Que Pasa Con La Raza, Eh?

Habell-Pallan, Michelle.
Theatre Journal, Volume 52, Number 1, March 2000, pp. 112-114 (Review)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tj/summary/v052/52.1habell-pallan.html

Access Provided by University of Toronto Library at 08/07/11 2:10AM GMT

112 / Performance Review

QUE PASA CON LA RAZA, EH? By Carmen Aguirre in collaboration with the Latino Theater Group. Firehall Arts Center and Headlines Theater, Vancouver, BC. 20 March 1999.
When we think about the culture of Las Amricas, con acento, Canada rarely comes to mind. However, the recent moving premiere of Que Pasa con La Raza, eh? by the Latino Theater Group (LTG) located Vancouver, British Columbia on both the cultural and geographical map of Nuestra Amrica. The rst image the audience saw center stage was an inverted map locating Chile at the top and Canada at the bottom of the Amricas. Written as a farce, the play thematizes life stories of Latino Canadian youth, many of whom are exiles, the sons and daughters of Latin American political exiles, or undocumented workers. Like the map, the play seeks to disrupt outdated cultural conceptions of the ethnicities that constitute Canada. This grassroots project was funded, in part, by the City of Vancouvers Cross-Cultural Initiatives Program. Chilean-born director Carmen Aguirre, the daughter of political exiles and graduate of Canadas Studio 58, initiated LTG ve years ago. After at-

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

/ 113

The cast of Que Pasa con La Raza, eh? by the Latino Theater Group under the direction of Carmen Aguirre. No photo credit available.

114 / Performance Review

tending a conference in Brazil on Augusto Boals Theater of the Oppressed, she was inspired to organize a community theatre workshop focused on Latino issues. The group rst enacted improvisational street performances that called for audience participation to resolve performed crisis situations. As the group congealed, the collective process of writing Que Pasa con La Raza, eh? emerged. Members developed and performed a character based on their own experiences. Though LTG members, whose ages run from sixteen to twenty-seven, are nonprofessional actors, passionate acting and familiarity with the subject made for an impressive, evocative production. Professional lighting, inventive use of slides, a compelling sound design, and energetic choreography augmented the sparse set required to invoke locations across North and Central America. Que Pasa con La Raza, eh? was a mix of farce and performance art, punctuated by short dance breaks between acts. The combination of forms reected the groups interests. The performance opened with the cast hip-hop dancing to the beat of Never been to Spain by El Vez (the innovative Chicano performance artist/musician from San Diego), while slides of the internationally acclaimed comic Chicano novel series Love and Rockets ashed behind them. Immediately following, a well-executed re-creation of a harrowing border crossing, beginning at the Rio Bravo and ending in Vancouver, provided context. The narrative was propelled by the impending deportation of Rata (Angelo Moroni), an undocumented apple-waxer from Guatemala, and attempts by his friends to organize a marriage of convenience ensuring his Canadian citizenship. His future bride Rocio (Itzel Bazerque-Patrich), nicknamed Dandelion because of her hippie aesthetic and environmentalist concerns, grudgingly agrees to the marriage as a political act of deance. Because the play is a composition of collective voices, the structure required innovation and openness to register multiple Latino Canadian experiencesspecically those of Guatemalans, Chileans, Salvadorans, and Mexican Canadians as well as biracial Latino Canadians. These requirements were met by a frenetic pace and nonlinear structure that moved back and forth in time, like the performers memories that constitute the play. The characters represent a range between opposite poles of political and social commitment, while the play explicitly expresses the hopes, fears, and desires of Canadian youth. It also thematizes the inherent social tensions between established Latino Canadians and more recent immigrants, between those who remain committed to social justice and those who just want to make it. Zap (Oparin Ortiz), a sexually frustrated bachelor who suffers from a case of cultural confusion about his MexiCanadian identity, prays to the Virgen for bicultural dating advice before turning to the Latin Lovers Anonymous Dating Service owned by Dandelions aunt. In a powerful moment, Ratas undergraduate activist friend Skin (Kenia Avendano) organizes a response to his student unions patronizing gift of a safe meeting ofce (which they christened Rainbow Nation) for students of color. Skins speech locating the struggle for equal rights by Latinos in Canada to historically unjust practices against people of color in Canada calls for a cross-cultural alliance to combat incidents of hate crimes. Sombra (Wendy Mendez) desires to trace the disappearance of her Guatemalan parents and must decide what to do when she recognizes Ratas newly arrived friend Julio (Rocco Trigueros) as a soldier who abducted her family. Before the group of friends symbolically beat him, Julio chillingly recounts, from his perspective, the pleasure of torture. By expressing the heterogeneity of experiences and values within Vancouvers Latino community, LTG resists US stereotypes of Latinos that spill into Canada and color the conceptual frame by which non-Latino Canadians see them. The play also constructs a larger consciousness about Latinos in Las Amricas. Though not explicitly expressed, Que Pasa con La Raza, eh? pays homage to Chicano and US-Latino culture through the use of music by Lighter Shade of Brown, Kid Frost, El Vez, and the Barrio Boys as well as visual art. The LTG uses this material to underscore the resilience and resonance of cultural production across national borders, but also points to the innovative ways in which Latino Canadian youth interpret and customize forms of oppositional culture. Despite the relatively small population of Latinos in Canada, LTGs dedicated following was reected by the full house at the performance I attended. The actors created an intimate connection with the audience, perhaps because each characters voice resonated with the historical past and present. Through the course of the performance, Aguirres own talent became evident, as only a gifted director could harness LTGs energy and stories so effectively and with such integrity. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement reinforces the top-down political and economic connections of this continents nations, often at the expense of everyday people. This play envisions the effects of transnationalism from the bottom up.

MICHELLE HABELL-PALLAN University of Washington