By Kristen Nevarez Schweizer

April 10, 2026

The question isn’t whether Matt & Ben, New Village Art’s satirical comedy, lands (it does) – it’s why. 

Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers wrote the scrappy, surrealist comedy in 2002, and it dominated the New York International Fringe Festival in 2004. The plot reimagines a young Matt Damon and Ben Affleck if the script for Good Will Hunting had mysteriously fallen from the sky into their Boston apartment. Back then, the source material was fresh. Back then, it was two women playing two men playing at genius, and skewering the mythology of Hollywood’s newly minted golden boys. Over twenty years later, in San Diego’s regional premiere directed by Maria Patrice Amon, the play arrives dragging a heavier payload, including a post–#MeToo audience with opinions on Affleck’s public image.

What Kaling and Withers also couldn’t have known is how Mindy’s own fame would add another layer when the 2026 show features two Latina women in the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands. These are not just women inhabiting iconic Hollywood figures; they’re also two local actresses wondering if this script can be magic again. And the well-directed efforts of these two talented performers are compelling.

Alejandra Villanueva’s Affleck is unapologetically physical — whole-body commitment as the testosterone-fueled chick magnet — calibrated to reach the back row, which is exactly right. Current opinions of Affleck means his misogynistic moments hit differently than they did in 2003, but Villanueva’s undaunted sincerity keeps it upbeat. Meanwhile, Maya Sofia Enciso’s Damon seems to sit beside you, with focused, manspreading energy as the brainy, calculated Matt. Watch her eyes: boyish and unborrowed, not an impression but Will Hunting’s quality of stillness before speaking, which intensifies attention to her delivery.

The chemistry between the actors is fun. The laughs are big, and chuckles are true because the comedy is absurd yet grounded in friendship and a shared dream. I yearned for script updates that could hint at what 2026 audiences now know about their lives and careers.

The design team leans hard into the nineties, and they’re right to capitalize on Gen Z’s recent reach for the decade. Jesus Hurtado’s set — a cramped Boston apartment with vintage cereal boxes slanted for viewability — feels like a pre-fame bachelor pad. The props are players in this performance, artifacts that amplify both the moment in history and our distance from it. With Good Will Hunting nearing its thirtieth anniversary, the nostalgia is a marketable part of the experience.

The play ends where it has always ended: with the Oscar’s clip of the real Matt and Ben receiving their gold trophies, so radiant and dumbfounded, one believes perhaps the script did fall from the sky. In 2022, that ending was ambiguous. In 2026, with everything that has happened in both men’s careers and public lives, it reads something closer to elegy. 

Matt & Ben runs through April 26 at the Dea Hurston New Village Arts Center, 2787 State St., Carlsbad.