By Rosa Luisa Márquez

Translation and photos by Miguel Villefañe

I began practicing theatre in Sunday school during my elementary school years. I must have been eight. As a child I was exposed to musical theatre, drama, puppetry, and even saw the great French mime, Marcel Marceau. Theatre fascinated me in a very special way. I was afraid the actors would transgress the fourth wall and join the audience. Once, they actually did and scared me half to death. I was captivated by the mystery contained inside the picture frame. From that time on, it seems The Theatre chose me. At least that is what I wish to remember.

Having immersed myself in Spanish playwrights such as Valle Inclán and Lorca in high school, there was no other option but theatre when I finally went to college. The University of Puerto Rico’s Theatre Program provided a safe place to gather together and express our dreams. We practically lived in the University Theatre building, a huge structure with over 2,000 seats which was the largest and most important theatre on the Island.

We used any excuse to create theatre: Osvaldo Dragún´s Stories to be Told, Checkov’s The Seagull, Gorki’sLower Depths, The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wifeby Lorca, Williams’ Rose Tattoo, Absurdities in Loneliness by Myrna Casas. Latin America, Europe, the United States and Puerto Rico were contained in a single time capsule. During this period, too, I became immersed in the work of Gilda Navarra, professor of mime, who was the most rigorous and disciplined artist around. She had developed a clear and precise methodology for body awareness and training. Her discipline came from her training as a dancer and was enriched by her studies at the Jaques Le Coq Mime School in Paris during the Sixties. Her mime dramas took no less than a year to develop and required the active collaboration of her company. With Gilda, rehearsals were veritable laboratories of group creativity and individual improvisation. But, she was always in control of final decisions. She is still the grand lady of Puerto Rican theatre. Unfortunately, since her mime-dramas did not generate written texts, Gilda Navarra has not been allotted the recognition she deserves as a national dramatist. Her work was always seamless. I consult with her often while directing. At 76 years of age, she is still as sharp as a whistle.

I acquired a taste for Realism and the Absurd through the academic courses and the stage work of Myrna Casas. Although Casas taught theory, she also directed. She required that the actors find organic pathways for the development of their characters. Because each actor defined her own blocking, she was more comfortable with herself as well as with her colleagues on stage. Casas encouraged role-playing and improvisations during rehearsals.

Part of what defines me and my professional work was coming of age during the Vietnam War years. The life and death framework established by the War elicited a very strong sense of urgency in our development as theatre artists. It was a highly challenging time, personally, culturally and politically. We required quick answers and needed to connect with others who shared a similar vision. We shunned traditional theatre spaces—because these were not open to everyone—and performed in hallways, streets and public squares. While traditional spaces limit the possibilities of democratic exchange, theatre practice, at its best, is a generous experience that heightens sensibilities, an act of communication that requires moving into the realm of the ‘other’ in order to establish meaningful contacts. Theatre practice presupposes risk. Leaving the four walls of the traditional spaces created new conditions for dialogue. It was necessary to make adjustments. We had to speak louder, exaggerate our gestures, or get closer to our audience. We had to learn to listen and to take into account the spontaneous reactions of the audience and its critical comments. We began to observe our immediate surroundings with the purpose of learning from them. This enriched our endeavor; it sensitized us to new stimuli and forced us to include the elements of chance such as the eloquent reactions of our spectators, ambient sounds, natural light, wind, rain...

We worked within the context of labor and student strikes, political events, protests and marches. Because we shared issues with our many collaborators, we integrated actors as well as non-actors into our performances. We scripted texts collectively; we manufactured masks, costumes and posters; we composed music. We were multi-faceted actors and total theatre people, even before we knew the meaning of such terms.

The War led us to defend life. Puerto Ricans were drafted into the US armed forces. We struggled against the war in Vietnam as well as colonialism. Theatre was the preferred means of communication to confront both issues. Ours was poor, vital, and immediate. It took the form of popular street theatre.

