Vol. xxix #1

March, 2008

-- Margo Wickesser

In 1958 I wrote the following: 'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.' I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot.
As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?
--Harold Pinter

Rigo utters these powerful words that begin our performance of An Evening with Harold Pinter: Art, Truth and Politics. I am sweating bullets. And not only because of the indescribable Honduran heat. These words are my cue to enter the stage and make my Spanish-language acting debut at teatro la fragua. Standing next to me off-stage, Gimena smiles. She's cool as a cucumber. I glance onto the stage and watch Tony's entrance and first beat. He's focused and relaxed as usual. "OK, Margo," I say to myself, "let's see if you can do this thing." I stride onto the stage in 4-inch heels, the quintessential middle-aged gringa businesswoman, and in my very best Spanish, I say "Ah, buenos días. +Es usted el Sr. Cordero?" We're off. No stopping now.

I came to la fragua to improve my Spanish. Since raising two sons to young manhood, I have been working at becoming a legal interpreter in Chicago. After flunking an exam that would certify me to interpret in Federal Court, I contacted Jack in Honduras. Jack and I were pals and classmates at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago during the 70's. He was in the directing program and cast me in several of his plays during those years. "Sure, come down," Jack says, "You wanna act in the Pinter show? Lotsa great language. Good practice. Get going on learning your lines. We'll have about two weeks to work you into the show. Oh, and you can teach ballet, too." The next day I received the script and an assignment of the seven (!) roles I would play. Wow. For the next four months I'll be acting in Spanish.

The script was fantastic. And clever. Jack took sections of the controversial acceptance speech that Pinter delivered when he won the Nobel Prize in 2005 and interwove them with various short plays and vignettes. Pinter has always been one of the most acerbic critics of U.S. and British warmongering and although some of the pieces date back to the 50's, they could have been written yesterday. Harold Pinter may seem a peculiar choice for teatro la fragua but his work ends up being extremely germane for Honduran audiences, mainly due to the playwright's attention to the issues of imperialism and class.

I was knocked out when I arrived at the teatro for the first time. Those of you who have visited know that the teatro is situated on a lovely, spacious lot with mature trees. The interior is an enormous open space with soaring ceilings. The stage and seating areas are separated by flowing white curtains that ripple in the breeze. On a performance evening, teatro la fragua looks positively magical.

The first morning, I got to watch the fragua actors rehearse their repertory staple, Honduran Stories: Tio Coyote y Tio Conejo. I was stunned by their level of talent and expertise. I don't know what I expected, but certainly not this. They are ALL accomplished actors, dancers, singers, jugglers and mimes. They have great comedic timing, beautiful stage voices and diction.They are fit and flexible, bright, focused and creativeàevery one is a real pro.

This was good news and bad news for me. The good news was that working with these actors would be a sizable creative challenge. The bad news was that working with these actors would be a sizable creative challenge. I would have to accomplish the whole shebang in Spanish; Pinter is a challenge for actors in ANY language. "OK, Margo," I said to myself, "let's see if you can do this thing."

I set about learning my lines and doing the acting work that I rely upon when I am exploring a role. In rehearsal, the Spanish text was sometimes tricky for me to pronounce (and unfortunately, memorization is harder than it used to be-- in English AND Spanish.) I made gallons of mistakes but the fragua actors are obviously accustomed to working with all the gringo artists that make their way to the teatro. They corrected me when I screwed up. They gave me tons to work with onstage. They covered for me. They gave me a hard time. They taught me to swear Honduran-style and to sing reggaeton. We tried out things on stage. We laughed. We sweated. We rehearsed a lot. Eventually, I realized that I had been invited inside their kinship group. And I was acting in Spanish.

I had two scenes with Yulissa, a Honduran beauty and splendid young actress. They were difficult scenes that required us to create characters with complex relationships. These were the most rewarding, acting-wise, for me. She never flubbed her lines, knew all MY lines (and fed them to me when necessary). She kept track of my props and my entrances. We laughed all the time.

Gimena gave me the lay of the land. She is a beautiful, graceful and talented actress who explained the way things work at teatro la fragua in particular and Honduras in general. We spent lazy morning hours drinking coffee and talking. I loved her acting and wish I'd had more scenes with her. We became good friends.

Tony is one of those actors who is completely relaxed and natural onstage. He can take a suggestion, internalize it and then do it exactly right as quickly as anyone I've ever seen. Working with him made my acting better.

Rigo is a veteran at fragua and has years of experience. His acting is nuanced, intelligent and authentic. I wish I had the chance to act with him more. And he was very warm and generous during the seven weeks we were housemates. Chito is another fragua veteran who brings a high degree of energy to his acting. He is a commanding presence onstage. I was lucky to have a real funny scene with him. In performance, he stays 'in the moment' so well that you really have to pay attention; he doesn't do things the same way twice. Edy is a longtime fragua performer who does more directing than acting these days. He's a genius at digging into a role to find meaning and he helped me with my difficult scenes. Terrific actor, too.

After our performances in Progreso, we took the show out on tour and I got to see the spectacular beauty of the country. We slept in convents, hotels and a two-room beach house. We ate basic but tasty Honduran meals in roadside eateries and traveled in that dilapidated and unreliable minibus, laughing and yakking or just plain waitingàto arrive, to leave, to repair flat tires, to unload, to load up, to eat, to do anything.

Back in Progreso, I taught ballet to little girls aged 4 through 9. I was grumpy about this. I had not danced ballet in years. My little ballerinas, however, made me forget all that. I also sang with the children of Progreso during their rehearsals for Navidad Nuestra, the Christmas show. The day I left Honduras they did a special farewell performance for me. This country, this city, this theatre and these people have left me "fraguada", that is, they have forever "forged" themselves to me and I will never, ever forget it.

"but...as a citizen, I must ask: What is true? What is false?"

For Pinter, Art is a place where reality and fiction can blur and where this blurring can reveal truth. In Art, fantasy and truth can happily and easily exist in the same moment. But as human beings living in the world, Pinter warns us to be clear about which conditions on our planet are true and which ones are not.

In Honduras, I saw families living in homes constructed from tree branches, lacking plumbing, running water and electricity. I saw little kids living in the street. I saw residential areas where the government permitted the opening of gates to allow the rising rainwater to flood hundreds of families from their homes, all the while keeping closed the gates that protect the banana fields from inundation. Despite the fertility of the land and year-round growing season, there are people in Honduras who DO die of hunger. Deforestation is everywhere. The police and political leaders are mostly corrupt. Much of the population is demoralized. Who can blame them?

Jack Warner, the actors and staff at teatro la fragua are awakening creativity in their audiences as a way to find solutions to real problems. By means of drama, music and dance, they are using the theatre as an educational tool to teach and affirm the richness, beauty and power of Honduran cultural values. They are addressing the harsh truths of poverty, hunger, corruption and wasted resources. teatro la fragua is a place where the shifting sands of imagination and make-believe do powerful and serious work. It was one of the high points of my life and an honor to have been a part of it.

--Margo Wickesser

P.S.: Now accepting contracts for acting in Spanish, English and Spanglish.