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By Bonnie Tinker
In “The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa” Luis Valdez, a founder of Teatro Campesino presents the famous Mexican rebel and revolutionary as a disembodied head. The theatrical devise was suggested by the actual fact that when Villa’s body was disinterred it was missing the head. The head is brought to life in Valdez’s play. Without a body and very few words Vicente Guzman-Orozco creates a fully developed, scene stealing character filled with both pathos and humor.
Unfortunately the historic play completed its run in May. Living up to Miracle Theater’s record of combining solid artistic work with serious satire laced with unambiguous political commentary, the production took the company back to their roots in Teatro Campesino as a fitting tribute to their 25th anniversary. Although this production was over in May, what remains is Teatro Milagro/ the Miracle Theater Group as the embodiment of the spirit of displaced people determined to reclaim their heritage.
The heritage of all colonized people is complex and the experience of the real individuals who live through exploitation and assimilation is both mystifying and infuriatingly simple; it is tragic and comic, heartbreaking and heroic. It cannot be expressed through one language. The Miracle Theater groups’ bilingual productions meet the challenge of giving artistic expression to these experiences.
Luiz Valdez, the playwright was still a student at San Jose State College when he wrote The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa, his first play. The audacity and slapstick satire of the play reflect the turmoil of a young adult torn between competing cultures. It clearly suggests that entertainment – while abundant in this work – was not his primary goal. Valdez subsequently became a part of The San Francisco Mime Troop, another unabashedly hilarious group of political satirists and skilled performers. When he left the Mime troop he joined up with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers where he created the Teatro Campesino, which he says was “dedicated to the education and entertainment of striking farm workers struggling against the powerful machine of Californian agriculture.”
Teatro Campesino discovered the missing head of Pancho Villa, and gave him back his body. It also had a direct impact on farm worker organizing in Oregon. Ramon Ramirez and Cipriano Ferrero, founders of PCUN, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos, were both influenced by Chavez’ Farm Worker movement in California and Teatro Campesino. Cipriano grew up as a friend of the Chavez kids, and Ramirez was involved with the Teatro Campesino as a young man.
Miracle Theater Group was founded in Portland in 1985 by José Eduardo González, Executive Artistic Director, and Danielle Malan. With roots in classic Greek theater and the experience of the 20th century of Hispanics in the southwestern United States, the Miracle Theater./Teatro Milagro, was equipped to explore and illuminate universal themes of human displacement, discomfort, and celebration ranging from Garcia Lorca to playful productions celebrating Mexico’s Dia de Los Muertos.
As the company heads into the maturity of it’s second 25 years it has become more than entertainment and more that political discourse. In the best tradition of theater as the expression of persistent human dilemmas, the Theaters 2009-10 season will include original bilingual productions created and produced by local artists, as well as a adaptation of Cervantes’ classic in “El Quijote.”
This summer Milagro will offer three programs for kids, youth and adults, all in spanish: ¡Cuentos y teatro! Campamento teatral del verano esspanol y ninas de 9 a 12 anos - del 27 de Julio al 7 de augusto.
¡Danza tropical! Clase de danza folklorica de Cuba en espanol para jovenes de 12 a 18 anos, del 6 a 17 de Julio.
¡Actuacion en vivo! Un taller en espanol para adultos con elementos basicos sobre actuacion, del 18 del Julio al 8 de augusto.
The production of The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa may be over, but the legend of Villa as both the rebel and the Robin Hood of campesinos is given new life as a new generation of the Miracle Theater Group wrestles with the questions: What does it mean to be Hispanic? What does it mean to be bilingual, and bicultural in a monolingual dominant culture? What does it mean to be an obrero, un campesino, un pobre in the land of empire capitalism? What does it mean when the living remember and party with the dead? What is it to be human on a fragile planet?
The Miracle Theater Group’s
2009-2010 Season
Told in vibrant acts of theatre, these tales of transformation create a purifying crucible in which the human essence, what is truly most important, is revealed and celebrated! Olga Sanchez, Artistic Director of the Miracle MainStage and Bellas Artes
The Miracle begins its season October 30 – November 15 with it’s signature production, El Día de los Muertos Festival, their annual Day of the Dead celebration. This year, they visit Depression-era Oregon to discover what remains when all the trappings of life are lost. January 15-30 brings the world premiere of American Sueño, a play about the search for the American Dream, a production that will then tour the nation throughout 2010. February 12 – March 6, Milagro presents a very modern, very funny battle of the sexes in the Mexican comedy Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda (Between Villa and a Naked Woman). The season continues in the spring, March 26-April 17, with a stage version of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez’s best-selling novel about four vivacious sisters torn between the old world and the new when they leave the Dominican Republic for the Big Apple. The season concludes May 7-29 on the plains of Spain with a boisterous family-friendly bilingual adaptation of Cervantes’ classic El Quijote.
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