In 1971, we founded the Anamú Theatre Group. ‘Anamú’ is a weed so bitter and hard that even goats are reluctant to eat it. And we built a small theatre in a low income barrio of San Juan (1973). Our approach to performance was playful, warm, and humorous. We strove to convince and seduce our audiences. We needed supporters for our cause.

We met Pablo Cabrera who became our teacher and artistic director. From him I learned to direct on the fly during rehearsals, as opposed to figuring things out in my head beforehand. I became aware that the performance space is the true locus of theatrical scripting. Cabrera directed our group in Preciosa y otras tonadas que no llegaron al Hit Parade(Preciosa and Other Tunes that Never Made it to the Hit Parade, 1971) which was a staging of Puerto Rican short stories interlaced with songs and conducted by a disk jockey who made political comments. This experience made us aware of the importance of live music onstage, which has become a constant element of my craft and consolidated our work as a group. Later Cabrera directed us in Pipo Subway no sabe reír (Pipo Subway Does not Know How to Laugh, 1972), the story of a Nuyorican child obsessed by a bicycle. Our tallest actor used a half mask to play the part of Clota, Pipo’s mother, while we—young adults—enacted the children. The power of the mask to change gender and to make the audience accept an unconventional point of view, opened for me new perspectives in the realm of play.

Sponge-like, we absorbed all manner of stimuli. We were influenced by theLiving Theatre of the US, specially its invitation for audience participation. The company broke with playwriting, the primacy of the author, the rigid separation between actor and spectator and the proscenium stage.

From the Bread and Puppet Theatre we borrowed the monumental sense of scale in order to attract audiences that would not normally attend a performance and to take over spaces that were not considered theatrical. In 1973 we were hosts to the Teatro Experimental de Cali, Colombia, from whom we learned the methodology of Latin American-style collective dramaturgy, largely based on a Marxist approach to improvisation, analysis of dramatic conflict and group decision making. We were drawn to the playwriting techniques of Argentinian author/director Osvaldo Dragún who established the actor as the central narrator of the story. This greatly facilitated a more direct communication with the spectator. His technique ensured meaningful contact, as the spectator felt connected to the storyline. From the events of ‘May of ´68’ in Europe we had derived not just a new way of approaching the arts but a liberating attitude towards life. “Power to the imagination” also became our slogan. Additionally, we were mobilized by Ché Guevara’s transcendent project as well as the Cuban Revolution that inspired him.

The impact of this artistic adventure was so compelling that I decided to continue my academic studies in theatre. By this time it had become clear to me that the theatre profession was not a viable alternative in Puerto Rico and I was moving farther away from conventional forms. This led me to embrace theatre as a tool for education. I became interested in approaching art from the sidelines, as a way of enhancing the quality of life and as a place where life could be lived more intensively.

The year I did my Master´s Degree in Theatre and Education at NYU (1969-1970), the students sequestered the University’s computer system. That was an fascinating event for our theatrical imagination because heretofore only people were sequestered. The police surrounded the school buildings. Classes abruptly ended in March. We spent the rest of the semester designing ways in which to do ‘theatre for peace.’ We staged various ‘guerrilla theatre’ pieces which provoked positive reactions as well as a shower of soda cans from a New York skyscraper, as a response to our singing of: “...and the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, bombs bursting in air, bombs bursting in air...”

While completing my Ph.D. at Michigan State University, I wrote my doctoral thesis on the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, an itinerant theatre produced by the community of Puerto Ricans living in New York. Since its founding in 1967, PRTT has toured Latino neighborhoods performing theatre in Spanish and English. Today it is housed in a former fire department building on 48th Street. For many years PRTT performed for Nuyorican audiences the most significant theatre that was generated in Puerto Rico. While researching this group, I had the opportunity to review two distinct subjects: Puerto Rican theatre history and the economic and political causes of a mass migration of Islanders to the US- half of the Puerto Rican population which arrived on the mainland bringing with it a distinct cultural identity that provided an ideal audience for Nuyorican theatre.

