tlf news

Vol. xxxiii #1

September, 2012



La Fragua: 33 Years of Popular Theatre




The 26th of January 1979 Pope John Paul II arrived in Mexico for the first of five visits he would make to that country. Needless to say he did not arrive in secret: thousands of persons awaited him. That same day, a 35-year-old Jesuit priest, who apart from theology studies wielded an M.F.A. in theatre, arrived in the city of El Progreso, Honduras. Although this was his second trip to that city (the first was in 1977), he was not awaited by thousands. But from that time forward this Central American nation became his second homeland. We refer of course to Fr. Jack Warner.

Jack, whom it is normal to see dressed in polo shirt and jeans and with his hair in a classic pony-tail, did not come only to carry out parochial tasks. Long before traveling to Honduras he had conceived an idea: to do popular theatre in Latin America. In an interview Padre Jack tells how people at first thought his plan was to open a movie theatre; nobody understood the idea. But one of his fellow Jesuits invited him to get to know a youth group in Olanchito, and there he discovered fertile ground for sowing his idea of popular theatre.

On the 19th of July 1979, teatro la fragua opened the first production in the Civic City of Honduras, Olanchito, cradle of the writer Ramón Amaya Amador. Juan Fernando Ávila, in a column published in the newspaper La Tribuna the 12th of July 2009 remembers: "My normal trajectory went through the central park of town; on one corner, which was part of the property of the parish church, was a simple adobe house with a tile roof, two doors and a window. There I spied a North American priest with evident and unmistakable typology of a classic 'hipster', the predecessor of 'hippie'. He was dressed in faded jeans and a carelessly worn shirt, long hair and little evidence of his priestly vocation; I later learned this was Padre Jack Warner. Together with a generation of young avant-gardists, they had installed a billboard flanked by two green and yellow banners on the roof of the old building; it announced the inauguration of teatro la fragua and the presentation that night of 'Dos Juegos X', where the community would have the opportunity to experience a varied program whose high point was a version of a piece from the Teatro Campesino of California, The Two Faces of the Boss."

In 1980 headquarters was definitively established in El Progreso and in the course of 33 years the company has become one of the most important in Honduras and in Latin America. In that arduous but gratifying trek, Edy Barahona and José Ramón "Chito" Inestroza, who made their own the ideas of Padre Jack, are the two veterans who form the solid base of la fragua. Without ever losing a sense of humor, this group has learned to use the theatre as a pedagogical instrument, a clear demonstration that by means of art it is possible to generate changes in the way of thinking of the population, especially of that sector marginalized by the system.

Since 1986 the institution includes a ballet school, where hundreds of young girls have studied and formed their character. The teatro maintains an active program of doing shows in the villages, as well as workshops. In conjunction with the Alliance Française of San Pedro Sula, la fragua coordinates a series of alternative film the first Wednesday of every month. And each year sees the Season of Artistic Expression with the visit of various theatre groups and of the singer/songwriter Guillermo Anderson, one of the many friends of la fragua. It is not simply a theatre group but a dynamic institution, inclusive and committed (without speeches, but with action) to the development of the people.

Without demanding credit in the communication media or striving for public recognition, Jack Warner has sown a seed which, to use the Biblical metaphor, has produced a hundredfold.

--Carlos Rodríguez
Nocturnal Magazine




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