"Teatro in times of plague"

Today is the feast of St. Oscar Romero. Teatro la fragua was a year old when he was murdered, and he has been a constant presence. One of our finest shows is Romero de las Américas, a piece which the Chicano playwright Carlos Morton wrote for us. (Mas exactamente, which he adapted for us from his doctoral thesis in playwriting). Romero´s calls for justice ring even more true in the context of this crisis.

6 new cases, bringing the total to 36. Almost all the cases are people that brought it in from abroad, or of their direct contacts. No deaths yet and no cases in Progreso.

The maquilas are trying to get out of paying any kind of workers’ compensation. One chain is laying off all workers for four months with no compensation.

The huge number of people who live from day to day have no savings to fall back on. It’s hard to foresee where this will take us. As someone has said there are going to be more deaths from hunger than from the disease.

People are getting stir-crazy, although we are all well in the house (we have open space and trees).

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

16 new cases, 52 cases total. But they say (without specifying where) two in the department de Yoro. I think they said 14 in San Pedro. Tegucigalpa has the lion’s share. They are doing a miserable job in the government of communication with the public.

There is the same tension as in Washington as to whether the doctors or the politicians should decide about the situation.

I went out this morning and drove downtown just out of curiosity.

It’s relatively active downtown, but clearly people are doing their business then going home. A couple of farmacias are open, with long lines. And the banks with huge lines. Small stores selling food are still going strong. The supermarkets are only selling food to the smaller distributers and are closed to the public.

We decided today (in our virtual office in Facebook Messenger) that we are going to try to salvage our production of El Asesinato de Jesús – the Passion – by transmitting it on the local tv station, TeleProgreso. We’ll film it in advance and try to transmit it on

Good Friday. We were ready to open with shows for student groups when this hit; we’ve had to cancel it all. This is usually the biggest box-office time of year. We might be able to find commercial sponsors for the tv, although I doubt it. TeleProgreso ain´t Univisión or Telemundo, but it’s what we’ve got.

Radio Progreso has just clarified for us: yes, we have a case in Progreso. Male, 65 years, who flew in from NYC just before the shutdown. He has been here 11 or 12 days. It gets scarier when it’s this close to home.

Keep safe and wash your hands.

Jack.

 

 

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