Vol. xxi # 1

March, 2000

Edy: On March 24, 1980, we got the news: "They've murdered Archbishop Romero!" There were tears and much pain. We were afraid. If the powerful had dared to perpetrate that kind of outrage on the shepherd, what wouldn't they do to the flock of ordinary committed Christians.

Jack: The murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero is one of the key events of the contemporary history of Central America. It is also a key event in the history of teatro la fragua: we were still in diapers when it happened, and from the very first we understood that it was an event we would have to try to interpret.

Edy: The identity of teatro la fragua owes much to the religious, political and social explosions which shook all of Central America at the beginning of the '80's. The political conflict was very strong, and the Catholic Church had adopted a firm position as the voice which denounced the social injustice. In the Central America of those days mass murders, politically motivated disappearances and torture were everyday occurrences. It was truly dangerous to work with the Church because for the military governments and the oligarchy the Church was Communist. I stress the role of the Church because our founder and director is a Jesuit priest.

"I denounce above all the absolutizing of wealth.
That is the great sin in El Salvador:
Wealth and private property have become an untouchable absolute.
And woe to him that toucheth that high tension wire;
he shall be roasted!"
(12 August 1979)

Jack: The problem was how to interpret an event of such magnitude. Various authors tried their hand at the job and I read every script about the murder that I could find. But I was dissatisfied with them: I couldn't find the text that captured and expressed the essence of Romero and his significance for Central America.

Edy: And then one day a script arrived from Carlos Morton, a Chicano dramatist resident in the United States and a friend of Jack. Morton's script was excellent but it was written in English and it was directed to an audience very distinct from ours. But Jack got in contact with Carlos, and they started working on a translation and adaptation of the script to the Central American audience and to the unique acting style of teatro la fragua. Carlos Morton came to El Progreso to work on the script directly with us. And we began to realize that we had in our hands a work of first rank.

Jack: Carlos Morton is the most performed Chicano playwright in the United States. In spite of his thorough academic formation, Carlos has lived and carried out his theatrical work in the heart of his own experience: the contradictions of Chicano culture.

Edy: And we started rehearsals of Romero of the Americas

"The Law continues to be a serpent: it only bites the barefoot."
(15 April 1979)

Edilberto: When we were given our scripts of Romero of the Americas

Rigo: In Romero of the Americas I interpret the role of Romero. It's a great privilege to have the honor of playing the part of someone so loved and remembered by all the Central American people. To be honest, I didn't want to play the role, but when the Captain gives an order the sailors obey, and I had to accept it. I would have preferred the role of the campesino or of Fr. Rulilio Grande.

Edilberto: I was given a very difficult but very important job: to write the music for the play. Every day when I got home from the theatre I sat down with my guitar and began to search for the chords and the style for the music that is an integral part of the drama of Romero. The next morning when I got to la fragua I would program those ideas on the computer. At one point I went to El Salvador with Edy, Chito and Juan; I was still searching for the style that the music needed. While we were in Romero's country we went into a restaurant for dinner. While we were eating, a group of strolling musicians entered and began singing a type of protest music that caught my ear both for the style and for the lyrics. And I realized immediately that it was what I was looking for as the style for the play's music. The real contribution of that music was that it was music created by Salvadorans. The influence of those strolling musicians is reflected most in the play's first two songs.

"To pray and then wait for God to do everything:
that isn't prayer, it's laziness."
(20 July 1979)

Yuma: In Romero of the Americas I play the role of Fr. Rutilio Grande. And I double in the role of the gringo ambassador. It was quite a challenge because they are two very different -- even opposite -- persons.

Edilberto: Later, while we were still in El Salvador, I heard various first-hand accounts of the political, religious and social events that took place at the beginning of the decade of the '80's in that tortured country. And new ideas began to come to me. These ideas led me to conceive a progression of the music, so that it would start from the campesino style and morph to a more contemporary style -- a somewhat more youthful style of contemporary protest. And so starting from the corrido of the campesino we move into a kind of alternative rock.

