“Bees & Honey,” in its West Coast premiere at Marin Theatre Company, is an energetic  little play about a young pair of Dominican Americans who fall for each other after meeting and dancing the fiery bachata at a club in Manhattan. 
 
The Afro-Euro-derived bachata is a lively continuo in Guadalís Del Carmen’s play, as  Manuel (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) and Johaira (Katherine George) decide to get an apartment together and plan for a future that they hope will be brighter than their pasts.  
 
The play doesn’t make it clear where Manuel and Johaira  are from—other than the bachata, Dominican culture isn’t detailed in any specific way—but it’s obvious where they want to go. Manuel will expand his auto-repair shop business and Johaira  is a district attorney who takes on sexual assault cases and is clearly on the rise in her profession. 
 
Johanna consumes conspicuously costly electronics and high-tone work outfits, even if their living room (set by Carlos Antonio Aceves) has a thrift-store look that could use some updating. 
 
Life gets complicated: a pregnancy, elders who need care, tiffs and makeups. Johaira fights against Manuel’s machismo; Manuel’s striving to please falls short, but they are simpatico as they build their lives in the small Washington Heights apartment. 
 
Each short vignette captures the prevailing mood, picking up on the disconnect as the relationship goes south. 
 
There isn’t a lot of narrative line in “Bees & Honey,” but Manuel and Johaira are well drawn, the play is powerfully acted and directed (by Karina Gutiérrez), and the story tells us something compelling and real about the difficulties of “making it,” stressful demands of society and the fraying of romance…. and always to the explosive refrains of the seductive bachata. 
 
“Bees & Honey” runs through March 10 in at Marin Theatre Co., 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets are $43 to $70 at marintheatre.org/productions/bees-and-honey or (415) 388-5208.