Drama Review: Where in the World is Carmen Ortega?

“Am I Roxie?” Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, Sept. 3 – Oct. 5, 2025

Sept.11, 2025 | By Bruce R. Feldman

In Brief: While not up to the level of the best solo shows in recent years, Roxana Ortega’s determined account of her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s ultimately is affecting and has its moments.

Roxana Ortega in Am I Roxie? at Geffen Playhouse. (Photo: Jeff Lorch)

Everyone has a story. The actress and monologist Roxana Ortega wants us to know hers, specifically the challenging six years she spent caring for an elderly parent in cognitive decline, how she went about it, and what she learned from it.

When her father dies suddenly, someone must watch out for her ailing mother, Carmen, who cannot live on her own and who requires constant supervision. Although she was one of seven sisters, they are all married with families and obligations.

The responsibility thus falls to Ortega, who is single. She doesn’t want it, but she explains that her Latina guilt compels her, a conceit she mines for weak laughs a little too often during the show as she recounts events, emotions, and frustrations.

Her mother increasingly lives inside her own mind. Ortega is at first baffled, then must make peace with it.

A good portion of Am I Roxie? has to do with the difficulty of finding a place for her mother to live, where she can be cared for properly.

Another part of the account deals with how Ortega manages her own life and relationships with men, her eventual marriage, and her efforts to have kids of her own.

There’s also a clever sequence about Roxie’s vacation from her mother that takes her to the Himalayas, of all places.

Ortega astutely bookends these and other episodes with an endearing bit about taking her music-loving mother to see an opera, Carmen, in a theater for the first time. The show starts with it then comes back full circle to conclude her narrative. It’s a nice touch, attesting to Ortega’s ability as a dramatist.

Although this is a one-person show, it’s not without production value. Efren Delgadillo Jr.’s set is simple yet exceptionally handsome and elegant. Lighting by Pablo Santiago and projections by Yuki Izumihara add pleasurably to the theatrical experience.

We know a lot more today about cognitive decline than we did a generation ago. In many respects, Ortega’s journey is a familiar one, so it takes a while for the story to transcend its limitations.

She works hard to do that, mimicking the speech patterns of her Peruvian-born mother and aunts, making fun of the care home operator’s over the top plastic surgery, and more. All of this feels a bit too premeditated, that Ortega and director Bernardo Cubría often are trying too hard to get a laugh or win us over.

In the end, it’s the simple story of a mother nearing the end of her life and a daughter coming to terms with it that touches us.

“Am I Roxie?” Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024, geffenplayhouse.org, (310)-208-2028