Review: Zoot Suit. Sapo and Culture Clash. Guest Column: David Bowles

The Devil and Luis Valdez 

Review, Zoot Suit. Mark Taper Form,  Los Angeles. Now through March 26.
Michael Sedano

Center Theatre Group publicity fotos

Any comparison between the history-making 1978 production of Zoot Suit with its 2017 retelling would be unfair to the latter. It’s not the same Zoot Suit  We are older but the audience is younger. The times have changed and the crap hasn’t. We are still here. Frail memories of that 1978 experience and surrounding hype elevate expectations that will not be satisfied. I saw the 2017 production in preview and last Saturday the 18th. Both times were satisfying theatrical experiences of themselves, and definitely a cut above the Taper’s regular programming.

The devil came to Los Angeles wearing a black silk zoot suit carrying a paper-still-wrinkly script by Luis Valdez and backed by the big band sounds of Lalo Guerrero with inspired choreography by Maria Torres. In a contest for Henry Reyna’s soul, the devil beguiles the teenager with lots of huisas, frenetic dancing, infectious swing rhythms, but leads Henry through a set of crises that will force Hank to choose between pachuquismo or whatever is out there.

The idea of Zoot Suit as a morality play pales in the face of the infectious music and smile-inducing throng of jitterbuggers filling the stage in constant movement with slick vocal arrangements and show-stopper solos. But that’s the devil at work, to keep you from doing anything but sit back in your expensive upholstered seat and let Zoot Suit work its magic.

El Pachuco is puro myth, from the switchblade he uses to part the curtains to his wonderful admission that the play reflects “the secret fantasy of every vato, living in or out of la pachucada, to put on a zoot suit and play the myth, mas chucote que la chingada. Pues orale!” But his is a persuasive myth that holds young Reyna in its grip and Reyna does everything possible to meet pachuco demands.

Henry Reyna is young and virile, a rooster loose in the chicken yard. El Pachuco is Reyna’s alternate self, an alter ego who swaggers and snarls across the stage, is quick with fist and filero, philosophizing to Henry about being a man, having a place in society, offering Henry a role model by embodying defiance and competence, recklessness and explosive spontaneity, and a quick ironic wit.

Being pachuco exacts a heavy penalty on Henry, as when Henry and Della are jumped. Henry’s first thought after having his ass kicked at Sleepy Lagoon is to go get some pachucos to raid the Downey Boys and get even. It’s the event that the court farce converts into life in San Quentin. In prison, Henry confronts the cost of playing into the myth. In a profoundly anguished speech, Henry tells el Pachuco to disappear, allowing Reyna to manage his life on his own. At first, el Pachuco doesn't speak, then he breaks the silence and discomfort by quipping , “relax, ese, it’s just a pinche play.”

Is Henry lonely, or is he playing the field, playacting the ever-irresponsible macho? Something is going on between Alice and Henry, even with a guard peering down at their intimate conversations. When he gets home, he’s estranged from Della, who did a year in juvie for being Henry Reyna’s huisa. El Pachuco isn’t around to offer consejos on women and love. It’s a plot thread that didn’t need to be, especially to make room for more of the elders.

The parents have insignificant roles and cursory scenes. Cultural transition and generational change play important roles in pachuco ethos. When the father complains about the language the kids speak they rebuke him with loving tenderness. When the kids gather to leave for a dance, the father demands the boys kiss his hand to demonstrate their obedience. One obedient son then gets puking drunk at the party leading to a knife fight between Henry and Rafas from Downey. The dissonance between core family values and destructive public behavior offers fertile rows to hoe, but sadly, the play lets it lie fallow, to our loss.

Director Luis Valdez and the casting trio of Rosalinda Morales, Pauline O’Con, and Candido Cornejo assembled a powerful company who are still growing into their roles, given the preview and last weekend’s matinee. It’s a wonder seeing so many dancers and actors of color, purportedly Chicana Chicano artists. How refreshing to see a Taper cast filled with local actors, including the two leads. A number of out-of-towners come from el Teatro Campesino’s hometown of San Juan Bautista. Carrying el papel of el Pachuco is a film and television actor who grew up in Mexico, Demian Bichir. It’s Bichir’s Mark Taper Forum debut. Hank Reyna is Matias Ponce, a local television and stage actor who has appeared for LATC, the city’s major raza theater.

Among supporting cast are Rose Portillo and Daniel Valdez as the mother and father. Portillo portrayed the ingénue lead, Della, in the 1978 run. There’s a special warmth in the fact Valdez portrays his own father. In the first-run production, Daniel Valdez was Hank Reyna. Before that, Valdez was the original el Pachuco in Zoot Suit’s New Theater For Now run.

The el Pachuco role makes strenuous demands of an actor who must go from repartee to fast dancing and prancing then back to narration, without sounding out of breath nor soaked in sweat. Demian Bichir handles the role with grace. Bichir doesn’t need the growling voice, especially as he doesn’t sing with it, and loses it regularly to talk just like a normal actor. If he thinks growling makes him menacing he needs to re-think that, instead use presence to turn on that persona so that people all the way in the back row feel the heat.

Matias Ponce left me wanting more. Hank Reyna is magnetic, draws pachucos pachucas to him where they act with dangerous stupidity just because it’s Hank’s word. Ponce’s Henry Reyna isn’t yet fully alive with commanding charisma. At the climactic moment when the cast shouts out, “Henry Reyna lives!” I don’t feel like standing up and cheering like the line is supposed to work.

Hank hasn't made me feel all that bad when fate sends Hank back to the pinta only to OD later. I’m not as moved as I’d like to be, hearing that alternative Hank got KIA in Korea and his body got the Medal of Honor. I like to think Hank and Della are happily ever after in Frogtown and their kids go to school and learn to read "See Spot, see Spot run." Henry matters. I want to stand teary-eyed and cheer. It’s in the role for Ponce to find it.

