An artist whom I love talking about art with, which is special to me. I don’t do that with a lot of people. The circle of people who I talk about art with, in terms of collaboration or can get feedback from, is a very small circle. So, when I was thinking about putting a team together of people who I know can bring a lot to the room and a lot to this production—not only the play because the play is the obvious thing, but also brighten the morale, energy and inspiration of our company throughout the process, which is important to me—I knew I wanted you to take part in it. I didn’t know if you would say yes to dramaturgy, if that would be something that you’d be interested in doing for a show, ‘cause I know that you’re a director.

LP: Meanwhile, you could ask me to do anything, and I would say yes.

RG: But the fact that you said yes was perfect. Especially after hearing you today doing your dramaturgy presentation, I was just like, yeah. It was great for everyone to see you in your element.

LP: So, I must highlight for folks this beautiful thing that you do for all artists, especially marginalized ones.

RG: What’d I do?

LP: You have this ability to see artists beyond the scope of how the industry sees them. You see people in their multiplicities, complexities, and nuance in real life and hold space for it. It’s one of the things that draws me to your work continuously.

RG: American theater always tries to like, lock down and box things up—categorize them, us. Obviously, we live in a capitalist country that tells us things should only be categorized in like one way. “Oh, we must define this. We need to know if this is a drama or a comedy or who this play belongs to. Who is the villain? Who is the person you’re supposed to love or hate?” For the work I like and the work that I like to make, that’s just not interesting to me. I’m always thinking about how I can make things as interesting and honest as possible for myself. Black and brown people don’t exist in a singular fashion. We’re expansive, b. It’s the systems that aren’t.

LP: I wanna touch on that word expansive quickly, fam, particularly as it relates to language. Tell us more about how you see language and how it’s used in this play.

RG: I’m so interested in the multiplicity of a person and life, and so that bleeds into everything I do and make. When I think about language, I’m always like, how can I create quotidian language that turns into poetic language, that turns into stylized text, that turns into rhyme, that turns into sound, that turns into music, that turns into movement. We have all these things available to us and I’m interested in utilizing them. And that’s no shade—

LP: No shade at all—

RG:—to people who see language differently. Also, I’m a poet, I’m a spoken word artist, I’m an MC. So, I always go to the theater for the words. I’m like, where are the words? What are you giving me? What are the words you are using, and how are you using them? You know? It’s just like how you quote a bar in hip-hop music. Like, “yoooooo, that line is crazy.” I want to leave the theater quoting playwrights instead of recapping plot points, and I want that for audiences too.

LP: That was me at rehearsal the other day when you made that one line change. You ATE that!

RG: Ha, ha, thanks, b. Like, I want to leave the theater quoting a line, you know?

LP: Important to say because, at times when folks encounter variations of English, or different dialects or languages, an othering can happen. You’re asking folks to lean in, which is important now more than ever, especially here in LA. Switching gears a bit, you’ve kind of assembled, like, the Avengers, both on stage and off for littleboy/littleman. How’d the roundtable get built?

RG: When I think about building a room, I’m not only thinking about casting an actor who is technically able to do the thing that we need them to do. I’m also thinking about what kind of collaborator they are in the room, how do they work with a director, how do they take a note, what kind of energy do they bring. It’s not only about bringing in different people who do everything they do well—it’s also about putting together a community that you’re going to go on this journey with for the next few months, right? So, that’s important to me. The vibe and energy are everything to me in collaboration. The second I met Nancy, I knew that we saw eye to eye in a lot of things. I knew that we were of the same tribe, we were of the same worlds. First few minutes of our first call, we busted out laughing, and that was it for me. I went to school with Marlon, and I saw the brother very early on in his journey as a student at Yale. But I knew he was talented and special and raw and natural, and that is always interesting to me. It always draws me in. I love performers that don’t feel performative. The musicians were also very important.

LP: Yoooooo, the musicians are SICK!

