The Young Playwright Dissects

Camarillo’s New Wordsmith Nicholas De Los Santos

Young but emotionally grizzled playwright Nicholas De Los Santos has written and produced several plays for small venues in Hollywood over the past few years. His latest, “If U Want It”, at the historic Hudson Guild Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd, shows an exponential leap in his abilities to flay open the psyches of our current young adults. His ninety-minute series of scenes with one intermission (very needed to catch one’s breath) focuses a laser on the complex confused personalities of an ensemble cast through use of a single unchanging set, the common room of an uncommon group of millennials barely in détente with each other much less themselves. With his rapid-fire dialogue the characters dissect each other with merciless X-ray vision, completely blind to their own needs and motivations.

While all five engage on stage in intense interpersonal relationships, seemingly on steroids, backstories puff out in unexpected exhalations that may be missed if the audience is not attentive…