I’d buy a ticket just to see if Bichir and Ponce ever get to the top of their roles, but the run appears to be sold out except for a smattering of seats. Not insuperable; you will take seat N18, your date can have the one closer to the action, K55.

¿Pero sabes que? Zoot Suit at the Mark Taper Forum deserves to be the hottest ticket in town. Don’t let your own pachuco devil whisper in your ear that it’s too much trouble, that it’s just a pinche play, don't take it so seriously. Chale, ese. Zoot Suit is a great Unitedstatesian play, the greatest Chicano play. Audiences across the region deserve to get up to the Music Center and treat themselves to a memorably magical afternoon, or evening, of Teatro Campesino and Luis Valdez at the top of their game.

Here's Jesus Treviño's Latinopia review of Zoot Suit. Treviño attended opening night on Sunday, February 12.


Sapo at the Getty Villa

The guys with the worn scripts in their hands are having a blast with the rapid fire repartee and ad libs that sizzle. Even mistakes like being on the wrong page and having no idea get turned into laugh riots. The guys are Culture Clash, in the final workshop performance of Sapo at the Getty Villa in Malibu, and they work with script in hand and lots of friendly energy coming from the packed house.

Sapo is beautiful comedy altogether, with several precious bits, too many to enumerate. There’s a hilarious slow-mo embrace, lots of convoluted speed talking and double entendres, asides directly to the audience, a beautiful voice belts out the sensuous “Sabor a mi” accompanying herself on the guitarrón. At one point, Richard Montoya steps into the audience and runs up the aisle talking to people. There is a beautifully emotional moment of purity when a child recites a hopeful lyric.

Richard Montoya congratulates The Poet

Montoya addresses the house at the end, telling the packed rows today’s has been their best work. There’s no word on where they go from here. Workshop means to ferment and hone ideas. Sunday’s Sapo was all that and more.

A visit to Malibu Getty takes planning. Admission is free but parking is $15.00. For the workshop performances, tickets are only $7.00. Plan to be there five or six hours to browse in the gardens and galleries. The things you’ll see!

Figure from Cyrpus, 3000 B.C.

Guest Columnist: David Bowles 

Political Resistance in Chupacabra Vengeance

Latino speculative fiction quite often takes a subversive stance of resistance and critical response to longstanding power structures that marginalize and erase the experience of Latinx in the US. In Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias, a near-future America with biometric tattoos, and an underground network of gente protects refugees from government oppression. Ernest Hogan’s High Aztech pits a cabal of American Christians against followers of indigenous religion. Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older features young people openly opposing cultural appropriation and gentrification, using magical graffiti as one tool of resistance. 

With the rise of neo-fascism in Trump’s America, this role we Latinx writers of spec-fic play — as creators of alternative or future worlds in which marginalization and erasure can be fought with magical or science-fictional tools —has become even more crucial. And it’s in our modern setting of immigration bans, border walls, public lists, and deportation squads that Broken River Books publishes this month my short story collection Chupacabra Vengeance with what I dare to hope is poignant timeliness.

Chupacabra Vengeance consists of fifteen stories that range from science fiction to fantasy, horror to weird, and various subgenres in between. The pieces are arranged as five interrelated triplets, but the book itself is woven together by Latino culture, characters, and aesthetics. 

But more relevant for this discussion is the social and political resistance that threads through a good number of the stories. In “Aztlan Liberated,” for example, the US Southwest and part of Northern Mexico has been walled off by both governments, the remaining raza inside abandoned to deal as best they can with alien monsters trapped with them. When a US military mission to wipe out the chupacabras fails, a band of cholos decides finish what their oppressors started … but broadcasting their bravery live so it won’t be erased or appropriated.

Border brutality also shows up in the title story. Their father dead, the family goats slain by blood-sucking aliens, a brother and sister from Puebla risk their lives aboard the train known as The Beast in order to reach the US and search for the their mother. But when they arrive at the border, they encounter even greater horror at the hands of men and women who treat refugees with cruel inhumanity.

Small-town politics, even in Mexican-American communities, often requires resistance from la raza. “Barbie versus el Puma Negro” features a scheming right-wing politician who hires a brujo to ensure his electoral victory. When black magic brings a dead luchador back to life, however, a schoolteacher who moonlights as the Río Grande Valley’s spiritual protector will have to face zombies and past trauma to preserve her community. 

One of the great things about science fiction is that it allows a writer to flip present sociopolitical realities on their head, and that’s what I sought to do in “Undocumented.” A few centuries from now, climate change has triggered a new ice age that plunges the US into turmoil. After most of his family succumbs to the environmental devastation, a young Mexican-American sets out on a trek to cross the border into Mexico — facing the dangerous sentinels put in place to keep gringos away — in hopes of securing a better future for himself. 

Another sort of speculation I enjoy for its power of social critique is alternate history. I set “Flower War” in a world where the Nahuas (“Aztecs”) were never conquered. It’s the 1960s, and the scientists of Cemanahuac (“Mexico”) are engaged in a race to the moon with the Soviet Union. The major obstacle is a group of extreme religious terrorists who view the moon as sacred and will do anything they can to keep human boots off her surface. 

I also take aim at Anglo/European patriarchy and oppression in two weird West tales. “Ancient Hunger, Silent Wings” centers on a teenage tlahuelpuchi or Mexican vampire in 19th-century Las Vegas, New Mexico. When her appetite for innocent blood begins leaving a trail, she tracked down by a pair of monster slayers. They try to bring her to heel, but she refuses to compromise her nature: “To hell with you and your threats. I’m done submitting. I will never relent!”

