Interview with José Joaquín García, former ensemble member

By Arnaldo Lopez

José Joaquín García,: Hello, my name is José Joaquín García,, artistic director of Rubí Theater Ensemble.

Arnaldo Lopez: The first thing I wanted to ask you is whether you set out to do ensemble work. [And] why do you do art?

JJG: Being an actor was the furthest thing from my mind, I definitely did not [set out to be an artist]... I was going to be a rock’n’roll star, or I was going to be the next big opera singer. That’s what I was going to do.

AL: A big voice.

JJG: A big voice, yes. I was looking for a job, actually, at the National Puerto Rican Forum, I think that’s what it was called. And [Luis] Meléndez, at the time the musical director for Pregones, was one of the guys working at this place, and I told him about my experience and what I was looking for and he said, "Hey, we’re looking for someone at the company." And I went, and I met them. When I first went there I was really focusing on classical music, I was studying at Westminster Choir College, which was in Princeton, so it was all white people. So, when I went into my audition with Pregones I could not have been more uncomfortable in my entire life.

AL: Really?

JJG: And I lied about my experience. I said I had done certain shows, but I had done those in high school. They didn’t know that. And then when I saw them – I want to use the word "jovial," there was something about them – I was hooked. But I really did not know what I was doing. I remember after every performance people would say, "José, you’re underacting." And I really didn’t know what the heck they were talking about. What’s incredible is that through the work I was finding out about myself. As a Puerto Rican I was not solid in that at all. I certainly was not solid. I don’t know if I would call myself– Yo me defiendo en español, but I certainly wasn’t at ease with it, speaking Spanish as I am now. I remember we were doing a show called "La caravana" and we were doing the "toco tocos" [a traditional rhyming game] and it was, "Toco toco, ve gigante." And I could not do that. It was the hardest thing in the world, but I remember then Jorge [Merced] stepping back and realizing that it was something he took for granted as a Puerto Rican. It was almost like this realization that we are Puerto Ricans and there are a lot of things we share but a lot that we don’t share. I just remember how difficult the "toco toco" was, and I am a singer. Man, but I just could not get it in the beginning; but then I certainly did. And I noticed that in their training, whatever they did there was always a discussion of class, gender, race, and I know no other way of discussing work.

AL: So, you came upon that methodology?

JJG: Absolutely. I realized that those things are not discussed. There’s no training.

AL: Can you tell me a little bit more about what it was like to work with them?

JJG: Wow, it was a lot of expresión corporal, movement. A lot of stuff having to do with stamina, with strength, opposition. I loved that we never did realistic theater, or naturalistic. I didn’t know why we didn’t do it then. I always thought it was just because it isn’t creative. Well, I didn’t think "creative for creative sake" [then], and even then I knew there was a meaning behind everything they did. I don’t particularly like [realistic theater] because I think that to show naturalistic theater is to accept that things don’t change, that this is the way we are and we’re going to imitate real life and they [Pregones] never did that. It was just absolutely exciting. So much listening to music, a lot of discussion, and real discussion about the work, about the real work. I didn’t know a lot of it at all.

I hope you don’t mind me jumping around, but one of the things that I remember that was a big deal in my process as an artist was when Jorge came into the group and I fell victim because Jorge did so many things at the time. I felt insecure. I finally had found my space, but I thought, "Here comes Jorge, who can dance and do this– " And I felt jealous, it was difficult, and I felt that my space had been taken, and I had this realization as an artist, and it was working with him I realized, "Jorge is Jorge, but I’m José García and I do my things very different from him and that’s what is special about it." And literally my entire life just changed, I felt like I freed myself of my sword – creatively – after I let go of that. So, I watch him. I know what it’s like to acknowledge people who know more than me, I have no problem with that. I want to be around people like that and I pass that on to my students – that of studying people as they’re doing the work.

AL: I saw that in your rehearsal today and I enjoyed [it]. There is also, clearly, a lot of gestural work, body work, it’s also your vocabulary.

JJG: Absolutely. We explore it. You know, deconstructing movement, but making sure that we don’t fall into this very abstract thing that only we’re understanding, because that’s a bore. That’s really, really boring and that’s not what we want to do.

AL: Popular-based.

JJG: Absolutely popular-based.

AL: Tell me if you remember, or, how would you describe Pregones Theater back then, and if you have a favorite piece.

