Theatrical Troupe Brings the AIDS Message to Latinos

By day, Hilda Klug teaches and counsels people with AIDS at an Escondido crisis center.

By night, she continues her work by dressing in black lipstick, white face paint and gold sparkle, playing the part of AIDS in “Al Borde de la Muerte” (“At the Edge of Death”), a play written, directed and narrated by Oceanside resident Pablo Jimenez.

Klug is part of Genesis, a theatrical collective of 12 amateur volunteer actors and actresses who are teaching the Latino community about the dangers of HIV infection and AIDS through Jimenez’s Spanish-language play.

The plot of the hourlong play is simple, even though it deals with matters of life and death.

Two men who pick tomatoes for a living relax in a bar where they make overtures to prostitutes. One of the men, who is married, gets the HIV virus and dies of AIDS, but not before infecting his pregnant wife. As the doctor explains the disease to the widow and her children, Klug and other performers act out the roles of HIV, death and condoms in cartoonish costumes.

As the troupe moved through the audience at a recent evening performance at Laurel Elementary School in Oceanside, an actress dressed as a condom shooting HIV and AIDS dead with a squirt gun made points about prevention while getting laughs--particularly from the children in the audience.

Jimenez, 35, brought the group together in May as part of an educational conference at MiraCosta College. The reception was so positive that Jimenez and his group decided to travel with their message, performing free at Los Diablos, a migrant camp in Rancho Penasquitos, and three times at Vista High School. The company gave its fifth and sixth performances at Laurel Elementary in November in honor of the 82nd anniversary of the Mexican revolution.

“Last year, I was going to take my tests for counseling in AIDS and I had an idea that I should educate the children,” Jimenez said. “From that the idea of writing was born.”

Jimenez, who is looking for outside support for his troupe, said it is unlikely the Genesis volunteers, who have pitched in time and money for costumes, sets, paint and travel, will continue into 1993 without outside financial support.

And that, he believes, would be a shame, because his is one of the few groups getting the word out in Spanish.

Jimenez, an administrator at a Carlsbad hiring hall, said many in the Latino community--particularly recent immigrants--are not being reached by most outreach programs, which are primarily done in English.

Statistics, which Jimenez quotes during the show, underline the extent of the AIDS crisis among Latinos.

According to figures checked with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 242,146 cases of AIDS have been reported nationally from the time the disease was discovered in 1981 through last September. Of those, one out of six involved a Latino.

According to the San Diego County health department, 3,660 AIDS cases were reported from 1981 through last November. Of these, about one in seven patients was Latino.

Millions of other people are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Andrea Skorepa, executive director of Casa Familiar, a community-based service agency in San Ysidro, said the need to educate the Latino community about AIDS is great. “We welcome all the help we can get in all the different mediums,” she said.

Klug, 38, believes the play may get the message home more than her daily counseling of people at a crisis center sponsored by the North County Interfaith Council. In her job, she helps people who already have HIV. The play, she said, may help steer people away from the risky behavior that increases their chances of contracting the virus.

“I deal with people who have the disease, and so many of the people who have the disease are very innocent” of how they got it, Klug said, touching up the gold spangles on her ankles and the stark black-and-white makeup on her face before she went onstage with the play at Laurel Elementary.

“It is a very stressful job,” she said. “I educate and give resources, but there are so many cases that touch me very deeply. I deal with cases of mature women who were never aware of the disease, who had sex unprotected with a lot of guys.”

Each person in the group has made a sacrifice of time and money to participate.

Jose Ibarra, 28, who plays the doctor, was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, but now lives and works in Oceanside as an auto mechanic.

“It is hard to get off at 5 o’clock from work, take a shower and hurry here and do the show, but we are trying to educate Hispanic people,” he said. “I don’t want some friend to get AIDS because they don’t know about it. We try to help everybody before they get involved in drugs and AIDS. I feel good because I am doing good for somebody else.”

For more information about Genesis, call Pablo Jimenez at 757-3549 or Hilda Klug at 489-6380.