Miss You Like Hell


The song says Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have. That is the theme, I’ll say, of Miss You Like Hell by Strawberry Theatre Worksop.
It’s a mother-daughter roadtrip across America to a reckoning. They aren’t heading for Oz, instead it’s Immigration Court. Mom, Beatriz (Maggie Corrido) rolls in from California in a Nissan pickup like a whirlwind to estranged daughter Olivia’s (Stephanie Roman) apartment building in Philadelphia. It’s maybe Beatriz’s last shot at a relationship with her daughter, and her last chance to remain in the United States, if only Olivia will drive with her back to California to testify at the deportation hearing. It’s a sort of last chance for Olivia, too, in a couple of ways. So off they go.
There are colorful characters on the road. A biker couple on a quest to get married in all 50 states. A sad tamale salesman. A Yellowstone Park Ranger. A callous court clerk. A Wisconsin State Police officer. An earnest immigration attorney. And some more.
Oh, and it’s a musical. And it has lots of humor mixed with the serious themes. Carrido and Roman do fine emotional work with their songs all the way through.
It’s a long way across the country and you can feel the stakes building in the mother-daughter relationship. All the while, there are detours into the lives of the minor characters, and a subplot involving Olivia’s blog and the Park Ranger. I found myself thinking they had better pay off the main plotline when they get to that hearing.
And they did. The final musical number, sung by Olivia in the courtroom, hits hard in the heart. We do leave Oz and come back to reality. There is transformation, with the fantasy not so much fulfilled as modified, with an acknowledgement of what was there the whole time.
The run ends Saturday, November 11, if you want to catch it.

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