THE TEATROS: MORE POLISH, LESS POLITICS

The success of Luis Valdez and a rag-tag group of California farm workers who created El Teatro Campesino sparked a national movement of Latino theaters that reached a high of about 100 in the early ‘70s. Today only about half remain--and all but a handful of the survivors are unknown beyond their communities.

But there have been some changes. Where once the teatros scraped around for support, the few better-known troupes today receive some National Endowment for the Arts funding. What was once mostly politically oriented theater now has become more polished and less political--and sometimes performed in both Spanish and English.

According to Jorge A. Huerta, chairman of the San Diego State drama department, there has been a softening of politics in Latino theater.

Huerta, a co-founder of Santa Barbara’s El Teatro de la Esperanza in 1971, is a director of Teatro Meta, the Spanish-language branch of San Diego’s Old Globe Theater. “The rough stuff has disappeared,” he believes. “These are apathetic times and if there is apathy, there can be no political theater. People in Europe think the farm workers have no more problems. Well, let me tell you. . . .”

For him the actors continue to be “the social workers of the stage.

“Although there are fewer teatros,” Huerta added, “the ones that have remained have grown in quality.”

Huerta contends that Valdez’s “Zoot Suit” opened a number of doors to Latino talent in the entertainment industry, but that the “bandanna roles” will continue until Latinos correct producers who are “innocently prejudiced.”

But Jose Luis Valenzuela, Hispanic workshop director at the Los Angeles Theatre Center and a Teatro de la Esperanza veteran, said that Latinos more often get roles these days on their acting skills, not because a “bandanna role” had to be filled.

He gave examples such as Hector Elizondo in the film “The Flamingo Kid,” Lillian Garrett in the stage production “Tamara” and on TV Apollonia Kotero in “Falcon Crest” and Edward James Olmos in “Miami Vice.”

“I believe that Latinos, Hispanics, Chicanos or whatever they want to call us should get roles of those who can love, hate and dream. If we don’t, it will remain a stereotypical theater,” he said.

Jose Cruz Gonzalez, an NEA fellow at South Coast Repertory Theater and a former El Teatro Campesino intern, agreed that there have been improvements, but said he hasn’t seen a noticeable growth in the number of Latino playwrights.

“The writers need the artistic, literary and technical support of a company. It’s a big investment. It’s something you won’t see tomorrow,” he said. “It takes years.”

With an eye towards helping to develop Hispanic-American playwrights, Gonzalez will direct SCR’s Hispanic Playwright Project workshop in Costa Mesa July 9-13. Gonzalez said that any Latinos interested in playwriting should send their work to him by April 1. Nine people will be selected to attend the workshop.

Gonzalez said that many doors wouldn’t be open and that Latino theater would not have grown in the country unless El Teatro Campesino had toured.

“The Teatro eventually went to campus communities and left little seeds that manifested into community theater groups. Many of them didn’t make it,” he said. Among reasons he cited for failure was that often the political/social issues tackled on stage didn’t appeal to the broad audience.

But not all teatros have given up on those issues. Some have developed actos (skits) that provide universal experiences that everyone can relate to no matter their cultural background. Valenzuela said that’s the reason that Campesino and Esperanza remain at the forefront of their art. Although they still tackle social, economic and psychological problems, they do it in a way that most theater audiences can accept.

Huerta said that Esperanza didn’t have to worry so much about critics’ reviews when it played one-night stands from town to town, but now that it will take up occasional residency at a San Francisco theater it will have to take heed of the reviews and of building a sustaining audience.

Actress Carmen Zapata takes a non-activist stance when it comes to Latino theater. She co-founded Los Angeles’ Bilingual Foundation of the Arts in 1973 because she believed there was a need for a cultural outlet and acting medium for the Latino community.

The foundation, 421 N. Avenue 19, will stage the Spanish-language version of Frederico Lorca’s “The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife” beginning Feb. 26. The English version begins on March 1.

Zapata said that her audience and budget have increased over the years to support a full subscription season (five plays) done in both English and Spanish. One of those productions goes on a tour of California and the Southwest once a year.

Although the Bilingual Foundation has flourished, Zapata isn’t satisfied. “We are the only theater in Los Angeles that serves the (Spanish-speaking) community on an on-going basis. With the kind of talent we have (in the area) we should have gotten a lot further, but because we’re Hispanics, it has taken longer.”

She said that it has been harder in the past for BFA to get financial assistance from such organizations as the NEA or the California Arts Council. “Without the proper kind of funding you can’t produce a decent product or bring in an audience, yet critics judge BFA productions as if it had the same budget as bigger companies.”

Money is always the answer, according to Zapata, who says the percentage that goes to Hispanic theater from the California Arts Council is relatively minute. (In the current 1985-86 CAC grant fund budget of $10.2 million allocated among California arts organizations, four Hispanic theater troupes received a total of $25,708 in direct funding. Another $30,130 is directed to colleges and community centers that sponsor BFA performances.)

“They give a chunk (of money) to their expansion arts program and think that it will keep us quiet for a while,” Zapata said. “We don’t ask for things we don’t think we deserve to better the life style of our communities.”

Valenzuela said that U.S. Latino theater must create something (a la “Zoot Suit”) that will make its audience forget that it is watching a Latino play. Huerta said that playwright Luis Valdez was accused of selling out his ideals.

“Valdez was criticized for breaking away from political statements. I think making it to Broadway and failing is a statement.”

All four look to the National Hispanic Theatre Conference, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, on Feb. 7-9, in San Antonio, Texas, to discuss the problems, needs and aspirations of Hispanic theater groups. Panels will cover the use of networking and the formation of a national Hispanic theater that may move some Latino theater away from the southern rim of the United States and into the heartland.

“Believe it or not, there are Hispanics in the Midwest,” Zapata said.