Director's Statement - Calarts

1
Between
Iraq
In silence, a flurry of students dart to and fro across the
stage, throwing pretend grenades, shooting imaginary guns.
Most of them smiling self-consciously, almost nervously.
Herbert Siguenza asks them to stop and imagine how their bodies
would move if they had just been hit by gunfire. He demonstrates
in slow motion, jolting his body as if being hit by bullets, and going
into very very slow convulsions as he falls to the ground finally
dead. His eyes roll back into his head and tongue drops out.
The students erupt into laughter.
1 Herbert Siguenza
2 CAP/Plaza de la Raza Theater program
session led by BJ Dodge and
Herbert Siguenza
3 Manuel Cuchilla, CAP instructor and CalArts
School of Film/Video alumnus talks to the
participants about his experiences as a US Army
Sergeant in Iraq
{ }
by CARRIBEAN FRAGOZA
CAP Summer Arts Program Coordinator and
CalArts School of Critical Studies alumna
With renewed focus, the students try it out for themselves again on the stage’s battlefield.
Herbert instructs one student to throw a grenade at the “enemy”. Another student on
the opposite side of the stage catches on as the imaginary grenade lands at his feet and
throws his body back and lands loudly as if blown away by a violent explosion. Everyone
laughs, especially Siguenza. “That was great,” he calls out, catching his breath. It’s
exciting for everyone when students begin breaking out of their shy inhibitions to try out
Siguenza’s style of highly physical comedy.
Herbert Siguenza, accomplished actor and playwright is writing this
year’s play with CAP/Plaza de la Raza Theater students. So far, it has
been a learning experience not only for students, but also for Herbert.
A seasoned actor with over 20 years of experience in theater with
Culture Clash, Herbert is new to working with youth. Although he and his
Culture Clash peers have lectured and conducted workshops with college
students, Herbert is now discovering a new realm of community arts
education with these young actors by doing what he does best --address
political, historical and cultural issues through personal, deeply human
stories of individuals with his unfailing humor.
After more than 20 years of working almost exclusively with Culture Clash
and touring throughout the country, Siguenza has decided to dig his roots
deeper into L.A. The best way for him to connect with its communities,
he has decided, is through teaching. Together with students and CAP
instructors, Herbert is opening up fresh opportunities for interdisciplinary
collaboration, which has been a hallmark of Herbert Siguenza’s and
Culture Clash’s work, although typically directed to adults. When it is
applied with young students it makes for new and interesting possibilities.
Herbert joins the ranks of distinguished writers that for 18 years, have
written original plays with students in the CAP program. In the past, CAP
and Plaza de la Raza youth theater participants have had the unique
pleasure and opportunity to collaborate closely with distinguished writers
such as Olivia Chumacero, Nancy de los Santos, Bernardo Solano, Peter
Howard, Jose Cruz Gonzalez, Amparo Garcia, Mady Schutzman, Theresa
Chavez, and Rose Portillo, among others. And year after year, these
writers have not only demonstrated unfailing dedication to their art, but
also a genuine passion for using their art as a tool to work with community
youth and to address pressing issues that interest them and affect their
lives. Students stage their play at Plaza’s Margo Albert Theater and at the
Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT) in downtown Los Angeles.
Herbert is mostly known for his work as one of the three members of
Culture Clash, along with Ric Salinas and Richard Montoya, which has
become the most prominent Chicano/Latino performance troupe in the
country. Founded in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1984, Culture Clash
has been committed to addressing historical and cultural issues through
their unique style of politically-inspired, high-energy comedy. Their
performances have ranged from sketch comedy to full-length plays such
as Chavez Ravine, Zorro in Hell, and Water and Power that have earned
them the respect of the theater and Latino communities.
