I have an apology to make. To those amazingly wonderful people who gave up their time, blood and sweat (as well as sleep) to organise the
2nd Latin American Theatre of the Oppressed Festival. I should have been writing all along but it just got way too intense to keep up. And I wasn't even partaking of the parties every night, like the peeps who had bussed it from Costa Rica, Honduras, Chiapas and so forth. They were all bunking down at the venue, which happens to be a technical school. Drafty, cold, bare bones. The bathrooms were beyond basic. In fact, the members of
Escenica X from El Salvador were working wonders taking cold showers in the freezing
Xela weather in January.
Missed telling youse all about the Colombian play Viento Nocturno (Night-time Wind) as well. Here goes: a one man play, the protagonist is a 14 year old growing up in 1980's Colombia with two left-wing brothers. His hero is Che Guevara. He even writes a letter to Cuba, signing himself as a revolutionary. It is his only infraction. In the Cold War climate of Latin America which made McCarthyism look benevolent, the slightest whiff of communist leanings could turn ugly. We're not talking defamatory or even discriminatory here. We are talking full torture. Solitary confinement. Bullet to the head territory. The performer is at once the torturer, the tortured, the troops taking the kids away to a School of the Americas torture chamber and the survivor coming out the other end. It is a gruelling play to watch. Perfect example of Theatre of the Oppressed. Except that there is no forum. There is no way that you can actually change what happened. Colombia in the 80's was every bit as scary as Central America. The Cold War had frozen any chance at real democracy, human rights and diverging points of view in the Americas.
As a performance, it started off well, with symbolism used quite heavily, but the portrayal relied heavily on narration. The overt amount of exposition detracted heavily from the powerful topic it was touching on. Lighting design was superb. It did away with any need for stage design. Using gels, filters and even strobing lights, the audience absorbed the moods ranging from fear, horror, violence to relief. Sadly, the subtext was on the surface, something I am beginning to observe happens a lot in theatre here in Central America. I like my subtext just the way it's supposed to be, under the surface, not coated so thickly on it, you could mistake it for Vegemite on your toast.
As a way of provoking discussion however, it was masterful. It is rather timely, as the discussion centered around torture used as way of inducing terror. There was a historical overview of how so many paramilitary groups in the Americas were schooled in torture as a means of striking fear into the populace by the School of the Americas.
It used part of Boal's method of Forum Theatre but diverged greatly from it, as there was no possible alternative you could use or find to rescue the oppressed in this case.
One thing I did admire was the warm up exercises the performer used to get the crowd involved:
- breathing exercises
- individual and group reactions to the scenes
- dancing together in total chaos
- creation of a tableau and its transformation character by character
- creating an ensemble from the audience where each person would join the tableau separately and add to the story on stage
- the use of ritual to dissolve emotions and celebrate catharsis
That same evening, I went to see the Mexican play 3000 Mujeres, about the human traffic that tricks young girls into prostitution. In Puebla alone, 3000 women disappeared in one year and the authorities did nothing about it. This play is about Lorenza, a 17 year old girl who hooks up with a human trafficker unwittingly. Her friends are suspicious of the new boyfriend, but by the time they realise that this aloof, macho guy who showers her with dubious gifts and takes her clubbing is not what he appears to be, Lorenza is deeply ensconced in some two bit brothel.
This was proper Forum Theatre. There was a turning point in which Lorenza could have managed to avoid the trap. It was at this juncture that several interventions happened in the forum. Others tried to intervene at a later stage, through the police, which turned out to be a futile exercise.
The performances were subtle. Italia (the performer) was a convincing Lorenza: head over heels in love with this older guy who took her to exciting places and bought her nice things. By the time she has been inducted into the brothel it is way too late for her to get help. The only distraction was the set. It was covered in red with photographs stuck on it. It detracted from the performances themselves, which were coherent, had strong character development and maintained the suspension of disbelief right til the end. I would have given it four stars (in At The Movies parlance).
