Vol. xxvii #1

March, 2006

Lauren Lansing

It is not down in any map; true places never are.
~Herman Melville

This is definitely a "real" theatre--whatever that means. It is not a community theatre, "do it when we have time with the kids from the local church" kind of place. The theatre works from 8 to 5, with lunch and siesta from 12 to 2. And in that time the actors rehearse--right now, the Passion for Lent and Easter; take dance or movement classes; and build any needed sets or costumes. But they use a minimalist theater theory, so there are not 3-dimensional bedrooms or Victorian corsets to build--sets and props are bodies and imaginary objects, which allows both actors and audience to be more creative. All this happens on the wood-plank stage surrounded by windows to let in the coveted shade-cooled air, with seating on wooden bleachers for 200.

The office buzzes with budget, web and music design, payroll, marketing, and keeps the theatre running. Most employees span the ages of 17 and 25, and their young ideas constantly energize the operation. So far I have mainly worked on grant writing, financial development, editing scripts and letters; soon I will work with the productions in various facets--maybe even as a director. Whatever happens, I have my work cut out for me, since Fr. Jack is hourly coming up with new ideas to try.

And then there is El Progreso. Progress City is Bike City. Or so it was until used cars became something people strived to afford. Bikes traversed the sprawl created by the banana camps railroad in the early 1900's. And in 2006, with gas prices soaring, people are resurrecting their mountain, road, banana-seat, shock-proof, or trick Bikes instead of paying 65 Lempiras (roughly $3.75) per gallon.

My Bike does not have multicolored tassels whipping around the handles in the wind, a grand white banana seat, nor a shiny red paint job; but no matter, it allows me some independence. The ride to the theatre takes about 15 minutes and affords me the luxury of observation time. Progreso is a mezcla or mix of the old and the new, rural and city, high-tech and colonial, all mashed together like rice and beans in one town.

On my way, this is what I see: I head down the dusty street outside my house, dodging the chickens and the group of children clad only in dusty diapers and mom's old t-shirt, immersed in a game of hopscotch or arguing whose turn it is to be "it." I bump and bob over stones and potholes in the dirt road, passing a two story pop-top home painted unabashedly in alternating pink and purple, like chalky Valentine's Day candy. Across the street is the closest pulpería to my house. Pulperías are Honduran Mom-and-Pop stores located in the front room of someone's home, guarded by a metal security door. Pulperías have anything one could possibly need in a moment's notice: crates of eggs, bread, milk, pop, soap, three kinds of bananas, diapers, candy, potato chips, toilet paper, corn flour and whole chickens--live or dead.

I turn onto the main thoroughfare and here the street becomes paved; this will take me through the middle of downtown. But first, I must dodge around the edge of two giant speed bumps, taking care to avoid cars and curb. I pass a feed lot of sheep with matted wool the color of the dry earth they scour for food. I pass a lumber yard using horses and open-back carriages, right out of Sarah, Plain and Tall, to deliver its planks to waiting customers. Next door sits a cable station offering Cartoon Network, ESPN and HBO to Progreso's avid TV watchers. I pass the furniture maker, who, out of a few pieces of wood, sheets of foam and outdated fabric, builds plush couches and armchairs in a shack the size of a one-car garage.

After several blocks, a stoplight marks my entrance into downtown. I scoot ahead of the line of waiting cars to avoid the row of buses parked along the curb. Beneath a metal awning sit rows of shoe-shiners on small wooden boxes. Their customers arrive with the 8 o'clock hour; those men who pride themselves in a sparkle at their feet after trekking to work in the dust from their respective barrios. Once their shoes glow, these men stop at the small table past the awning to buy the daily paper--more to read about yesterday's fútbol games than the news. I cross to the other side of the street, by the church of Las Mercedes, because here sits one of the city's main plazas, next to which no cars can park. This gives me a nice moment to ride without fear of running into an opening car door, a taxi pulling out of a parking space, or a mother dragging her child to the other side of the street, and a chance to glance back to see the church standing simple and white above single-storied Progreso.

I continue, and on both sides of the street giant, primary-colored beach umbrellas densely line the sidewalks; one cannot even see the original stores. These street venders hawking T-shirts, fruits, and lottery tickets have tried to create a beachy Caribbean boardwalk, in order to forget that there is no plush sand, only dust, and no clear ocean, only dirty mop water. Stations of baleada women with portable gas stoves and metal bowls full of beans, cheese, meat and tortilla dough polka-dot most corners along the way; the delicate smell of flour and water cooking accompanies the slap-slap-slap of the tortilla dough being flip-flapped between the women's hands. In a few minutes an unbreakfasted soul can buy baleadas, chewy flour tortillas filled with all the fixin's. On the next block under the "No Parking" sign, a pick-up parks, its bed loaded with a red and yellow volcano of furry leechie nuts. By 5 p.m. when I return, each and every one of those fruits will be sold to hungry shop keepers, sticky children, stiletto-clad travel agents, tilting old men and students looking for a snack.

Then I reach the fruit, cheese and fish market; the same bananas, radishes, cabbages, onions, carrots, pineapples, papayas and apples are sold by every vendor, each trying to convince the potential buyer that her products are the best. Then the cheese stands, where sales boys loiter around un-refrigerated cheese-filled glass display cases and women sit on plastic crates next to great baskets of dried sardines and shrimp. The smell of old fish and milk rotting in the tropical sun can be enough to knock me off my Bike, but daily at lunch and dinner, swarms of customers pick out their meal. Woven into this bazaar tapestry are small stores, with names like "Tiara Princess" or "Curiosities and More" selling Puma-logoed shirts, shoes to be scuffed and re-shined, and pants to be plastered on any sized woman. Stores for cell phones, big screen TVs and internet connections dot the next two blocks, competing to develop this developing country's technology.

I wait for the second stoplight, and pass the line of people waiting outside the social security office. Every day of the week, the line stands about twenty deep; people waiting to be paid by a government who is waiting to be paid by long-retracted foreign investments. Nearby roll two men in wheelchairs with pieces of cardboard hiding the empty space where their legs used to be, trying to sell advertising billboards on their wheelchairs.

Then I pass my favorite building: a giant bread warehouse. The enterprising owner has installed fans that push the aroma of sugar, butter and flour out into the humid, polluted air, sweetening the sourness for just a moment. I inhale deeply each day, earning an oh-she-is-such-a-gringa look from passers-by. Finally, I get to the Boulevard and wait for one car to speed past another in unmarked lanes and then I cross, and return to bumping over potholed dirt roads. I turn past the medical clinic where four juice-selling men sit outside, squishing kissing sounds at the gringa, now an established daily macho ritual. I turn again, and the air cools a bit, the trees and bushes thicken. I enter a canopy of vegetation: mango trees, bougainvillea vines, palm trees, and flowery bushes. Tucked away in coolness and fresh breezes not far from downtown, up a bumpy cement path, sits a wooden building. The sign reads, "teatro la fragua."

On my Bike I have traveled from the colonias and barrios of the banana camps, through the center of a town attempting to catapult itself into the 21st century, and back again to an old wooden building originally built as a dance hall for the United Fruit Company executives. The last century passed before my eyes in 15 minutes on my Bike.

--Lauren Lansing

[Lauren Lansing comes to teatro la fragua from Denver, Colorado. In June 2005, she graduated from the Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre and a minor in journalism. Her principle focus is the area of children's educational theatre, with an emphasis in multicultural storytelling. Lauren will be working with teatro la fragua for the year, to study the technique of the teatro and the Honduran culture.]