‘Port of Entry’ review: Albany Park Theater Project show ingeniously immersive

“Port of Entry” upends the conventions of traditional drama and all but destroys the fourth wall in its evocative exploration of newly arrived immigrant and refugee families to Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood.

Set within the confines of a former warehouse on the city’s near Northwest Side, the immersive production takes place in and around four fully-constructed and furnished apartments, where stories unfold and life experiences are revealed.

Instead of sitting quietly while gazing en masse at a stage, the “Port of Entry” audience is immediately split into groups — you may or may not see the show with the person you arrived with. Each group is then led for two hours through maze-like hallways, zig-zagging stairways and rattling elevators that ultimately lead to meticulously detailed living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and gardens where newly arrived families wait to tell their stories.

Those families come to life thanks to a roughly 20-person ensemble that is double- and triple-cast to portray immigrants from Mexico, Myanmar, Poland, Guatemala and India, among other places. There is no conventional plot per se; instead, there are a series of tug-at-your heartstring revelations about myriad immigrant experiences.

The dialogue is rooted in truth: Members of the teen ensemble spent years conducting interviews with dozens of Albany Park families from points around the globe, many of them new arrivals to the U.S. From those interviews, the ensemble worked with co-directors David Feiner and Miguel Angel Rodriguez to shape “Port of Entry” into a staged drama. Each room the audience visits tells the story of a different family.

The constant movement is purposefully disorienting. Shuffling between rooms, you can’t really tell where you are, much less where you’re going. The uncertainty creates a sense of unease, a small taste of the emotions that surely face anyone forced to leave home and start new somewhere utterly foreign.

Eventually, my group of eight or so entered a pristine new apartment where a hurried woman explained she was getting the place ready for a new family. She pressed some audience members into sorting through the paperwork, others with folding bags of donated clothing, others with hanging a banner proclaiming “Welcome” in both English and Burmese. 

The family arrives in a shroud of stage fog, making their arduous way through a thick mist before settling into the apartment and subdividing the audience once again. My group — now down to three people — followed a Myanmar refugee (Ruben Martin) as he attempted to decipher a list of school supplies for his children. 

As beckoning cast members lead ever onward, you might be called on to help fasten a massive quinceanera dress around an ebullient young woman with Mexican roots (Jaylynn Aguilar the night I saw it; Xytlaly Garcia at others). You might be offered a delicate Filipino pastry still warm from the oven, while a grandmotherly figure looks on to see if you liked it. At one point, there’s a marimba dance. At another, a game of bingo played with loteria cards and dried beans.

Sometimes the audience interaction gets as individualized as it possibly can. In one scene, I found myself playing catch while trying to chat in an otherwise empty hallway with a young cricket player (Mu Lay Ku when I saw it; Sara Romero also plays the role), who both explained the game and talked about the varied denizens of the apartment building. 

Unseen neighbors never seem far and are sonically woven into the ambiance. Place an ear to one apartment door, and you can hear someone practicing a violin. A baby cries faintly from behind another door. Laughter and the vague mumbles of conversation come from others. 

In addition to the irrepressible performers, the stars of “Port of Entry” are the detailed sets the ensemble devised for each apartment. Some have richly colored, intricate altars that showcase values of religion and family. In one teen bedroom, the walls morph into a map of the world, airplanes flying from corner to corner with vivid animation.

Toward the end of “Port of Entry,” my group sat on a plant-filled back porch, tasked with making paper flowers. Those flowers played a key role in the final scene (which I won’t reveal here).

The production isn’t flawless. It could use some editing, particularly in terms of audience interaction. For example, a wordless variation on “Simon Says” played around a dining room table goes on far too long while adding nothing to the narrative. 

“Port of Entry” is built to be slightly different for every person who sees it but there are a few immutable constants: The humanity, wit and open-hearted hope instilled in the immigrant stories within this production shine through.