JJG: Well, it was really interesting, because I came in with Judith Rivera so at the time we were the first Puerto Ricans from New York in the group. And it was my [previous] understanding that they just wanted Puerto Ricans from the island to be in the group, but that completely changed once we got in there. What was really great was that when we got there they were in the process of realizing that, "Hey, Puerto Ricans here speak English, but they are Puerto Ricans, and we have to reach other Puerto Ricans who speak only English." I had my first rehearsal. They were doing ["Migrants!] cantata a los emigrantes," and we went to visit Clemente Soto Velez [the Puerto Rican poet]. I didn’t know jack about who this guy was, but I knew I was in the house of someone really, really huge, and I remember it was really beautiful, but there was a lot of Spanish being spoken and even though I got a lot of what was going on, I felt saddened. I felt that I wasn’t really getting [it], understanding [it]. I felt left out, like I was an outsider. But then the musical director at the time, I don’t remember his name, but he [said,] "You know, José, do not worry about this, there are two Puerto Ricos. There is Puerto Rico the island and there is Puerto Rico the people." And when he told me that the rest was just smooth sailing; after he told me that. So, there were so many people in Pregones who changed my life, from him saying that, to Alvan Colón giving me "Las memorias de Bernardo Vega." These are all huge gestures by human beings that just transformed me forever. Absolutely forever.

AL: Do you have a favorite piece?

JJG: One that comes up is "Voces de Acero," "Voices of Steel." There was so much work that was done, so much preparation, so much study of movement, so much reading, just study. I remember it being physically taxing all the time, but I remember just enjoying it. It came back full circle when they released the political prisoners [in 2000], and as soon as I heard that I immediately went back to that piece. Immediately, my first thought [was] not that we helped release them, but certainly we threw our stone in there, and that was not a very popular topic. But we performed at the Public Theater and it was just fantastic.

AL: And the piece had testimony? Press material?

JJG: It had testimonies, press material. What else? We had these huge pictures we carried, that I still have, the music was fantastic. Again, everything was a real collaboration. Real collaboration. We wrote the music on the spot, people would take home music. I did. I certainly remember taking home ideas, music and bringing it back to them, and all of a sudden Jorge would get behind the piano and we would start doing this and it was a very exciting and creative time in my life as a young actor. My first paying job as an actor. Not that it was thousands of dollars, but because I was paid from day one and because I came out of them I didn’t have any of those complejos that actors have about inferiority complex, about giving your power up to other people because, "Oh, they may never call me again." I never, ever had those issues because I came out of Pregones.

Just recently I got called to do this thing with Kevin Klein, this guy that I know wrote this orchestration of Shakespeare dialogue and stuff, and when they called me and I was like, "No, I’m going to do Rubí Theater [and] that’s what I need to focus on right now." Always about the work. There was such a love for the art in Pregones, always. Oh my God, we would just toss things, literally staying up. It was never, "Oh, it was [good]" or, "It was bad." It was just staying up and [doing] critical analysis with them. I believe we did the first utilized forum theater in the United States. I remember Alvan seeing a group from Puerto Rico, and then he came back... I think he saw it in Cuba or Puerto Rico, something like that. He said, "Listen, I just saw this thing, we’ve got to do this." And all of a sudden we’re doing many, many performances in Spanish Harlem, about AIDS.

AL: Was that "The Embrace" project?

JJG: Yeah, wonderful. That’s another Pregones project. They are inimitable, very special. My favorite group.

AL: That piece appears to be historically important in developing theatrical vocabulary in which the community and the audiences are involved. Can you tell me more about the relationship with the audiences?

JJG: It’s really interesting, because now we call it conflict resolution. We certainly did not call it conflict resolution [back then]. In a conflict resolution, usually we see two actors walk in and they have an idea and they just do the piece. But in Pregones it was a play, there was a play with a beginning, a middle and end. I remember a friend of mine, [and] I have to jump back with "Voces de Acero," I remember a friend of mine, another artist, came to see a rehearsal or something, and he and his mom said, "They’re not going to understand. 'Voces de Acero' is too abstract. I think you guys are fooling yourselves. They are not going to understand it." And I remember saying, "You guys are underestimating the audience, the audience wants to see great art. They will welcome it."

We come from a tradition of, you’re singing, then you’re delivering a monologue. I was one of the first actors there and it was really hard because you are on a tight rope and you don’t know what is going to happen, which is the beauty of the forum theater. Because we didn’t pretend to know all the answers and I believe, in "conflict resolution," I think people have their answers so you’re sort of talking down to people and your assuming you’re giving answers, but with this [Pregones’ forum theater] it was just wide open. From having people with the virus coming up. So, you’re doing the piece and every time you learn something that you never would have thought of . The relationship with the audience. They would just understand it instantly, just instantly. The characters were familiar, but the twists of what we did, man! Taking the archetypes, if you will, then twist. We added music and then, of course, you had the Joker [a key forum theater character]. All exciting. It was also filmed by Diana Coryat. I’d love to see that. I remember "The Embrace" was always the most scary thing for me to do because I didn’t [know] whether I would drop the ball as an actor and… I just didn’t know, I didn’t know. I remember it being very scary.