2
and
a Hard
Place
CAP/Plaza de la Raza Theater students
and Culture Clash’s Herbert Siguenza
use comedy to tread deep into
history’s dark territory of war
and violence
Herbert was first invited by CAP Director Glenna Avila to write a play with Plaza de la Raza theater
students in November 2006 when Herbert and Richard Montoya attended the Ovation Awards
ceremony where CAP students were honored by the LA Stage Alliance for their play Upset!, written
by CalArts School of Critical Studies faculty Mady Schutzman. Months later, in conversation with
Rose Cano and Maria Jimenez-Torres of Plaza de la Raza, Herbert agreed to not only write the play
with the CAP/Plaza de la Raza Youth Theater participants, but to also teach a comedy class at Plaza
de la Raza.
Since October, Siguenza has been writing a play with the CAP/Plaza de la Raza theater students,
inspired by El Teatro Campesino’s El Soldado Razo. The play, written by Luis Valdez (best known
for Zoot Suit and La Bamba) and El Teatro Campesino in 1971, is about a young man from the barrio
who enlists in the army during the Vietnam War. El Soldado Razo, (which loosely translates to
“the unrecognized soldier”) was written and performed as a strategy to raise community awareness
about the disproportionate number of casualties of young Latino males in Vietnam.
This year, the war being addressed is not Vietnam but Iraq. Yet the characters and the story remain
essentially the same. According to Siguenza, this story has been repeated many times throughout
U.S. history. Herbert describes the main character, “Eddie,” as a “typical kid from the barrio.”
Eddie is looking for a way out of a difficult situation where cycles of poverty, fueled by low access
to higher education, make for a seemingly inescapable situation. Like many young men who enlist in
the military, Eddie is motivated not by patriotic zeal, but rather by a sincere desire to help his family
financially and pursue a college education. According to Herbert, it’s a combination of these factors
that “make him an easy target for recruiters.”
However, when Eddie finally arrives to the battlefront, he discovers that the war was not what
he thought it would be. “It’s disheartening when he thinks he’d be doing something right and he
realizes that it’s not. Morale totally goes down,” says Herbert.
Herbert had written another version of “Eddie” in 1982 about a young Salvadoran-American man
who is sent to fight as part of the U.S.’ military aid in El Salvador’s decade-long, bloody civil war in
the ‘80’s. “These ‘Eddies’ have always existed, whether it’s Vietnam, Korea, or El Salvador,” says
Herbert. “We are trying to educate kids more about their place in history.” Although his 1982 version
of “Eddie” was never produced and remained in a dusty
pile for 25 years, theater students at Plaza are helping
Herbert bring a new version of Eddie to life.
“This is agitprop, which many disqualify as bad art.” “But
agitprop,” Siguenza assures, “can be very good if done
right.” Over the years agitprop has taken a negative connotation
and has been often associated with propaganda.
Clearly, Siguenza is not hesitant about reclaiming agitprop,
and introducing it to CAP and Plaza de la Raza students.
You might think that high school students would take agitprop-style, politics and historyinspired
themes for this year’s play like swallowing stale, dry wheat toast with nothing to wash
it down, but in fact, theater students at Plaza have already written and staged plays dealing
with heavy, often political or historical topics with enthusiasm. And acclaim. In 2006, students
collaborated with CalArts Critical Studies Faculty, Mady Schutzman, on Upset!, a play based on
the 1992 L.A. uprisings. In previous years, writers and students have presented 500 years of
Latino history and politics in Tropical America, family violence in One Gun Family, and issues of
arts appropriation in Jacked! The Mystery of the Missing Muse, among other topics.
Of course, it’s not easy to get this style “done right” as Herbert notes. “Stylistically, it’s
very challenging,” he says, which is why it has become so important for students to commit
to the style.
“Herbert is the first writer that has taught the methodology of how he works, and that teaches
us techniques that work in service of the performance aesthetic,” says BJ Dodge, director of
the CAP/Plaza de la Raza Youth Theater Program.
