SAN JUAN BAUTISTA
– To put it in the playwright’s own words,
”
It came full circle.
”
SAN JUAN BAUTISTA – To put it in the playwright’s own words, “It came full circle.”
And it has, indeed. The success of Luis Valdez’s play “Zoot Suit” gave El Teatro Campesino the money to create its own home in San Juan Bautista more than 20 years ago. And the return of the story of the death at Sleepy Lagoon now will take El Teatro Campesino back on the road.
The thrilling, thrice-extended run of “Zoot Suit” at El Teatro Campesino’s playhouse, the house the “Zoot Suit” built, has done more than just surprise packed houses in the quaint town of San Juan Bautista. Its unprecedented success has now opened the door to a national tour.
“We’ve been meaning to bring this back,” said Valdez, who originally wrote the play in 1977 for audiences in Los Angeles, but since has seen it achieve wild success in San Diego, Chicago and even Broadway. “We needed to see if the Teatro Campesino could pull it off. We’ve shown we can do this, and the next step is to take it on the road.”
As the former packing-shed-turned-playhouse brings in more than 150 people five nights a week to see the show, several producers also made their way to San Juan Bautista to talk to Valdez about taking the show national. While a deal isn’t official, it is almost certain that “Zoot Suit” will be working its way across the United States starting at the end of the year.
“We went to New York and had these negotiations,” said Valdez, who could not divulge who would be producing the show until the negotiations are complete.
However, as the negotiations continue, El Teatro Campesino has announced its third extension, which means the show will run until March 30. Tickets for the third run of the show still are available, but not for long.
“We’ve been running at 100 percent for several months,” Valdez said. “It always feels great to sell out performances. And it is great to see young people relating to it. Families are coming to the show together. All across the board, it has been great.”
The play itself is a look at the zoot suit riots that took place in the early 1940s, at the end of World War II. The show takes a critical look at the role society and the media had on the zoot suit riots, and, in particular, the story of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial.
“I thought this was a piece of history that was swept under the carpet, so to speak,” said Valdez, who used a Rockefeller grant to conduct interviews with people who were a part of the zoot suit riots and the murder trial.
Valdez said the zoot suit took on a powerful meaning in 1940s America, at a time when our nation was at war and a new trend was sweeping the across the nation’s youth, starting in Brooklyn and working its way west to Los Angeles.Â
“Its roots were in African American culture,” Valdez said of the zoot suit. “It was a youthful phenomenon like the rap clothes of today. But it was a suit. All that became an emblem of life of the street. The Chicano youth picked up on it.”
The zoot suit took on extra meaning for the Chicano youth. The suit is characterized by its baggy pants, long suit chain that ran nearly down the floor, and by the long jacket, which they called “drapes.” The suit was a symbol of a way of life for the Zoot-suitors, also known as “pachucos.” It was characterized by swing music, partying and dancing, Valdez said.
“It’s the American costume of the time period,” Valdez said.
Valdez’s story centers around the 38th Street Gang, which was blamed for a death at a ranch near Sleepy Lagoon, a popular place outside of L.A. for the youth to go late at night. Twenty-two members of the gang went on trial together for the death in an absurd trial that tried the men together, but allowed the court to make individual judgments.
“That was a part of the inconsistency of the trial,” Valdez said. “It was a mass trial, but people were treated as individuals.”
Accurately portraying the story for a stage audience was no easy task for Valdez.
“I had to fictionalize some of the characters,” Valdez said. “There was no way I could get 22 actors on the stage. So I picked four. They were symbols of the rest of the group.”
Two Gilroyans joined the cast to help retell the story. Actor Steve Perez and Lisanne Villa were late additions to the cast and spend most of their stage time displaying some of the dances that were a major part of the pachuco lifestyle.
“We auditioned and we danced together,” Villa said. “And now we’re partners.”
“And It’s been five shows a week ever since,” Perez added. “At the end of this extension we’ll be at 112 shows.”
This is the pair’s first El Teatro Campesino performance as they dance together in “Zoot Suit,” but their backgrounds are very different. Perez is a stage veteran, while Villa has no aspirations of acting.
“I’ve been acting in Gilroy since 1996,” Perez said. “Since ’96, I’ve been doing it almost nonstop.”
Most recently, Perez, 21, played the Earl of Clouchester in Gavilan College’s production of “King Lear.” He also has been on stage with South Valley Civic Theatre and John Bisceglia’s annual shows. However, this is his first professional acting job.
“This is professional, in a sense,” Perez said. “It’s a lot different than a community theater. Here, if you miss a rehearsal, it’s a big thing,”
“Eventually I want to go into professional theater,” he said. ” But it’s a lot of sacrifice. In the end you have to ask if it’s all worth it, and it is – no question about it.”
On the other hand, Villa, a 22-year-old East Asian Studies major at the University of California at Santa Cruz who took a semester off to do the show, has been dancing since she was a little girl, and saw an opportunity to show off her talent.
“I never had any aspirations of doing this,” she said. “I just thought it would be cool to be a part of. It was cool to be able to use something I worked so hard on for 19 years and be appreciated for my ability to dance.”
Perez plays the character Swabbie, who is a sailor, while Villa plays Manchuka.
“I think it’s funny I’ve been swing dancing for five years and I own two zoot suits, but I don’t get to wear one in the show,” said Perez, who dons a blue sailor suit in the show. Perez also is the understudy for a three-character-in-one part in the show in the form of Lt. Edwards, the judge and a prison guard. He has played that part two or three times during the show’s run.
Although the dance pair don’t have speaking parts in the show, they play a pivotal role in creating the partying scenes in “Zoot Suit,” which uses very few props and scene changes, utilizing several newspaper bales to create each scene and music to display the soul of the pachuco lifestyle.
“Music is an essential part of the show,” he said. “Music is very close to the heart of the show.”
Valdez gained permission from composer Lalo Guerrero for the play.
“He’s recognized as the father of pachuco music,” Valdez said. “I’m using five of his numbers.”
The dancing in the play is just as important, Villa said.
“It’s like a form of swing,” Villa said. “It’s called pachuco swing. It’s very stylized.”
Perez and Villa said they were honored to bring the important human rights story to the stage.
“It’s extreme history,” Villa said. “It’s all based on true stuff.”
Perez also said that working with Valdez made the play more special.
“Louis was in the show for a few weeks,” Perez said. “Working with the playwright himself is quite an experience.”
The play even brought people who experienced the zoot suit riots first-hand to San Juan Bautista. Alice Greenfield McGrath, who is portrayed in the show as Alice Bloomfield, was a major player in the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial. Now 85, Greenfield McGrath has made trips to see the show.
“She’s been here three or four times and loves it every time,” Villa said. “It’s even more amazing to meet people like that.”
Villa said the experience she has gotten though the people she met and worked with during “Zoot Suit” is something she will never forget.
“Everyone gets that one opportunity to do something like this,” she said. “This is my once.”
‘Zoot Suit’ is playing at the El Teatro Campesino Playhouse in San Juan Bautista until March 30. Tickets are $12 to $20 and are available by calling (831) 634-2444.