RG: No, for real. I knew I wanted female musicians. I also knew I wanted women of color—to be more specific, Black or Brown women to be on stage with these brothers. I’m always thinking about balance of energy. I’m like, who’s on stage? We have these two brothers who are sharing space and tension in a specific kind of energy, so I was like, how do we also balance that off with music and other bodies? What other energy do we need to bring into the space, which—sidebar—is also the reason why I was really interested in having a woman be director of this project.

LP: We love Nancy, she’s fab. But the musicians, b, ha, ha!

RD: Dee Simone is another gift. I saw her playing with Doechii on Tiny Desk, and I was like, who the—is that?! I was like, yoooooo! I’m always looking for women musicians. It’s just something that, again, I’m very interested in. I saw her then, and when the Geffen sent me a list of people to take a look at, her name was on that list and I was like, oh call her! Then we needed a female bass guitarist, and we asked her, so she introduced us to Sweets. Sweets came in for an audition, and already from her energy and from talking to her, even before we started playing, I was like, yes. Then I heard her play. I was like oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely yes! She is a special, beautiful old soul, funky, funny, present, and down to earth, you know?

LP: One of the first things I remember when we had our first conversation during the pandemic was talking about how we’re both super interested in—I don’t think we used this word, but in decolonizing theater practice. As you think about this marriage of hip-hop, of dance, of poetry, and heightened language that you meld into your work—what brings you to it? This blending of form and tradition, which is an act of decolonization—how did you come to learn to practice it?

RG: Thank you for that question. A couple of things come to mind—I came to theater by way of all those things. Before I found theater, I was an MC, I was a poet, I was a spoken word artist, I was a street performer, I was a b-boy, and a musician. I worked in burlesque, cabaret nightclubs, and with a bizarre performance troupe in the nightclub scene. So, when I found theater, I was like, “Oh, I can do all the things that I love to do in one space.” I was lucky enough to meet somebody who thought the same thing and felt the same thing, who was Teo Castellanos. He let me into his company called D-Projects, which I’m still in to this day, and I learned under him. He was like, “This is Ntozake Shange, this is Joseph Campbell, this is Butoh, this is Kabuki.” And, and, and. He just poured into us with everything he had and is, on top of all the stuff that we were already doing. So, he was like, we’re going to mix these forms. In our first show, Scratch & Burn, a show that was in response to the war in Iraq which he called a peace ritual dance theater piece, we had Haka, Butoh, Breaking, Beatboxing, African drumming, Buddhist flags floating in the air. And it all felt right.

That’s how I learned to make theater. That’s how I learned to make my solo work. What was so exciting for me about theater was that I could do all the things that I know how to do and put them in one space. So, I try to pull from all the tools I have available to me. And honestly, I try to also just create things that I want to do. I’m a performer, I’m an actor. I was like, what do I want to see and what would I want to be in? And littleboy/littleman was one of those things.

LP: I think I forget how many lives you lived, girl. How did your training then impact your work as you became a professional in theater?

RG: When I got more into the regional theater world and I realized how racist, classist, elitist, and bland it was, it felt flat to me. It didn’t feel exciting. I started realizing that like, all the shows started the same way. All the shows ended the same way. All the shows moved in the same way. They’re about the same people. The characters all talk the same. There were all these respectability politics that existed within just being an audience member. You can’t sit, you can’t stand, you can’t eat, you can’t laugh, or you can’t eat a candy. It really made me ask myself, what was my way? How do I wanna do this? One of the questions I ask myself is, why am I asking people to come to this space? Why am I inviting people to come and join me this evening for storytelling and to explore an experience together? And how is this different from any other show that they’ve seen? When they walk into the show, how does it smell? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? How does it start, right? Like, I want to create an experience that makes you go, “Oh, I don’t just get to sit back. I have to participate. I have to lean in.”

LP: I want to lift something I’m hearing, which is how much you love people—how much you love tradition, history, and how much you love the craft. This piece is about grief, it’s about loving. It’s Nica in America and Sweetwater. It’s an offering to the intersections of your identity and to the people who have loved you in your formative years. I wonder, what is the gift that you hope this play gives those people specifically?