Nevertheless, the most important experience of my graduate years was to create and participate in theLansing Team of Four, a theatre-in-education initiative that generated performances aimed at elementary school students. The group played in classrooms and gyms in the Lansing School District, a district plagued by violence. The idea was that students see the pieces, participate in theatre games, and select and reenact their favorite play in their homerooms. The initial working model stimulated active participation during the course of the performance. To be able to generate three performances and/or workshops per day for these children provided extraordinary training. Our main objective was to integrate them into a dynamic and imaginative experience. The great lesson from this project was to realize the effectiveness of the arts in channeling the creative energies of children. We became a truly athletic theatre team: agile, communicative, playful and enthusiastic. I developed an ample vocabulary of theatre games which added to those I later learned from Augusto Boal, have served me well in the task of stimulating creativity and uninhibiting my college students. By 1978, I had finished my Ph.D. and had accepted a teaching position in the Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico.

At the University, I developed a piece with several casts performed in diverse spaces. La leyenda del Cemí (The Legend of the Cemí, an indigenous god), based on a short story by the Argentine/Puerto Rican author, Kalman Barsy, narrates the mythical birth of the island of Puerto Rico. [figures Cemí # 1, 2, 5, 9. This particular performance was staged in an elementary school. Cemí had more than one hundred performances in Puerto Rico, The Caribbean, the United States, Mexico, and Brazil.]

In 1983 I went of to Paris to study under Boal at his Center for the Investigation of Active Techniques of Expression. I joined him when he returned to Rio de Janeiro and worked on an educational project aimed at children from the favelas (1986). From Boal, I borrowed two key techniques: his use of games and his pursuit of audience participation. The actor/spectator dialogue he sponsors, the high energy he generates in the spectator, his development of a liminal theatre which connects sociology, psychology and the ambiguity derived from bringing theatre into the street and reality to the stage, are all important elements of his methodology which I take into account. Each of his stagings is a unique and unforgettable event for performers as well as for spect-actors, as Boal himself defines the members of his audience.

My experience with Peter Schumann of the Bread and Puppet Theatre has also been extremely valuable. The manner in which Schumann organizes the daily experience of art, transforming it into a way of life and not just as an aesthetic event is very compelling. I learned not to worry about results and rather to participate intensely in process, greatly reducing my anxiety regarding final product.

Since 1989 I have researched the work of Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani of Perú, which has developed a rigorous actor’s dramaturgy based on Peruvian roots. The actors are the creators of their own characters and storylines under the strong hand of the director, Miguel Rubio. I also investigate the creative process of Grupo Malayerba of Ecuador, particularly its form of collective authorship which occurs under the strong supervision of its director/playwright, Arístides Vargas, and his poetics of exile. I have followed the work of MECATE of Nicaragua (Artistic and Testimonial Campesino Movement) which uses art as an instrument of communication for the benefit of campesino communities. Their pieces deal with subjects such as ecology, agriculture, economics, health and social change. Its members are active cultural promoters and have no intentions of becoming professional artists.

Popular festivities also interest to me enormously because they contain the essence of theatricality. I have closely followed the ritual in honor of our Lady of Carmel in Paucartambo, Perú; Carnival in Brazil; and the Day of the Innocents in Hatillo as well as the festivity of Saint James the Apostle in Loiza, both in Puerto Rico. I’m attracted to the elements of spectacle and the fluid relationship between spectators and performers. We adapt these basic principles of these popular performances to our projects to reflect artistically on urgent matters: the Caribbean, peace, AIDS, human rights, Vieques.

Since 1989 I have been a teacher and workshop participant in the International School of Theatre for Latin America and the Caribbean, an itinerant school founded by Osvaldo Dragún. Its objective is to explore and divulge successful modes of theatrical production in Latin America through the coordination of international workshops, seminars, round tables and conferences headed by highly recognized teachers and groups. Twenty-five such encounters have been held with theatre companies such as La Candelaria of Colombia, Yuyachkani of Perú, the Odin Teatret of Denmark andMacunaíma of Brazil. The encounters have been hosted by teachers of the stature of Antunes Fihlo, Eugenio Barba, Roberta Carrieri, Sanchís Sinesterra, Peter Schumann, Miguel Rubio, Santiago García and Arístides Vargas.

