on judgments of character

Like most of Valdez’s works, this play dramatizes a Chicano family in crisis. Henry Reyna is the central figure, but he is not alone. His familia is the link with the Chicano community in the audience, a continuing reminder that the Chicano is a community. Unlike the members of his family, however, Henry’s alter-ego brings another dimension to this misunderstood figure. El Pachuco represents an inner attitude of defiance determining Henry’s actions most of the time. El Pachuco is reminiscent at times of the Diablo and Diabla characters that permeated the corridos, motivating the characters’ hapless choices as in Medieval morality plays.

El Pachuco’s advice is not based on a moral choice, as in the corridos, but rather, on judgments of character. Mostly, El Pachuco represents the defiance against the system that identifies and determines the pachuco character. Sometimes, Henry does not take El Pachuco’s advice, choosing instead to do what he thinks is right. At times, Henry has no choice, whether he listens to his alter-ego or to another part of himself, he will still get beaten. Interestingly, El Pachuco is sometimes more politically astute than the defendants themselves, allowing Henry an awareness his fellows do not have. In other instances, such as when the boys debate whether to confide in George, the boys’ instincts are better for the whole and Henry must ignore El Pachuco’s advice.

Now available in video, the motion picture of Zoot Suit is a vivid record of elements of the original stage production, because it was filmed in the Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood where it had played. The motion picture recreates and reconstructs the play. At times we watch the action unfolding as if we, too, are one of the hundreds sitting in the audience,

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watching the play; then suddenly the characters are in a realistic setting, as in a sound stage and we are enveloped in social realism. Just as the Pachuco continually reminds the audience that “this is just a play” in the stage version, the film also prompts us to remember that this is a demonstration of actual events, urging us to think about it as we watch the action moving back and forth between realities. Zoot Suit is also a rewriting of history, as is the central issue of the next play, Bandido!

Rewriting History: Bandido!

Bandido! is an exploration and expurgation of old clichés about the early California bandits. Valdez’s intent is to alter history by demonstrating his version of the exploits of one Tiburcio Vásquez, the last man to be publicly hanged in California. The play is therefore didactic like an acto or a docu-drama but goes beyond those forms to become a “melodrama within a play.” The playwright creates a construct in which audience sees Vásquez through different eyes. Vásquez is sympathetic when observed through the playwright’s eyes and a stereotype when seen through history’s distorted characterization.

The key to a successful production of Bandido! lies in an understanding of the satiric nature within the form of the play. Valdez’s introductory notes state the challenge to director and actors most clearly: “The contrast of theatrical styles between the realism of the jail and the trompe l’oleil of the melodrama is purely intentional and part of the theme of the play … their combined reality must be a metaphor—and not a facile cliché—of the Old West.” The actors must therefore represent real people in the jail scenes and stereotypes of those characters and others in the melodramatic scenes.

Valdez is no stranger to stereotypes, as is illustrated in one of the playwright’s most enduring actos, Los vendidos (The Sellouts), which he first wrote in 1967. In this very funny and popular acto, the playwright turns stereotyping around, making the audience reassess their attitudes about various Chicano and Mexican “types.” We laugh, but also understand that the characteristics exposed are a reflection of Anglo perceptions and, yes, even sometimes our own biases as Chicanos. In both Los vendidos and Bandido! the playwright is portraying these characters with a clear understanding that they are stereotypes.

The characterization of Tiburcio Vásquez will vary according to the point of view of who is re-creating him on stage. If he is perceived as “real” in the jail scenes and a stereotype in the melodrama, the audience will distinguish the playwright’s bias. They might also understand that their own biases come from the Hollywood stereotype of a “bandido.” The actor, too, must delight in demonstrating the exaggeration, commenting upon his character even as he explores the exaggerations. This is a Brechtian acting technique, asking the actor to have an opinion about his character’s actions and choices. Within the construct of the melodrama within the play, this can be effectively displayed.

Valdez clearly thinks of Vásquez as a social bandit, a gentleman who never killed anyone but who was forced into a life of crime by the Anglo invaders of his homeland. The playwright’s goal here is to make Tiburcio Vásquez more than a romantic figure cloaked in evil, to present us with a reason for his actions instead of only the results.

Valdez’s first play, The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa, featured a young Chicano social bandit named Joaquín, symbolic of that better known “bandido,” Joaquín Murrieta. Labelled a pachuco by the police, Joaquín steals from the rich to give to the poor. Neither Joaquín nor Vásquez are clearly understood by the authorities, but they fascinate their communities. As Pico says to Vásquez in the second act: “You’ve given all of us Californios twenty years of secret vicarious revenge.”

The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa offers hope for the community through unified social