Rg: That’s a big question, a beautiful question. I love that question. I wrote littleboy/littleman because I needed to. I literally needed to write the play. There were no Nicaraguan plays about Nicaraguan men. No Nicaraguan playwrights I could find in the west. More specifically, a play about Nicaraguans living in Miami, Florida, right? Which was frustrating, which was sad. No Nicaraguan play within the Western theater canon. That was angering but not surprising. So, as a Nicaraguan playwright who grew up in Miami—Sweetwater to be specific, which has the biggest Nicaraguan population in the country—I felt it was my duty to do it, you know? Secondly, I wanted to talk about colorism within the LatinX community, which is a conversation that we don’t talk about enough. Thirdly, I wanted to explore how colorism, classism, capitalism, and all these systems seep into Black and brown communities; how they affect us and how they infect us, right? And how those Black and brown communities have to maneuver themselves once that has happened. Honestly, I don’t think I have like, one hope. I feel like if someone leaves the theater feeling like they know a little bit more about these people they’ve never met, even in the tiniest way, a different way, then I did my job, you know?

LP: As I think about this last question, we’re additionally joined by one of our lead actors, Marlon. What do you go by now? Marlon Alexander Vargas?

Marlon Alexander Vargas: Yeah.

LP: I think it’s important to frame for the audience that we as men don’t just represent collaborators, but brothers in real life. These guys are my real-life family. As I think about us being family, I think about the brotherhood that exists between us all and this play that’s about love. This play is about men who love, men who are reaching for love, failing at love and not giving up. I want to pose this to you both—how do you hope audiences will engage with the offering of this brotherhood?

RG: Yeah... (to MAV) That’s all you brother, ha, ha.

MAV: I think a lot of people do not see these kinds of characters on the stage in this kind of way, in this kind of light. It’s a very tender relationship that Rudi has written and allowed people into. I hope that people see these men for all of their parts, not just their pieces. They’re domestic, very intimate, and heartbreaking. But also, still incredibly beautiful and deserving of the space to explore their own becoming.

LP: Rudi?

RG: What was the question?

LP: Girl, ha, ha!

RG: I’m kidding, b! I’ll offer what I said in rehearsal today. One of my goals was to invite folks into meeting men who you might walk by every single day and not think about in a specific way. Inviting you into meeting men who you think you know, and who you might have judgments about. It’s easy to love someone who doesn’t fight back, who doesn’t rebel, who doesn’t challenge you. Not to say that love shouldn’t be easy, but also love isn’t easy. And like, for me, true love is when you decide to choose to love, every single step, every single minute, every single hour, every single day. So, this play, these men, remind me that regardless of disagreements, regardless of tension, regardless of conflict, regardless of different views, that I still need to show up to love you and care for you in the midst of all of that. I hope that it does that for people, too. I hope that it reminds them to not shy away from conflict, right? That the bond is built in the struggle of things, you know? Having compassion for people, having compassion for the world, giving grace is gonna be the thing that saves us all.

LP: And it is possible, b—the example is in this room with us. Three brown brothers, from three countries, loving each other softly.

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littleboy/littleman

OCT 1 – NOV 2, 2025
WORLD PREMIERE
AUDREY SKIRBALL KENIS THEATER

Written by Rudi Goblen
Directed by Nancy Medina
Produced in Association with Brixton House
Featuring Alex Hernandez, Dee Simone, Tonya Sweets & Marlon Alexander Vargas

When Nicaraguan brothers Fíto and Bastian clash over their visions of the American Dream, their choices send them on a collision course with fate—risking not just their futures, but their bond. Fíto, a poet, is impulsive and ambitious, willing to take risks to get what he wants. Bastian, a telemarketer, is steady and principled, holding onto caution as a guide. Blending poetry, live music, and ritual, this electrifying tale of brotherhood and belonging pulses with rhythm and emotion, pulling us into a world where family is everything, but dreams come at a cost.

Major support for this world premiere production provided by the Edgerton Foundation New Play Production Fund.

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