It’s uncanny: whenever a New York play about race comes to Miami, the issues are so similar, yet so different. Sometimes the differences are glaring, like that play about La Lupe where the star blackened her face for the Miami performance but for the New York performance you bet she didn’t. The differences were more subtle in Platanos and Collard Greens, a thoughtful comedy about a star-crossed love affair between a Dominican girl and an African American boy that played to full houses at the Arsht Center over the past two weekends.

Part spoken-word slam, part history lesson, P&CG; is a sometimes pedantic exploration of racial conflict between and among Latinos and African Americans. Guess what? Dominicans sometimes deny their African heritage. Guess what else? African Americans sometimes discriminate against each other based on skin tone. This did not seem to be news to many people in the mixed race crowd that filled the studio theater last Saturday, but maybe it didn’t have to be. These were the common themes for the playwright and cast to riff on, like those old family stories everyone laughs at again at every family gathering. Luckily there are enough unexpected jokes and the cast gives such an infectiously passionate performance that the lessons go down with more than a spoonful of sugar.

Written in of-the-moment hip-hop speak, circa 2004, the dialogue comes off as dated at times (remember Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction? still quoting Biggie Smalls?). The moments where the cast freshened up the text with improv came off best, especially when the comic actors commented on a false fire alarm that emptied the theater late in the first act. The true test that the audience was having a good time? When the sirens stopped, everyone came back.