Orale! This Zoot Suit Still Fits

 Zoot Suit first appeared at  L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum back in 1978. It was a revelation. For the first time a mainstream Los Angeles stage was presenting a slice of local history that laid bare official L.A.’s casual discrimination against young men of Latino heritage. This largely true story of the World War II-era Sleepy Lagoon murder case, as written and directed by Luis Valdez of El Teatro Campesino, was strong stuff.  But that hardly meant it was a grim evening of theatre. Valdez’s direction (encouraged by Center Theatre Group’s invaluable artistic director, Gordon Davidson) played up the color, the music, and the general exuberance of L.A.’s Mexican-American community. Audiences, whatever their own ethnic background, were mesmerized.

So successful was Zoot Suit that it moved east, for a 1979 Broadway run. There were only 41 performances, though star Edward James Olmos would be nominated for a featured-actor Tony. (The sense at the time was that Broadway audiences were not really ready for a plunge into the world of the Chicano. I’d love to see what Lin-Manuel Miranda could do with this material!) Eventually, in 1982, a film version would appear, with Olmos again as the play’s showiest figure, and established actors Charles Aidman and Tyne Daly taking on the roles of two sympathetic Anglos who fight the conviction of Henry Reyna (Daniel Valdez) for a murder he didn’t commit. Though this miscarriage of justice is the story’s center, Olmos’s character is what makes it unforgettable. He plays El Pachuco, a sort of fantasy tough-guy who mediates between Reyna and the audience, sardonically attacking Anglo culture and showing off the flamboyant up-yours spirit of the zoot-suiter. Reveling in a Spanglish vocabulary, he represents the anger of an underclass that uses defiant poses and fancy threads to differentiate itself from the white man’s world.

In celebration of the Center Theatre Group’s 50^th anniversary (and in fond tribute to the late Gordon Davidson), the Mark Taper is now once again hosting Zoot Suit. This new production, headed by Mexican-born Oscar nominee Demián Bichir, is probably even more colorful and more musically oriented than the long-ago one I remember. On the night I attend, the packed house adored it, and the run is completely sold out. Happily, the responses from the audience to some of Spanish-language throwaway lines hinted that Latin Americans were (for a change) well represented in the Taper audience. I must admit that for me the play’s twists and turns were slightly less galvanizing than what  I recall. I suspect this is because the injustice shown on the stage is more of a given now than it was back in 1978. Still, some of the rhetoric among the play’s police and judicial figures, with its basic assumption that most Latinos are rapists and murderers, seemed all too well connected with the language we hear on today’s nightly news. This is hardly a play whose themes seem outdated or irrelevant.

Zoot Suit put Edward James Olmos on the map. Since then, of course, he’s been a Hollywood stalwart, Oscar-nominated for his leading role in Stand and Deliver, and a featured player in such classics as Blade Runner. While the original Zoot Suit was being staged, I (as an L.A. Times theatre writer) was introduced to Olmos. He was friendly and warm, but the role of El Pachuco had such a hold on me that I instinctively shied away. I also take a moment to salute one of the original Zoot Suit players, my college-era colleague, Angela Moya, who went on to have a nice little acting career. Angela, where are you now?

A Postscript: Edward James Olmos’ Oscar-nominated role was that of super-teacher Jaime Escalante. I just discovered, on a letter that came in today’s mail, that the U.S. Post Office has issued a Jaime Escalante stamp. 

Goodbye, Jose Jimenez?

The recent passing of veteran actress Carmen Zapata, best known to the moviegoing public for playing a nun in Sister Act, made me think about the status of Latin Americans in Hollywood. Carmen, born in New York to a Mexican father and Argentine mother, had a longstanding gig as Doña Luz on PBS’s bilingual children’s program, Villa Alegre. Bilingual programming was very close to her heart. When I interviewed her in 1973, she had just helped found a Los Angeles theatre group, the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts. It still exists, providing training for actors, translating Spanish-language drama into English, and presenting plays in both languages.

My interest in Hollywood’s Mexican-American heritage was first piqued when I visited the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, a stone’s throw from Downtown L.A.’s kitschy Olvera Street. The Plaza’s splendid new museum colorfully illustrates the history of Mexican Americans in Southern California. The section on the movie industry points out that, in the era of silent films, Mexican-born actors had no problem finding acceptance in Hollywood. Ramon Novarro played Ben-Hur and other mainstream leading-man roles; Dolores del Rio, Lupe Velez, and the handsome Gilbert Roland became stars. When talkies arrived, though, Mexicans were suddenly limited to stereotypical parts: the Latin Lover, the charro, the seductress, the spitfire.

Years later, the great Anthony Quinn (born in Mexico, raised in East L.A.) enjoyed a major career, but one that tended to confine him to ethnic and outrageous roles. In the banner year 1956 he played Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and won an Oscar for portraying Paul Gauguin in Lust for Life. He was an Arab in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), danced joyfully on a Cretan beach in Zorba the Greek (1964), and often played Italian, as in The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969).  

It was in 1965 that Luis Valdez founded a farmworkers’ theatre, El Teatro Campesino, in rural Delano, California, as the cultural arm of the United Farm Workers. Early performances were strongly political, with a focus on Chicano issues. By 1978, the troupe had grown sophisticated enough to interest L.A.’s respected Center Theatre Group. Zoot Suit highlighted the racial injustice surrounding the infamous Sleepy Lagoon Murder trial of 1942. The production galvanized Los Angeles, and made a star out of Edward James Olmos, who played the iconic El Pachuco. When I met Olmos behind the scenes, he was friendly and soft-spoken, but he commanded the stage in a way that was unforgettable. His 1981 role in a film version of Zoot Suit led to a key non-ethnic part in Blade Runner, and then a Best Actor Oscar nomination for portraying gutsy teacher Jaime Escalante in 1988’s Stand and Deliver. (Valdez himself, six years after directing the Zoot Suit film, had his biggest Hollywood moment at the helm of La Bamba, the Ritchie Valens story.)  

Today, of course, there’s more opportunity for Latino actors like Salma Hayek, Oscar-winner Benicio del Toro, America Ferrera, and Andy Garcia (who got some of his training at Carmen Zapata’s Bilingual Foundation of the Arts). But old stereotypes die hard, and plenty of Latin-Americans are still stuck playing gardeners and maids. A young Broadway actress with Mexican roots recently appeared in a new musical production, in the role of a beauty queen. The part required her to be ditzy, but ethnically neutral. Then the producers asked for a change: could she lay on a thick Chica accent? She could and did (a featured role is featured role!), and the shift generated a lot of laughs. Still, though, it didn’t feel good.