In short, I am fascinated by theatricality in all its forms, from external manifestations (masks, costumes, movement, text, light and sound) to its most essential elements - its capacity for communication and transformation through ritual and sensual pleasure. I help students observe life as a theatrical event. We investigate daily occurrences as performance, the language of the senses, the relationship between ‘actors and spectators,’ and the dramaturgy of reality and hyperreality.

My collaborative work with Antonio Martorell since 1984

How to describe the nature of our work when it’s so circumstantial, constantly adapting to time and space considerations? ‘We’ is Antonio Martorell, a multi-faceted graphic artist and performer and I, a ‘teatrera’ or theatre person. [FIGURE Carive # 1, Antonio Martorell and Rosa Luisa Marquez] We have created theatricalized lectures as well as performance events to defend our political preferences and have performed them as a duo. We have also developed huge parades celebrating peace as well as commentaries on the Fifth Centennial of the Discovery of the Americas in which hundreds of participants have created the props and scenic elements as well as the different choreographies. Our work with groups is usually developed over a short but intense period of collective creation of graphic materials as well as concepts. We recycle garbage, spaces, and ideas. We discuss issues such as prejudice, AIDS, harassment, domestic violence, the state of the arts as well as our dreams and nightmares. Commitment to issues, time, space, working materials and the skills of the performers are the main elements in the development of these projects.

An example of my work with Martorell include Foto-estáticas (1985), a sequence of tableaux on the subject of the Puerto Rican family, built with Augusto Boal’s “Image Theatre” techniques and staged as a living photo album. The audience collaborates in an unconventional way [figure FE 6] One hour before the performance, audience members are invited to collaborate with the actors in the creation of paper costumes - a workshop process which can occur in the street as well as in enclosed spaces. Audience members develop skills in frotage (paper rubbing), Mexican cut-paper techniques, and wood-block printing. The actors are lavishly dressed for a wedding. [FIGURE FE 2] But the wedding costumes are made out of paper, paint and masking tape. At the beginning of the performance, audiences are shown a sequence of ‘tableaux vivants’ of the wedding which are presented as photographs: the bride in front of the mirror, the wedding march, communion, the kiss and the family in front of the altar. The groom turns to the bride and tears away her paper wedding gown. At this point, a gasp of disbelief is always heard from the audience, after which there ensues a slow motion fight between all the actors that ends in the destruction of the costumes. [FIGURE FE 13] From the inert mound of paper on stage a new version of the Puerto Rican family is born. It grows and quickly passes through emblematic social and political situations: traffic jams, unemployment and supermarket lines, compulsory military service; traditional family scenes in front of the TV set, domestic violence, births and deaths. [FIGURE FE 8] A full cycle of life for the entire family/ensemble composes a huge family portrait in constant and rhythmic flow. The photographer of the wedding sequence takes the last photo through his paintbrush camera and traces the family’s silhouette on the cyclorama. A huge white sheet is flown over the family portrait. [FIGURE FE 15] A cymbal crash is heard and the family collapses under the sheet leaving the traced memory of their bodies. I acted as a music conductor. Seated downstage, with my back to the audience, I directed the rhythms of the play, establishing movements, sounds and silences. I usually perform in my pieces, sometimes as a protagonist and at other times as a secondary presence.

With Foto-estáticas, we began utilizing ‘performance’ instead of theatre as a term that better defined our work. Each staging of this piece had a completely different character. Colors, textures, rhythms varied depending on who was involved in the process. We have since created more than one hundred events which include book presentations, lecture demonstrations, political debates, parades, banquets, museum pieces, installations, as well as more traditional proscenium performances. Often we take over and transform empty lofts with the help of interested participants. Cardboard, newsprint, cloth and other inexpensive recyclable materials serve us well in the construction of environments for performances or for the making of ‘performas’ as Mexican artist Felipe Ehrenberg has baptized such events in Spanish. An enormous dosage of serious playfulness surrounds the nature of the experiences described.