tlf news

Vol. xxii #2

June, 2001




Give us this day or daily theatre





When I was a child, my grandmother had a holy card of St. Ignatius of Loyola (the founder of the Society of Jesus) pasted on the door of her house; below the image was the legend "The devil doesn't enter in this house...."  No doubt she had it there because that fallen angel regularly frequented the neighborhood.  Years later, in my adolescence, I became a playwright and characters like Death, the child, the prostitute and the devil became, unconsciously, constants in my output, because they are intrinsically charged with magic and theatricality.  The devil frequented those parts, or as Thornton Wilder would say, the angel who stirred the waters. My admiration for the Jesuits is manifest: they created in Europe and later in America great universities which cultivated the study of grammar, rhetoric, Latin and Greek, as well as elegant writing and speech.   Cultured, sensitive and revolutionary, they dramatized passages of the Gospel on the missionary/school stage, because they were pedagogically and artistically convinced that the audio-visual richness of theatre makes it a great educational tool; theatre is an open book which forms and transforms the conduct and conscience of the individual.

The Society of Jesus (s.j.) gave to Mexico and to the greater part of Latin America both religious and profane theatre:  spectacle used as a doctrinal tool was evident in the Teatro del Pendón in Puebla, which offered a Novena of works during the week of  Corpus Christi.  Inspired by medieval didactic theatre, they quickly fused stage and pulpit; parishoners emerged from a day at the theatre more reflective, repentant and purified than from the rhetoric of the finest sermon.  The Word made Verb allowed for communion between broadcaster and receiver, God and Man, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.


This history lesson is relevant because two millennia after Christ a Jesuit priest named Jack Warner founded in 1979 teatro la fragua (tlf) in the city of El Progreso in the Republic of Honduras, continuing this mission of education and development of a people and following the established tradition of the Jesuit Order of providing food for the spirit.  On top of his priestly ordination, Jack was professionally formed in theatre in his native USA; tlf is his work.  The company has a beautiful scenic space with a simple but original design that makes you want to get to work.  The theatrical complex of la fragua, once upon a time the casino of the United Fruit Company, is in the midst of a tropical garden.  Thanks to the economic contributions of friends and theatre lovers around the world, the stage counts on the support of a lighting system that is more than acceptable, a theatre library unequaled in Central America, and the edition of a quarterly newsletter by which we are all kept up to date on their activities.  But most important of all are the actors.  All are disciplined young persons whose acting manifests the hand of their director in search of an acting style that takes off from the work of Jerzy Grotowsky and his Towards a Poor Theatre, always rich in corporal expression and management of body, voice and gesture.

I had the good fortune in Holy Week to witness The Assassination of Jesus, one of the elements of their repertory which over the years has become a war horse of deep significance for the company.  Jack wrote the piece, inspired by the New Testament Gospels; it demands minimal scenic resources, little more than a colored back curtain which immediately announces the festive influence of the Afro culture in Honduras.  A brightly lit stage creates the acting area; the rest comes close to pure theatre, in which the actor can count only on his histrionic skills which at the same time create the theatricality:  movement, dance, song.  The Assassination of Jesus is a choreographed musical piece with live music, joyous and youthful like its interpreters.


Jesus is a Progreseño (José Ramón Inestroza); a contemporary Christ with Honduran characteristics, deliberately.  A Christ of flesh and blood and bone, with the curly hair of the black genes of the region, of large black eyes and medium athletic stature.  The members of the chorus become Pilate, the apostles, Malchus, Caiaphas and even the donkey that serves as means of transport for Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  The domino motive of the costumes, black and white with red belts, is far from Manichean: the tradition that those in black are the bad guys is turned on its head.  The multiple roles are distributed in such a way that the actor who plays Jesus leaves his role at times to join in the pharasaical voice crying for the crucifixion of the blasphemer.  Peter is transformed into Pontius; the chorus alternates in the role of Jesus, bringing home to the audience the truth that His spirit is present in each one of them.  They also alternate in the role of Narrator, whose purpose is not to comment on what we are watching but to drive the dramatic action forward.

The physical and emotional warm-up before every presentation is notable.  The company, led by Yester (Yuma), one of the supporting actors, goes through a rigorous routine in temperatures which reach 100 degrees in the shade.  The routine includes relaxation of the extremities, tension and distension, breathing, voice and diction, and finally the text itself.  And all this without falling into any sort of primadonnism;  all the company do it together and all work together to set up and strike the curtains and lighting.


tlf does theatre for the popular classes, for students, housewives, teachers, for the general public.  tlf does not spout "morals" or propagandistic "messages"; they know that the real theatrical vanguard consists in commitment to their society, to their people.  Their pieces express outrage, courage, rebellion; they rudely awaken the conscience.  Their voice shouts "No!" to the oppression, exploitation, corruption and misery of a Central America plagued by injustice.  This piece inevitably brings to mind contemporary texts like The Greek Passion of Kazantzakis; The Escaped Cock of D. H. Lawrence; or Prophesy: Who Hit You? of Romano Cué sj, works which examine the historic and religious personality of Christ and demonstrate the contemporary relevance and the universal appeal of His person.

I continue to believe that religious theatre is theatre and not religion as such.  The clerics and religious Lope de Vega y Carpio, Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, from the point of view of their individual religious orders, gave us a Golden Century that will endure for centuries.

Many thanks to each of the members of teatro la fragua , to Jack, and to the Society of Jesus for their warm hospitality and for giving us each day our daily theatre.

--Ricardo Pérez Quitt


(Ricardo Pérez Quitt was born in Atlixco, Puebla, in 1958.  Playwright, critic and theatrical investigator, he studied theatre in Mexico and Europe.  He presently edits the journal Autores, teoría y práctica teatral, and teaches at the Free College of Theatrical Studies in Puebla.)
 




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