Set a few years later in the same universe, “Iron Horse, Mythic Horn” is narrated by an 18-year-old Chiricahua Apache. She is rescued from an abusive white adoptive father by Shaolin monks who have come to the US with the last ch’i-lin or unicorn, hoping to do something about the deaths and unceremonious burials of so many Chinese immigrants. Toward the end of a harrowing and tragic voyage by train, she deals with the grieving guilt of an Anglo “hero” in a way that brooks no compromise: “I didn’t want to comfort him. In that moment, I figured he just would have to bear the blame, even though he was never involved. His people done the crime, and he was the kind of man what would try to make amends. That, it seemed to me, was justice of a sort.” 

This slippery justice, born of resistance from the shadows and margins, is of primal importance to me as an author and member of the Mexican-American community. Speculative fiction may seem an odd venue for exploring those themes, but sometimes seeing the monstrous injustice we face depicted as actual monsters helps clarify a vision for revolutionary reform. 

David Bowles is a Mexican-American author from deep south Texas, where he teachers at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Recipient of awards from the American Library Association, the Texas Institute of Letters and the Texas Associated Press, he has written several titles, including the Purá Belpré Honor Book The Smoking Mirror and Lords of the Earth.

His work has been featured in Rattle, BorderSenses, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Asymptote, Translation Review, Huizache, The Journal of Children’s Literature, and Voices de la Luna, among others.

March 11 & 12 Art Acquisition Bonanza

Arte by well-established artists, like those listed below, usually have prices starting at a thousand dollars and escalating from there. Here's an arte offer that's tough to refuse, five hundred dollars or less to acquire work by some of the most well-established artists of contemporary Chicanarte.

Raza Hollywood's Best-Kept Secret. Sci-fi. Cleaning Nopales.

Review: Water & Power. Written and Directed by Richard Montoya. Opened May 2 in limited release.

Michael Sedano

Spider Man outdraws the Water & Power twins ten-to-one. In 16 theaters over opening weekend, the Richard Montoya written and directed independent film pulls in 2350 ticket buyers per house, weekend gross $40,000. The big-budget arachnid plays 4300 screens filling 21,000 seats over Cinco de Mayo weekend, pulling in millions. The numbers are mediocre. I’m sure Spider Man’s marketers would prefer to have sold more tickets. They should have made a better movie and people wouldn't be bad-mouthing it. 

Richard Montoya has made a superior film, and it’s time more people bought tickets to see Water & Power and get their friends into seats. Audiences will see every dime of the producer’s minuscule budget on screen. Dine on a visual feast of Los Angeles imagery, get pulled along by a compelling script. All in all, Water and Power is the best film gente aren’t seeing.

Should Chicanas Chicanos go see Water & Power because it's a Chicano film, or because of Richard Montoya? No, but there's that. Mejor, go see Water & Power because it's genuinely worthwhile, thoughtful entertainment. Lots of raza in-jokes but an informed audience will find Water & Power completely accessible, funny, and respectful of the audience's intelligence.

 I saw Water & Power on a Monday morning in Arcadia, with maybe six movie-goers. That’s a tough thing, to be in an empty auditorium with a good flick. Water & Power comes at the viewer in fast, rough-and-tumble bits that overflow with wit and intensity. Explosive laughs and surreal surprises are so much better when a full house lets loose a Montoya-inspired belly laugh.

The story of two brothers nicknamed Power and Water, comes together in fragments, with childhood flashbacks adding depth to the tragedy unfolding in the lives of a pair of high-achievers. Both have contracts on their lives. The cop brother for assassinating a criminal shot-caller. The politician brother for insisting on planting a million trees along the LA River without cutting in condo developers.

With cinematographer Claudio Chea, Montoya creates visual poetry with Los Angeles its persona. The filmmakers enchant with lush night scenes, aerial shots looking down, traveling shots crossing the river channel. Chea and Montoya define “noir” by the look and feel they achieve in the play of light against blackness. Le noir, darkness, permeates places the brothers take refuge, and the choices the carnales face. Then Chea and Montoya create wonderful contrast in the bright overexposure of scenes with the ice cream-suited downtown fixer embodied by Clancy Brown. The Devil.

The fixer scenes become visual metaphors for invincible power and evil. "Come into the light," the scenes scream, echoing a biblical line “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In the hard glare, Water learns his eastside connectas produce nothing but an opportunity to kneel at the devil’s feet. It's a savage moment leaving a viewer shifting uncomfortably in the seat.

Emilio Rivera as Norte/Sur carries the film, not solely owing  to his pivotal role between the two brothers but because the script gives him all the best lines. The audience watches mystified as Water acts like a vencido, treating a respectful Norte/Sur like shit. We’re on Norte/Sur’s side now, ambivalent about the good guy. Surprise and hilarity grow from a dance scene where Norte/Sur echoes Mae West, climaxing an arrestingly surreal scene that, more than any in the film, illustrates Montoya’s diabolical wit and his careful structuring of the film to arrive at this insightful moment completely disarmed.

Norte/Sur gets the best lines in the script, and the biggest laughs. For instance, climactic desperation builds life or death tension. Various barrios up in arms are out to revenge or protect, depends on whose side they’re with. Water, Power, and Norte/Sur sort out the alliances, strategizing whom to call upon from a roll call dozens of barrios and their muscle: San Pedro muscle, and Dog Town muscle, but not Frog Town muscle because of they're hooked up with Cypress Park muscle. Then how about Los Feliz muscle? A “who’s on first-“style double take, “Los Feliz has muscle?” Los Feliz is a mostly tony neighborhood bordering on Elysian Valley, the official name of Frog Town.

Local color is a constant feature of Montoya/Culture Clash scripts. Water & Power continues the technique, spreading the joy to the greater Los Angeles region. Out-of-towners will get most of the jokes. For sure, everyone’s going to enjoy the backhand Edward James Olmos takes when the characters are listing big Chicano stars. “Not Olmos” they declare unanimously, and Olmos—who produced the film—is crossed off the list, “no Eddie.”

