TV REVIEW : Valdez Puts an American Spin on PBS’ ‘La Pastorela’

Speaking at an arts conference a few years ago, Luis Valdez was addressing a continuing problem of ethnic labeling. Eschewing Hispanic, Chicano and Latino, Valdez simply pronounced: “I’m an American.”

But Valdez wants all his fellow Americans to share in his ethnic heritage, as evidenced by his best-known works: “Zoot Suit” (advertised as “an American play”); the film “La Bamba” (at heart, a story about good ol’ American rock ‘n’ roll) and now “La Pastorela,” Valdez’s adaptation of a traditional shepherds play (tonight at 8 on KVCR Channel 24, 8:30 on KCET Channel 28, 9 on KPBS Channel 15, and Wednesday at 8 p.m. on KOCE Channel 50).

Pastorelas--stories about shepherds ( pastores ) seeking the newborn Christ child--have been performed in Spain and England since the early days of Christianity. The tradition was brought to Mexico in the 16th Century and remains strong there and in the Southwestern United States.

Writer-director Valdez has taken the story and given it a contemporary, American spin. Starting with a present-day scenario, he creates a play-within-a-play loosely based on “The Wizard of Oz.”

In this case, Dorothy is Gila (Karla Montana), a young teen-ager vexed by her status as the oldest of six children in a family of farm workers in the Central California valley. (The film was shot in and around scenic San Juan Bautista.) She’s unhappy with the cheap Christmas gifts she has to wrap, unhappier still that her chores kept her from being in the Pastorela at the town mission. (Valdez’s El Teatro Campesino has been performing the play for years in the San Juan Mission.)

Gila accompanies her family to the play on Christmas Eve, where they are met at the door by the mission priest (Don Novello in his Father Guido Sarducci guise). When a performer knocks a wooden Bible stand off a raised lectern, Gila leans over to protect her newborn baby brother. The impact knocks her unconscious and, in her dreams, she is transported to the time of Christ’s birth, where she is part of a group of pastores that includes her father and other family members and friends. The archangel St. Michael (Linda Ronstadt, in Valdez’s bow to non-traditional casting) appears to tell them of the holy birth. And so the pastores go off on their journey, led by Freddy Fender and Flaco Jimenez (one-half of the Tex-Mex band the Texas Tornados), and by a grungy hermit (Leon Singer, in a hilarious performance).

When the pastores finally reach the stable in Bethlehem, they present gifts to the Christ child. As the hermit dances in celebration, his staff hits Gila on the head, bringing her back to the present day, where she awakens from her dream. Just like Dorothy, she regales family and friends with her adventures.

Montana is charming as Gila, as is Anahuac Valdez (Luis’ oldest son) as Bato, the young pastor with whom Gila falls in love, and who reappears as the actor who helped her after the accident in the mission.

In casting the film, Valdez in many instances opted for recognizable celebrities over trained actors, but he gets away with it. One of the few transgressions is Ronstadt belting out the angels’ song as if she were singing a ranchera from her recordings of traditional Mexican music. But even that may have been intentional in Valdez’s irreverent and wholly American take on this holy story.