Rigo: I didn't want to play Romero because I didn't know much about the life of Archbishop Romero, about his personality and his way of acting. I didn't want to do the role because the character is very complex, with many changes in the course of his life. I didn't want to do Romero because I'm sure the work is going to be very controversial, and I will be at the center of all the controversy.

Edilberto: I think that learning more in depth about the history of Oscar Romero, Rutilio Grande, Neto Barrera, Octavio Ortiz, and the countless men and women who died during the war in El Salvador, helped me a lot in writing and structuring the music that accompanies this drama of Romero of the Americas

Rigo: I have to admit that although it's true that at first I didn't want the role, it's just as true that as we went along in rehearsals my feelings changed. The role began to fascinate me. Every new thing that I discovered about Romero became one more reason to make me love this character, in such a way that little by little the character has invaded me.

Edy: My role is that of a Salvadoran campesino. It's a complex role because he's not your run-of-the-mill campesino: the campesino is sort of the narrator who tells us the story of his intimate friend Archbishop Romero. I didn't want to fall into a political reading of the role, which for an actor would be the easiest way. I wanted to find a more dramatic way to interpret my character as a human being, as a Christian committed to his faith, committed to the real teachings of Jesus Christ. Have I managed that? I don't know. That's something that only the audience can judge.

"This is the supreme truth, the truth that truly makes us free
and that forms the base of true love:
that we love one another as he commanded us.
This is not a romantic or sentimental notion of love;
it is a love committed to action and to the truth."
(13 May 1979)

Rigo: I want to make it very clear that I am not making any attempt to create a replica of Romero or anything like that. As Jack said during rehearsals, "We're not mounting a documentary." Rather, we're trying to convey to the audience the spirit and the message of Romero with all the feeling and respect that he merits.

Jack: I think it's important to emphasize that Romero of the Americas is not a documentary. It's a poetic interpretation of the reality that Archbishop Romero represents for us today. And as such it's a work that is almost anti-historical, which insists that Archbishop Romero is not a figure of the past but rather a figure who should permeate our present and inspire our future.

Edy: In the work we are not just dealing with history; we are addressing problems which are still very real. We are speaking to the injustice that is more than ever the warp and woof of our societies.

"It's inconceivable that you call yourself a Christian
if you don't commit yourself, as Christ did,
to a preferential option for the poor."
(9 September 1979)

Edilberto: There's still a lot of work to do on Romero, on the acting level as well as the musical, but I am sure that with effort and will we're going to have something good.

Yuma: There are many young persons who -- like me -- don't know anything about the murder of Archbishop Romero. Whenever a young audience has seen the show they've gone away shocked and surprised, and have continued to mull over all that we try to communicate to them dramatically about Archbishop Romero. Many of my classmates have asked me if everything that appears in the play really happened. And many people a bit older are no better off since they were just little kids when these things happened. In my own case, I was three years old when that tragedy took place. Twenty years have passed since the murder of Archbishop Romero.

Edy: Mounting this work has been a real challenge; we've taken on an enormous responsibility to our people because of the historical importance of the subject, which touches each and every one of us as human beings and as Christians.

Yuma: It has been a difficult job. For me, it's the first time that I've acted in the creation of a work of this magnitude. The first time! We continue working very hard to make sure that with every show it gets better. I'm a little scared when I imagine the reaction the people of El Salvador will have to this work. I wonder if it will bring back all the pain and terror of those violent years.

Edy: Oscar Romero is not dead. Oscar Romero sowed so much love in such fertile ground that the only thing we have to do is to take up the job of spreading that seed so that it can continue to yield an abundant harvest.

"I want to direct my words today in a special way to the men in the army,
and concretely to the common soldiers in the National Guard,
in the police forces, in the barracks:
Brothers, you form part of our people;
you are killing your own campesino brothers.
And in the face of an order to kill given by a man,
what must prevail is the law of God which says 'Thou shalt not kill'.
No soldier is obligated to obey an order that goes against the law of God.
No one has to obey an immoral law.
It is time to reactivate your own conscience
and to obey that conscience in the face of a sinful order....
In the name of God and in the name of this suffering people,
whose cries rise up to heaven more tumultuously every day,
I beg you, I plead with you, I order you in the name of God:
Stop the repression!"
(23 March 1980)