Some of the juiciest, and inadvertently sentimental, local color occurs during a police line-up. Lupe Ontiveros, after a lifetime of playing house maids, steals her scenes as a brassy foul-mouthed cop. Ontiveros sounds completely convincing as an angry, empty-headed yes-woman cop acting tougher than any of the men around her. QEPD, Lupe Ontiveros.

While writer Richard Montoya is generous with the big laughs, he’s also incisive with a spectrum of lessons. Brotherhood and carnalismo come as a pair. Water and Power are little brother and big brother, but Norte/Sur is Power’s carnal. He gradually earns Water’s respect. Power and Norte/Sur’s intimacy comes with several surprises. Norte/Sur is paraplegic because Power shot him years ago. Norte/Sur is Power’s long-time snitch whose encyclopedic barrio knowledge makes Norte/Sur a kind of Greek chorus impelling the story along. I sense a sly homage to the shoeshine tipster in Baretta and Police Story.

No one will come to Water & Power seeking stereotypes or archetypes, and those who enter the auditorium with preconceived notions about gangs, cholos, cops, and chicanos will exit shaken. Maybe not about cops. The film opens with a speeding black and white, a uniformed officer enthusiastically hitting a bong.

The film doesn’t glorify gangsters nor offer an iconic nobility. For the most part, gang bangers exist as punchlines or puppets. Cholos, on the other hand, come with a look and a sense of humor. As personified in Norte/Sur, the cholo repels the straight Water vato but adds a different dimension to the hard ass cop persona of Power.

Water & Power, for all its chicana chicano characters is not about chicanismo. The film is about power, corruption, and moral expediency. The best lack all conviction, corruption infects all over, the cops, the fixers, the gangsters, the politicians, raza, Asian, anglo alike. They all come to a line, many cross it.

It’s not a chicano question it’s multi-ethnic: When opportunity conflicts with expediency, does a moral person do the right thing, even if life depends on it? Water & Power is puro noir. The characters do the right thing and get the bloody end of the stick anyhow. Evil walks away with clean feet, the audience walks away stunned, entertained, moved, informed. And eager to tell their friends, go see Water & Power.

How you got there, to be the one holding the stick, there’s a story in that. Told in Richard Montoya’s unique voice, it’s a story worth taking friends to see, Water & Power.


UCR Latinos in Sci-Fi Conference On-line at Latinopia

Interest among sci-fi writers and readers continues to grow around the idea to hold a science-fiction writers conference modeled on the National Latino Writers Conference once held on the National Hispanic Cultural Center's state-of-the-art campus in old Alburquerque.

Blogueros Ernest Hogan and Rudy Ch. García sat on the author panel at the recently concluded first-ever Latinos in Sci-Fi Conference hosted by the University of California, Riverside.

Jésus Treviño, a spec lit writer himself, filmed the panel and features it this week at Latinopia.

http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/latinopia-word-latino-science-fiction-1/

The Gluten-free Chicano
Peeling Nopales the No-Espina Way

Sadly, the title misleads a bit. Any time a cook prepares fresh nopalito pencas, an espina or two is sure to find a finger or palm. Así es, the romance of el nopal.

A sharp paring knife and careful finger placement between the espina carbuncles are two secrets to preparing nopales. 

Use a washable cutting board or work on newspaper. Draw the knife around the spiny perimeter of the cactus paddle, cutting away the outer ¼ inch of spininess.

Hold the penca flat and draw the knife across the face of the penca nearly horizonally. Most espina nubs cut right off. Dip the blade in a glass of water to wash away espinitas.

Steel the blade frequently to keep the edge slicing effortlessly.

Wash the pencas. There's a white espina in the top middle of the foto below.



Slice the pencas into ¼" strips. Draw the blade at a diagonal through the strips.

The nopalitos are ready to use in a salad, a stew, with scrambled eggs. Below, nopales simmer with carne de puerco. Later, the cook will add una torta de camarón.

Here's a The Gluten-free Chicano Cooks recipe for nopales con tortas de camarón.

Are Chicanos The New Irish?

Michael Sedano

“I don’t have a culture,” the student complains, “how can I write a paper on my own culture? It’s easy for all them, but what about me?”

I sympathize with the young man and see his resentment dilute with confusion when I tell him he’s a white ethnic and is a member of a culture with its own traditions and communication issues “just like all of them.”

“What are you?” I ask, unnuanced despite a lifetime of having that question shoved in my ear by sundry tipos who look and sound like this student.

I point him in the direction of the cartoon bigotry of Thomas Nast, and ilk, in the latter years of the 19th century. Nast soldiered along in his society’s culture wars between Anglo and Irish white ethnics, calling Irish immigrants everything but a white man, drawing paddy caricatures that dehumanized Irish as apes. It is a social strategy meant to keep the Irish unequal.

The student produces an excellent paper that opens his eyes and softens his hard heart toward the “victim mentality" of the Chicana Chicano students in the class.

When the student presents his oral report, raza students get an eye-opening understanding they’re not uniquely los de abajo in US culture. The class talks about “meltable” versus “unmeltable” gente and the  melting pot metaphor of US culture, and get insight into the power of U.S. mass media to create an ethos that conditions attitudes toward other people.

Today, Irish ethnicity has a most-favored culture spotlight as witnessed in March when St. Patrick’s Day coerces the wearing of green at risk of a pinch, and all manner of folk sport their “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” tee shirt. My orange tee reads “Relax, Gringo, I was born here.”

How’d they do it, the Irish?

