Tiffany Iris, Samantha Blain, and Daniela Delahuerta Photo by Rebecca J. Michelson

As the audience enters the WP Theater for Isla, a collaborative theatre piece created by members of Hit the Lights! Theater Co., Co-Artistic Director Samantha Blain, playing herself at the moment, sits beside a carousel projector, watching slides of her mother's everyday life before escaping Fidel Castro's Cuba in 1969. Seated in a corner is guitarist Claron Hayden, whose playing of both simple melodies and thoughtful melodic commentary, in a score co-composed by he and Blain, subtly enhances the proceedings throughout.

Blain was first told the story of how her mother and two aunts fled on a Freedom Flight to Miami from the safety of her family's home in upstate New York, where they eventually settled. And while co-directors Roman Sanchez and Mikayla Stanley's production isn't presented as children's theatre, the extensive use of shadow puppetry and music gives the feel of an adult's memory of the bedtime stories through which she first learned of the courage and determination displayed by three refugee women who made sure that she, not even conceived yet, would not grow up under communism.

"They left behind their friends, family and lovers. They left behind their dreams and aspirations. They left behind the life they had planned in order to start new one."

Puppeteers Erica Knight and Jessie March, along with designer Casey Scott Leach, work behind three upstage screens to provide fanciful, and sometimes frightful, shadow illustrations to audio recordings from 2018, where Blain's mother and aunts recall their family history.

Emerging from the silhouettes of a portrait gallery are Tiffany Iris as Blain's mother, the outgoing youngest sister Alina, and Daniela Delahuerta as eldest Carmen, the intellectual perfectionist. Blain plays middle sister Lulu, described as a combination of the two.

With the landscape of their rural Cuban home in the background, a comical onstage chicken is the highlight of Leach's menagerie of wildlife creatures, including a pair of solenodons who, in an elaborate dream, lead Lulu to facing the jaws of a crocodile who is trying to save Cuba by devouring the man-made weapons of destruction. The dream ends with a vision of the three sisters fleeing to Miami on a boat.

Other shadow displays depict the lively nightlife of Havana and the forced labor at government camps. Their refugee journey from Miami to upstate New York includes a brief stop in Times Square where a photo features a large billboard advertising the popular Castro Convertible Sofas.

This world premiere production of Isla is certainly an entertaining charmer presented with a lot of heart, but the show seems to overstay its 75 minute length because there's so much focus on the impressive and delightful puppetry that the narrative seems underwritten. Blain's epilogue, addressed to the audience, emphasizes stories like these to be family legacies to pass on through generations.

"I think that's how we keep the people we love with us. A way of saying this happened. These people were here. They loved each other and I remember them."

A greater emphasis on the details of the stories, as well as the distinct personalities of the people remembered, might turn Isla from an inventive collaboration to a deeper remembrance.