Volume v, #1

teatro la fragua is headquartered in the town of El Progreso, Yoro, a commercial center for the banana camps of the north coast of Honduras. The theatre is situated in an old building which was originally a social center for executives of the United Fruit Company. Approximately fifty percent of performances are given in this center for the public of the town of Progreso; the other fifty percent are performances given in the surrounding camps and in towns and village throughout the country.

teatro la fragua was founded on the belief that in a society which is primarily illiterate, theatre as a basic medium of communication and education can assume a role of prime importance. The end of theatre "was and is, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure" (Hamlet, III, ii). When a person sees the cultural, sociological, and religious reality of his world imaged in a theatrical work, he is in a better position to understand that reality more clearly, and thereby to deal with it more effectively and to assume some control over his own destiny.

Any first-time visitor to Honduras is stunned by the desperate poverty of the people, and one of the most stunning manifestations of all is that the people have no music of their own, only music borrowed from Mexico or the United States. This lack of expression of a cultural identity extends to all facets of creative expression: the result is that the person has no group with which to identify, no mirror by which to gauge his own situation and development, and thus his very self-identity -- communal and individual -- is cast into doubt.

In his address to the United Nations on October 6, 1979, Pope John Paul II called attention to this facet of the complex problem of poverty:

It is this human person that is often threatened and hungry, without decent housing and employment, without access to the cultural heritage of his or her people or of humanity, and without a voice to make his or her distress heard.

teatro la fragua is an attempt to help a people find that voice, and in the process to find themselves.

teatro la fragua began in 1979 in Olanchito, a town of about 5,000 in the interior of Honduras. The first year of work was experimental, a search for an adequate style to reflect and express the Honduran reality. The first full production, in July 1979, was composed of short works in radically different styles, with the intention of testing audience reaction to and comprehension of each. One of those works, Las Dos Caras del Patroncito, has remained in the repertory to the present time.

Late the same year, the first production was mounted in what has become a major emphasis: Historias Exactamente Asi, a work for children. Half of the population of Honduras is under 15 years of age, and what programs exist to deal with the needs of this burgeoning population are woefully inadequate. Theatre for children is never going to lower the infant mortality rate. Theatre for children will not save a child dying of malnutrition, nor will it provide him shelter from the rain and mud. But it can fill another need perhaps as desperate: theatre can make a child laugh. Perhaps it can even give him a spark of hope.

But in Olanchito there was no adequate rehearsal space available, and there were insurmountable problems of communication with other regions of the country, especially in the rainy season. So at the beginning of 1980 the theatre moved to the city of El Progreso, taking over the locale which remains the center of operations. New works were mounted in cooperation with the Association of University Students of El Progreso, and the word began to spread that Progreso had a theatre.

In 1981, with the help of grants from Trocaire, Misereor, and the Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund, the teatro became an organization of full-time apprenticed actors, composed of young persons with artistic ability from various regions of the country. Original works reflecting the actor's own life experience began to be written and mounted by the group, and the audience base of the teatro expanded dramatically in Progreso and the surrounding villages and camps. Some tours were undertaken to other parts of the country, and the teatro won the absolute fidelity of the children of Progreso with the mounting of new children's works.

At the same time, the work of rescue and repair of the locale was begun. The building was structurally sound and its floorplan ideal for adaptation to theatrical use; but it was full of termites and wood lice and badly in need of paint and reconstruction. It is a building that has seen a variety of uses over the years, from a club for Company executives to a youth center to housing for refugees from Hurricane Fifi in 1974. Unfortunately, in the years following that disaster, the building remained practically abandoned and uncared for, and the ravages of the tropical climate had taken their toll. The remodeling, still very much in process, in an attempt to create a flexible space adaptable to various styles of works, mounted in such a way that they can be easily translated to other found spaces: churches, schools, dance halls, and open-air performances.

The personnel of teatro la fragua are drawn principally form the vast class of unemployed youth: the kids who hang around in the billiard parlors and on street corners (age range at the moment is 16-29). From the beginning, it has served as a job training program: in acting (although the prospects in that field are grim even in the best of circumstances) and in the ancillary skill of the theatre: carpentry, electricity, music, bookkeeping, sign-painting, mechanics, et cetera. But primarily in the basic work discipline necessary to hold any job: punctuality, responsibility, courtesy, and cooperation.

In November of 1982, a National Theatre Festival was held in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and teatro la fragua sprang to national attention as being at the forefront of a nascent national theatre movement; that judgment was deepened and confirmed in 1983 by extensive tours to various areas of the country and by a second festival in November of that year.

Meanwhile the organizational and financial aspects of the teatro were put on a firmer footing. Financially, the teatro had started with funds from the Missouri Province Educational Institute (the corporate title of the Society of Jesus in St. Louis) and the Institution Educational Yoreña (the corporate title of the Jesuit Mission in Honduras). In the early years, further grants came from Trocaire (Ireland), Misereor (Germany), and the Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund. But almost from the start, efforts began to expand that base of economic support with the publication of tlf news, a newsletter sent to a mailing list of some 2,500, mostly in the United States. Contributions from that base grew steadily, until in 1983 the total operation of the teatro was covered by box-office receipts and individual newsletter contributions: a small but important step toward economic self-sufficiency.

At the same time, one most be realistic: box-office receipts and individual contributions have continuously risen dramatically, but teatro la fragua can never hope to break even. It is situated in a totally impoverished part of the world, and its very reason for being is to be at the service of a people lacking the economic wherewithal to support at theatre. There is no question that it will have to continue to exist as "charity" for as long as the socio-economic conditions of the country remain at their present level.

The central office for the Jesuit Missions in Honduras is the Jesuit Mission Bureau; 4511 West Pine; St. Louis MO 63108. An offering for teatro la fragua should be directed through that office. The Jesuit Mission Bureau is tax-exempt.: the tax number is: 43 6036363, and the Jesuit Mission Bureau is listed on page 831 of the Official Catholic Directory for 1983.