They went to the movies. Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald as lovable Irish priests was a major hit in 1944's Going My Way. Fitzgerald’s sentimental old priest steals the movie and ticket-buyers stream out daubing tears and loving the Irish. The 1949 John Wayne movie, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, features Irish grunts and a lovably gruff old-country Sergeant played by the professional Irishman Victor McLaglen. Wayne goes the full Irish monty in the 1952 megahit, The Quiet Man. Set in Ireland, the movie defines a montón of Irish stereotypes from fiery pelirroja Maureen O’Hara to the hard-drinking Irishmen of  McLaglen and Fitzgerald, a lovable parish priest played by Ward Bond, and an epic comedic fistfight that ends with the Irishmen drunk, unbloodied, and BFFs. Irish were now white.

It’s that moment in history for Chicanos. Not that we want to assimilate, but be seen as gente buena.

Media momentum builds. A few years ago there was Ugly Betty on teevee starring a Latina named America. How can it get much better than that?

This year’s Oscar awards has gente talking about Afro-Mexicans with the emergence of Lupita Nyong'o and her pride in being Mexican Kenyan. Beauty moves the heart of the savage xenophobe, like forcing a bigot or a nationalist to defend a counterattitudinal argument.

Cesar Chavez blazes a trail, but it seems the audience is blazing it right back at the film. People are not buying tickets. It’s tough to sell the story, evidently, since everyone knows how it turns out.

Sadly, there’s a smattering of critics, perhaps envidiosas envidiosos, who cavil that Mexicans, not Chicanos, made Cesar Chavez, that the film put money in Mexican pockets not U.S., that Chavez the man didn’t like wetbacks, and crud like this. Instead of finding ways to like a product, these tipos don’t talk about the film itself, preferring to trash the film on the basis of what it doesn’t do, or how it failed their biopic assumptions. Lástima.

Nonetheless, Cesar Chavez is out there in big theatres buying big ads. People are aware. If only subliminally, the presence of the film chips away at the malice and xenophobia that characterize U.S. culture. No movie is an island entire of itself, that’s my theory. Every frame benefits someone, can become part of the national consciousness. But the producers need to get people into those seats to have widespread impact and build momentum for other films.

In May, Richard Montoya’s Water & Power hits the screens of AMC theaters. I saw Water on the Mark Taper Forum mainstage a few years ago, and dug it. A powerful drama featuring Chicano characters--the members of Culture Clash for example--without being about Chicanismo, Water&Power stands a better chance of finding a big audience than Cesar Chavez has.

I didn’t get to see the preview screening of Water&Power last year when Montoya was gauging public support. I don’t know if the charm, power, and humor I saw on stage have survived the transition to film. One thing for sure, I’m hoping Montoya will bring droves of white ethnics into the moviehouses. He's not taking brown ethnics for granted, making a major marketing effort in the next couple weeks.

It will be encouraging to see raza come in droves to see Water&Power. And for that matter, start seeing Cesar Chavez. Sales drive showings, and heavy public demand can move Water&Power into the bigger auditoriums of the AMC chain, and lure other chains to ante up and cut themselves a part of the action.

2014 has a strong chance to turn back the clock to the 1940s when movies helped WASP culture reconstruct its view of Irish immigrants from noxious foreign scum and thugs to gente buena. "La lechuga o la justicia es lo que van a sembrar" Abelardo wrote. Today, he might add,  "y luego van a los movies."

Water&Power hits the screen El Drinko de Mayo weekend. See you in the auditorium, gente.

View the Water&Power trailer at its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=645374242166934&set=vb.234854799885549&type=3&theater

Two reviews. Taix time. On-Line Floricanto.

Review: American Night: The Ballad of Juan José. 

Richard Montoya, developed by Culture Clash and Jo Bonney. American Night: The Ballad of Juan José. La Jolla's Potiker Theatre through February 26, 2012.

At Culver City's Kirk Douglas Theatre, March 9 – April 1, 2012.

Michael Sedano

Every couple of years I drive down to San Diego to attend a play, but I will not readily drive across L.A. to attend plays. Dago holds many nostalgic memories for me so going there is a sentimental journey. Besides, for me, the best places in El Lay for theatre are closer to the Eastside: the Los Angeles Theatre Center downtown, or the main stage of the Mark Taper Forum on Bunker Hill.

Prior to last weekend, my previous drive down to the La Jolla playhouse on the UCSD campus was to enjoy Culture Clash’s Zorro in Hell in advance of its playing Los Angeles. This year it was my turn to take in Culture Clash’s American Night: The Ballad of Juan José.

Great news, American Night: The Ballad of Juan José is heading north. Unbelievably sad news: not to the Taper main stage.

Zorro came to the Taper main stage, one of those rare genius decisions by Michael Ritchie, the fellow currently in charge at the Taper. Now Ritchie, in a stroke of semi-genius, is bringing American Night: The Ballad of Juan José north. In March, it plays the far edge of the continent in the Taper’s Culver City sucursal, the awkward and uncomfortable back-of-the-bus 317-seat Kirk Douglas. The Taper seats 700.

How typically Ritchie. After a few of these backhands, I begin to see something nefarious, not chowderheadedness. Ritchie’s chosen to shut out 400 people per show. Ritchie knows L.A.’s raza audience numbers in the millions. Gordon Davidson packed the house for Zoot Suit, both in its world premier staging in the New Theatre for Now Festival, then again in Zoot Suit’s fabulous regular season run. Obviously, a theatre director who cares about attracting new nalgas to fill seats can do it. But the teatro has to want to bring us in. Given effective marketing, L.A.’s Eastside gente would flock to the Taper’s nearby Bunker Hill location--the subway goes there, even. But, no way, Juan José, we’re not welcome any more, not with this guy.

American Night: The Ballad of Juan José resonates with any audience, though I suspect so much of the code-switching fun will be lost on most Westsiders. On our side of town, American Night: The Ballad of Juan José would be not only accessible entertainment, but also an inspiring educational vehicle. If you engage the play, citizen and aspirant alike learn the answers to some of the questions on the citizenship test.