Students had the opportunity to learn about the reality of war from someone who experienced
it personally. Manuel Cuchilla, CalArts Character Animation alumnus and CAP animation
instructor, shared his experience in Iraq, serving as a sergeant in the U.S. Army. According
to BJ, students were riveted by Manuel’s stories, which they used to inform their own work as
they imagine what it would be like to experience the violence of war.
And while many often think of writing (play writing included) as a primarily cerebral process,
Herbert and the youth theater participants use their bodies to write this year’s play. “It’s
very physical,” says Herbert, something that can be challenging for students that feel shy
or nervous about using their bodies. “They are learning to speak in a clear, physically-based
way,” says BJ.
However, the physical challenge is a particularly exciting opportunity for Marvin Tunney, CAP
Movement Instructor at Plaza de la Raza and CalArts School of Theater faculty. “We always
have movement and music in the CAP productions, but this is the first time we have had the
writer come to the movement workshops. It really makes me feel more a part of the entire
process,” says Marvin.
“Highly physical theater is something that Herbert is really good at doing,” says BJ Dodge,
primarily because it is what Culture Clash, Herbert’s theater group, is so well known for.
“Students are learning about how to use their bodies to speak and to tell a story.”
As a result, instructors and students utilize interdisciplinary collaboration to unprecedented
levels. Instructors also teach collaboration to students by example. Marvin adds that it is
interesting for students to watch the instructors work together and follow directions. “Herbert
asks us (the instructors) to do something and we all try it out and the kids get to see.”
One thing that students have discovered during the past few months is that nothing is what
it appears. For instance, on stage a harmless tambourine becomes a bomb in the hands of a
child. It hits the ground in an explosion of sound in a crowded marketplace. And then time
seems to hold its breath and slows down to a painstaking speed. Slowly, students push their
bodies into the air, away from the nucleus of the bomb. Slowly, they crash onto the floor, their
faces distorted with horror and pain, crying in silence.
Although it may not look like a game, this is actually an exercise Herbert has been doing with the students
for the past few months called “25 Counts”. After an unexpected “explosion” takes place, students
break down the actions and slow down their movements to a count of 25. “This exercise in particular,”
says Marvin Tunney, “requires actors to inform themselves of the mystery of war and death. It makes
them look into themselves.”
The experience has also made students think about how these wars in distant countries affect their
own lives. “It’s weird how even little kids protect their country. I can’t imagine my little brother
holding a bomb,” says Cindy Luna.
This realization has been a particularly poignant and personal one for Cindy. When her 17 year-old
brother first told his family he wanted to join the military, Cindy couldn’t understand why her mother
was so upset. “I thought he would be okay, that he could take care of himself.”
It wasn’t until she played the role of a mother whose son had been killed that she realized the
devastating consequences of war. “Now I see why she’s scared for him. I don’t want him to go either.”
However, Cindy adds, like many young people, her brother does not understand the risks. She hopes
that when her brother sees the play in May, he will change his mind.
While the violence that students play out in their exercises may strike some as unconventional,
if not disturbing, BJ Dodge believes that it is a natural part of play. “It goes way back. It’s kind of
primordial.” Theater in fact, she points out, is driven by conflict that is also violent in its own way.
“In theater, you’re fighting to win.”
“What I think is that if we’re a theater program and we find ourselves as artists and citizens in a
moment of upheaval, artists are bound to embrace subjects of importance. We’ve never shrunk from
dealing with these issues,” says BJ Dodge.
Private Eddie U.S.A. Performances
at Plaza de la Raza
m ay 1 , 2 , 3 , 9 , 2 0 0 8 at 7 : 3 0 p m
m ay 1 0 , 2 0 0 8 , at 2 : 0 0 p m a n d 7 : 3 0 p m
at REDCAT:
m ay 2 3 a n d 2 4 , 2 0 0 8 , at 7 : 3 0 p m
All performances are free and open to the public. Reservations are strongly advised.
For performances at Plaza de la Raza please call 323 223-2475.
For REDCAT performances please call 213 237-2800.
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