The “Breitwisch Farm” of the show’s title is owned by a woman named Connie: the ninth character of the play whom the audience never meets, but whose omnipresence is palpable throughout.  The farm is home to Delores Navarro (Maria Peyramaure), a high-spirited but no-nonsense Mexican woman with a work ethic of concrete and an equally strong commitment to her faith.  She’s also an illegal alien.  Her son Oscar (Alejandro Rodriguez) is valedictorian of Goose Creek High and the captain of the football team.  Despite Oscar’s father Carlos having been taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the teen celeb maintains an infectious energy and wit, alternating between English and Spanish with charismatic fluidity.  He dreams about escaping Goose Creek through football.   His friend and classmate Bree (Katie Wieland) is a cute but blunt-spoken loner who prefers Friday night McDonald’s and weed to Friday night lights. The slow pace of Breitwisch Farm is interrupted by the arrival of Connie’s son Webster Breitwisch (Joe Tapper), a dedicated human rights activist who had spent five years in Rwanda until being beaten (with the scars to prove it)  and expelled from the country. Upon his return, Web meets up with his sister Leena (Katie Hartke)as well as his his former classmate and ideological foil, the right-leaning high school principal Jimmy Feucht (Charlie Murphy).  Encouraged by the 2011 win of Scott Walker as Wisconsin’s governor, Feucht considers a career in politics himself– and, adding insult to injury to the progressive-leaning Web, he announces that the “frackers”– who have their eyes on Breitwisch Farm– have offered to finance his campaign.  Needless to say, tensions start to boil between the two men, with Web espousing a globalist viewpoint and Feucht clinging to the generic Republican manifesto, complete with disparaging remarks about Obama and immigrants.  The play even inserts a timely AR-15 reference.

Meanwhile, Web finds a more pleasurable relationship with Zainabu (“Zai”, played by Dayana Esperenza), a pretty and smart African-American twenty-something who works at the farm largely because of her creed of environmental sustainability and simple living– symbolized perfectly by her precious compost heap.  Despite ideological and age differences, Web and Zai slowly develop a love connection.  We hope that their idiosyncratic pairing will work out.  Will Web stay on the farm?  Or will Zai go with Web on his next mission?  Most importantly, will the Green Bay Packers win the Super Bowl?

Sadly, the characters’ collective strengths– Oscar’s youthful ebullience, Delores’ loyalty and faith, Web’s social awareness, and Zai’s strong-willed commitment to Mother Earth– can’t overcome the more powerful social, political, and economic forces swirling around the farm borders (Nor, for that matter, can some of the characters’ blissful ignorance protect them…).  Life in this small Badger State community gets very chaotic very quickly.  When Oscar and his fellow Mexican teammates stage a sit-in to protest their racist coach, crippling tragedy comes to our young hero with the unexpected jolt of a quarterback sneak.  The violent plot twist may seem heavy handed– but given what we see on the news on a daily basis lately, it’s anything but unbelievable.  Shortly afterward, an unlikely romance between between Delores and Feucht raises its stakes, ultimately leading to less-than-romantic consequences.  At the same time, Web and Zai’s new relationship is also put to the test when Web considers going to Mexico.  Conflict emerges: optimism versus realism, loyalty versus opportunism, and the decades-old schism between the “old” America” versus the “new” America. In the last act of Breitwisch Farm, a decision is made which is guaranteed to affect all of its characters in a big way.