What are the names of the original 13 colonies? Name the three branches of government. How many Amendments does the US Constitution contain? How many pendejos sit in the House of Representatives? What is the price of "playing by the rules?"

The nation puts immigrants through a meat grinder.The program offers a 10-item sample. Lots of folks in the audience Friday night were making excuses why they thought it was 20 Amendments, or couldn’t come up with the13th colony. “Y la Georgia!” Juan remembers, and passes the exam. Could a citizen pass the U.S. Citizenship test? Immigrants must study diligently, even obsessively.

That’s the premise. Juan José is going to pull an all-nighter studying his pocket Constitution and flash cards. But sleep takes over, launching Juan José into a series of side-splitting encounters with US History. Theodore Roosevelt killing everything in sight. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez emoting at Woodstock. Australian immigrant Harry Bridges organizing longshoremen in San Francisco Bay. Unknown freedmen saving KKK babies. Jackie Robinson breaking color barriers. A Chicano in Manzanar.

Juan José’s feverish dreams come with a subtext bite: Juan José’s Lydia—the enchanting Stephanie Beatriz--whom he’s left behind in Mexico, invades his dreams in the guise of characters in history. You can learn all that foreign stuff, amor, but don't forget where you belong.

There's Lydia with Lewis and Clark as the teenager Sacachihuahua. She talks funny because she’s wearing a modern retainer in her mouth. She is, after all, a 14-year old single mother. Sitting around the campfire, Juan José pulls out a history of their journey, gives them hope by pointing out all the place names honoring the clueless, eventually successful, adventurers. There’s Lewis this place, Clark that place. Even Sacachihuahua has a couple of geographies honoring her: Squaw Mountain, Panocha Creek.

The audience didn’t get that last one, except for the bilingual trio of women behind me who do a spit take on that and numerous other sly code-switches peppering Montoya’s script.

Indeed, playwright Richard Montoya packs this script densely, loading layer upon layer of funny, hilarious, fiendishly uproarious material. And, of course, the script packs a deadly punch, as all great satire will. There’s so much in the script that I—already suffering depleted memory resources--am overwhelmed, unable to remember all the joys this performance spreads across the stage and out into the audience. Fortunately, Google sells the Oregon version of Montoya’s script. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival commissioned the play.

Montoya’s not the only shining star in the production, he and Herb sparkle. Absent is CC co-founder Ric Salinas.

The play closes brilliantly with Stephanie Beatriz’ poignant solo. Her pitch-perfect pure soprano voice accompanied by soft ukulele chords burns into the audience’s hearts with the Patience and Prudence oldie, “Tonight, You Belong To Me.”

The script doesn’t credit a music arranger, but someone deserves credit for adding rests after the song’s opening line, “Tonight, you be-lo-o-o-o-onng…” And the word “belong” hangs there dangling off the end of a chord, four beats awash with telling ambiguity. “…To me-e-e-e-eee” the abandoned wife insists helplessly.

For the audience, palpable tension builds in the four-beat silence of the rest, Lydia's unstated fear that, in the face of citizenship’s place-switching allure, her husband belongs not to her anymore. The audience exits with tears in their eyes, humming that tune.

René Milián plays the whelmed, never overwhelmed, title character perfectly. Director Jo Bonney and Set Designer Neil Patel achieve equal brilliance from the opening blackout to Herbert Sigüenza's Neil Diamante glitzy production number, “Coming to America,” and that last solo. Lighting Designer David Weiner’s and Choreographer Ken Roht’s work complement this fabulous script, making American Night: The Ballad of Juan José a superb entertainment not to be missed, even if audiences have to drive all the way across town. 

Review:  The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey. 

Walter Mosley. The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey. New York : Riverhead Books, 2010.

ISBN 9781594487729 1594487723

Michael Sedano

Readers are fickle. Walter Mosley used to be my favorite Los Angeles writer, then I failed him. At first, I devoured every Easy Rawlins novel I could buy or borrow. In a series of novels, Rawlins arrives back in L.A. after WWII to set matters right in his community. Using righteous homegrown justice, Easy at first serves his community as a detective malgre lui, then as Mosley builds the character, Rawlins becomes an out-and-out private dick for hire. A Little Yellow Dog stands as the masterpiece of this wondrous series.

Mosley next introduces Socrates Fortlow, a superb fellow with arresting storyline. Unlike the situations Rawlins works into and out of again, Fortlow’s plots suffered from too much contrivance. The Easy Rawlins stories that followed those Fortlow titles progressively lost my interest. Discovering myself less engaged with his stories, I relegated Mosley’s newer works onto the “to be read if I get time” list.

Now I discover that Mosley’s contriving pluma produced a masterpiece back in 2010, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. (My paperback version in 2011). And talk about contrivance: old Confederate gold, a money-changer with a heart of gold, generational change, hard-edged innocence, evil clowns, well-deserved ass-kickings, a 90-year old man’s dementia miraculously reversed by the Devil’s illegal medical experimentation.

Walter Mosley is back. And wow. Especially compelling is the writer’s ability to reflect the ravaged displacements of dementia as seen through the disabled person’s fragile synapses.

Turning his eyes to the other side of the bed took all of his concentration. He saw and registered and forgot many things on his way. (275)

Equally arresting is the writer’s skill fashioning paragraphs holding time-future as past, and other writer’s gems that sound like this:

“The older you get the more you live in the past," Coy intoned like a minister introducing his sermon. "Old man like me don’t have no first blue sky or thunderstorm or kiss. Old man like me don’t laugh at the taste of a strawberry or smell his own stink and smile. You right there in the beggin’ when everything was new and true. My world is made outta ash and memories, broken bones and pain.” (166)

Within the covers, this wonderful story will keep readers occupied for a day or two at most because, beautifully written and plotted, once begun, the book is impossible to set down. Outside the book, readers with their own memory issues, elderly neighbors, ageing relatives, worthless trash relatives, find a special linkage between their own existence and this fiction. Would you cut your life expectancy to a month or two, if for that period you were free of dementia and able finally to wrap up a lifetime’s unfinished business?

Ptolemy has a secret treasure but he cannot remember what he knows. He’s sleeping under a table because he long ago sealed the bedroom and hoarded himself into a tightly confined space, a mirror of Ptolemy’s mind. He rarely ventures outside alone nowadays, owing to a local junkie who slaps Ptolemy around and steals his money, once even invading the place to rob him. The grand-nephew who used to look after Ptolemy has been murdered. A grand-niece sends her loutish thief of a son who, to his credit, bullies the junkie and sends her scurrying away, and steals only a portion of his great Uncle’s pension checks.

Enter an angel. Robyn, a beautiful seventeen-going-on-thirty distant relative with a heart of gold and a 5” knife in her purse. What goes around comes around: Robyn is to Ptolemy what Coydog was to the boy. Robyn drives the story by giving Ptolemy back his memory. An orphan living with her auntie and the lout, she’s helplessly desperate to escape to a space of her own. When Robyn digs in and cleans Ptolemy’s disgusting bathroom bare-handed, and then everything else, the newly opened space helps revive some of her uncle’s energy. If she was twenty years older and Ptolemy forty years younger, eros would rule their nest. But it’s puro agapé that grows between them after Robyn moves in.

Coydog is a magnificently contrived character who functions as a kind of prosthesis for Ptolemy’s memory. As the plot needs a new twist, Mosley whips out a Coydog tale. There are lots of them. When the now old man was a tiny boy, he spent significant hours learning from Uncle Coy, who’d taken the boy under his wing though they probably are not related. Coy teaches the boy African history, white people’s behaviors, community wisdom, practical advice, and infects the grown man with a lifetime of nightmares.

Readers, too, will get nightmares when Mosley describes the process of Coy’s lynching by a mob of piggish whites. The little boy, hidden in the forest, looks down on the ugly scene as the white men string up the old thief, stand him on an unsteady crate, pour gasoline on his feet and set them ablaze. Who could ever forget that sight, nor not seek solace in revenge?

Living well is the best revenge. And that’s what Ptolemy sets out to do—not for himself, but keeping a lifetime’s promise to use the treasure to save his people. Whom would you save, if you owned a boxful of old gold coins liberated from a slaveholder? Mosley/Ptolemy answers: those who deserve it.

So, what are just desserts? Who merits saving, who deserves a bullet in the chest? The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey makes the latter question entirely logical. As for who earns being saved from the emptiness of existence in central L.A., that’s the novel. 

TAIX Time in Los Angeles

One of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles is Taix French Restaurant. Gente will say "tays" but the name sounds more like April 15, se dice "tex."

My first visit to Taix was on a debate trip back in 1963, when Taix was a sawdust-floored picnic-table table d'hôte establishment in the shadow of the Brew 102 building and gas storage tanks where the 101 becomes the 10. Since then, Taix moved to fancy digs in Echo Park, and carpeted the floors.

The restaurant this month honors three 50-year employees with a special celebration prix fixe dinner. The food is superb country chow, the potage alone reason enough to eat there. This month brings a superb  reason to dine at Taix: a display of mutual loyalty between employer and employee that deserves notice.

50th Anniversary Celebration

for Jose Fragoso, Fernando Gomez, and Bernard Inchauspe

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 at 6:00 p.m.

Join us in celebrating a Rare and Unique event.  "50 years of Family, Friends, and Service."   $75.00 per person (all inclusive) Family Style Dinner. Paid reservations Only. Seating is limited.   Tickets may be purchased starting Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at our front desk. 213-484-1265 Last Chance News eSe Amor: Great Works of Love La Bloga supports teatro wherever it is, San Diego or Seattle, East Los or SanJo. Here, for instance, is news of a fundraiser up in Sherman Alexie country. Quien: eSe Teatro: Seattle Latinos Take Stage Que: Fundraising gala and performances Cuando: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 6:30pm (Doors open 6pm, Curtain Call 7pm) Donde: ACT Theatre in the Bullitt Cabaret, Seattle We have worked tirelessly during the last few months to put together an event that celebrates Latino culture and community; both of which are fundamentally based in amor. From passionate readings of celebrated literary works performed in Spanish and English, to a sampling of music and dance from Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, the performances we have lined up for you encompass great works of love from Spain, Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Chile and Brazil. Details at the Seattle teatro’s website. http://www.acttheatre.org/Tickets/OnStage/eSeAmor On-Line Floricanto 1st of 4 February Tuesdays This first On-Liine Floricanto of Valentine month brings six poems from five poets, including Sonia Gutiérrez, Mari Herreras, Diana Left, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, Iris De Anda.  Next Tuesday--The Day--La Bloga brings you a special expanded Valentine's Day On-Line Floricanto. As always, instead of a fifty dollar box of See's Chocolates or Bon-bons, print out the On-Line Floricanto and read it aloud to your loved one. You're welcome. "Entrenched/Atrincherada" by Sonia Gutiérrez "Arizona Sometimes" by Mari Herreras "If It Wasn't For The Mountains" by Diana Left “Saguaro Tanka” by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist “Por Siempre...” by Iris De Anda “Entrenched”/“Atrincherada” By Sonia Gutiérrez Entrenched Entrenched, earth propels the palms  of my feet, and I walk arm in arm with nature all around me. Entrenched, I spread my arms mercifully and fly past the walls of prejudice— longing to live the Dream. Entrenched, I spin spiral webs—catching rainbows, rainbows rainbows in full glee. Entrenched, I wake, labor, and rise until this small universe of mine whispers, “No more.” Atrincherada Atrincherada, la tierra empuja las palmas de mis pies, y camino de brazo en brazo con la naturaleza a todo mi alrededor. Atrincherada, extiendo mis brazos misericordiosamente  y vuelo pasando los muros de prejuicios— anhelando vivir el Sueño. Atrincherada,  tejo telarañas espirales, capturando arcos iris, arcos iris arcos iris en pleno júbilo. Atrincherada, me despierto, laboro, y me levanto hasta que este pequeño universo mío me susurre, “No más”. Arizona Sometimes by Mari Herreras     Arizona sometimes you remind me of the boy I write poems for who doesn't realize each word is my heart. Which only means each sunset, every shadow and light across the Catalinas, the coyote's yips and howls, our sultry nights during monsoon seem Arizona sometimes. It is as if you know that as you hold my heart that every book hidden, every child told no, every cry met in indifference, every family chased away, is Arizona sometimes and you've no choice but to break my heart. If It Wasn't For The Mountains by Diana Left     if it wasn't for the mountains that said my name the mountains that welcomed me and clearly said they had been waiting for me these mountains where i have been before and where i am before again in dreams in reality and in battle i have often mentioned that i am a chicana indita indigenita piel morena como la misma tierra i am the only one in these mountains of my kind. part now of these mountains that tell me they are ashamed sometimes of man... but they also tell me they forgive him as some of them do come in to pray before they take their game. these mountains have made way for paths in his escape from pain and many paths they allow him for his pleasure and his gain. if it wasn't for these mountains i would never have painted my self. i would have never understood what mountains sound like when they speak. oh man! oh little, little imbecile man! the road you travel belongs to them from Patagonia to Arizona. Where you have gone mad. these are the mountains that make you. this is Machu Picchu in what you call america Las Andeas you plant your stake to. these are the mountains that never crumble when they speak like the Popocatepetl en tu Mejiko. if it wasn't for these mountains oh if it wasn't for these mountains banned books would not survive their ban. these mountains have read all of our books of the chacanismos they have heard chicanas crying through the willows they have heard the one called illegal lamenting through the Aspen leaf dances. oh crazy crazy crazed one. stop it. Mexican American is here in the mountains. on the borders,inside the wombs of tomorrow. Book banning them will not stop them. They are children of the Sun. In honor of mountain's which protect me,and protect us! Diana L.--joe Chuska Mountain Fortress near the Sky. Aztlan, February 1,2012 Saguaro Tanka by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist ©2012 Like a saguaro I stand tall and patient Forever waiting Housing words for poems To reconcile all people Por Siempre... by Iris De Anda once upon a time  habia una ves in a place not far from here a binding together of thoughts like paperbacks that tell a tale no holding back of outrage that emerges as you burn me stamp me condemn me take away my cuentos try to censor the spirit of mi gente presente we are here to stay because the more you ignore me  the closer i get the louder i get the stronger i get linking memories of our saga like hardcovers the first edition never the last always a story to be told life unfolds the twisted hair holding cosmic words uses breath like ink that spills forth truth on paper the cantos  the versos the simbolos that rewrite the mentiras the fairytales the lies that failed ban me  suppress me prohibit me take away my books try to limit the soul of mi pueblo rebelde we will not submit we will awaken because our memoirs both tragic & epic are authentic & sublime they will transcend time, people, & borders & even if the pages  of our storytellers are set ablaze  our leyendas will spread  like the fire that consumed them  & flourish in the hearts of our semillas in flor y canto por siempre... BIOS "Entrenched/Atrincherada" by Sonia Gutiérrez "Arizona Sometimes" by Mari Herreras "If It Wasn't For The Mountains" by Diana Left “Saguaro Tanka” by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist “Por Siempre...” by Iris De Anda Sonia Gutiérrez—poet, mother, translator. educator and social critic—teaches English at Palomar College and for the Upward Bound Program (CSUSM). Sonia uses her craft—poetry, prose, and libros cartoneros as tools that promote social awareness and human compassion. To learn more about Sonia Gutiérrez’s work, visit Chicana in the Midst, una bloguita bien chingona.  Mari Herreras, a fifth generation Tucsonan, is an award-winning journalist who works for the Tucson Weekly. When she’s not writing about the ugly and beautiful that makes Tucson weird and wonderful, she writes with the Sowing the Seeds women's writing collective. The group recently published its second anthology, "Our Spirit, Our Reality: Celebrating Our Stories."  Elena Díaz Björkquist, a writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, writes about Morenci, Arizona where she was born. She is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon and is nearing completion of another collection of Morenci stories entitled Albóndiga Soup. Elena has been on the Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Speakers Bureau for ten years performing as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation, and doing presentations about Morenci, Arizona and also the 1880’s Schoolhouse in Tubac. AHC recently selected her to do a presentation on El Día de los Muertos. Elena is co-editor of Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos, an anthology written by her writers group. The project was funded by AHC. She co-edited a new anthology entitled Our Spirit, Our Reality; our life experiences in stories and poems that was released in November 2011. A SIROW Scholar at the University of Arizona, Elena conducted an oral history project funded by AHC; “In the Shadow of the Smokestack.” A website she created contains the oral history interviews and photographs of Chicano elders living in Morenci during the Depression and World War II. Another project funded by AHC and the Stocker Foundation is “Tubac 1880’s Schoolhouse Living History Program.” Her website is www.elenadiazbjorkquist.net/.  Elena is one of the poet moderators for the Facebook page “Poets Responding to SB1070. She recently received the 2012 Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing. Iris De Anda is a writer, activist, practitioner of the healing arts, and co-founder of the company Las Adelitas: Moda, Cultura, Revolucion. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams.  She can be reached at evoluxion777@yahoo.com.