AL: In your understanding, the audiences, who are they?

JJG: The people, the community. The community. What can I tell you? This is what we were working all the time for and I don’t mean working, "Oh, we’re going to give you–" or, "We’re coming from–" It’s an interesting relationship because you’re being and feeling like you’re part of the community but understanding that we are artists and to be an artist is to be in a different class, whether you like it or not. Sometimes it rings false, some say, "No, yo soy parte de la comunidad también." "I’m also part of the community." Yeah, you are. But you’re in a different class also because you’re an artist so you have the third eye, if you will. So, now you’re able to see things that other people don’t see, or they do see it, but then you have the advantage of getting to say what you want to say about what it is that you see, and [have] the advantage of people sitting down watching you. The community, yeah, I remember working-class people, people on welfare a lot of the time, people who were always concerned about what’s going on with AIDS. Just very concerned, everyone affected. "The Embrace," that it was called "The Embrace." Everybody knows that when you get sick, you know, el abrazo. It was just so well thought out, not just thrown out there. It also wasn’t this thing that was intellectualizing, but more about compassion and about human feelings, for me, on that level.

JJG: Let’s talk about what you’re doing now. I’m certainly interested in hearing about Rubí [Theater], I’m thinking methodology. I’d love to hear what you borrowed, what you chucked from [Pregones’] ensemble methodology in as much detail as you care to share.

JJG: I think one thing, within the group, one thing that we want to do is that we want to have different age ranges within the group. Usually what happens within the group is that it’s usually older people in their twenties or something, and if you need a teenager it’s usually played by an older actor and I didn’t want to have that. I wanted to build a community on stage and I wanted to show real life, that we all live with different age groups. It’s a very different thing, because teenagers don’t have control of their lives; the parents have the last say. So, because their is a huge age range, one thing that’s definitely different, I think, from Pregones, is that I definitely feel that I’m very heavy handed in the vision of what is the group. Absolutely. In Pregones, not that there wasn’t any vision, because definitely the group is filled with vision, but in my group we discuss, we discuss a lot where we are heading.

For instance, "Through My Eyes," which is going to be premiering at CSV [Clemente Soto Velez Center]. Two of those pieces came from within Rubí Theater, so, we’re utilizing all the methodology, all the things we believe in. Stepping back, we had a real support system for the playwrights where we met them once a week and they had [material] to bring back. Real supporting because I think that there is a lot of emerging Latino actors but not Latino playwrights.

And I’m noticing that, outside of Pregones, a lot of the plays that I’m seeing are based on real-life stuff, like tabloid stuff. I just saw a play recently where, within an hour, a pit bull was thrown out the window, a woman was choked on stage, guys tried to stab a drug dealer, they tried to kill a drug dealer, all these things. Things that we see on TV. It was two of my former students who put this up and I was really disappointed. Because they came out of my class. The audience was completely into what it was they were doing, but they weren’t realizing that it was very familiar to the audience. Because it was familiar, [because] it was naturalistic, the audience was passive. They were really caught up in it, but nobody, nobody was distancing themselves from the piece. They laugh filled with emotion, but when it came time to asking questions everybody was, like, "It was great." It wasn’t like what Bertolt Brecht said, they were doing the opposite. The audience was going, "Oh, bendito, I can’t believe that happened, that’s so sad." Instead of, "This needs to stop, what we’re watching on stage needs to stop." So, they wind up perpetuating.

What’s definitely very clear in Pregones, and what we do in all of our work, is that we try to make it very, very clear that you are watching a theatrical production. We’re not here to take any trips with you, we’re not interested in that, we just want you to see these things and step back, and, of course, we use alienation techniques via song, beat-boxing. It’s like we have two worlds going on here, like the stuff we’re doing with Nicholasa Mohr [the Puerto Rican author]. We’re going to be staging [Mohr’s novel] "Nilda," a musical based on the coming of age of a Puerto Rican girl between 1941 and 1945, and it’s very specific. When you talk about that, you talk about American musical theater. Not that we are setting out to do this, [but] it’s naturally going to happen that we are going to expand [musical theater]. I mean, it’s American Musical theater, man, we’re really going to go all the way. It’s funny because people had so many opinions about [Paul Simon’s] "The Capeman," what the whole piece was, and for me it just brought a lot of good, absolutely a lot of good. And the big lesson for me was, it’s about owning it. I believed that then, and I believe [it] now. And my thought was [that if] this was not directed by a Puerto Rican, it can’t happen. You don’t know anything about us, our gestures, about our muecas, things that can’t be explored on stage because you don’t know that.

AL: Marga Gomez has a really funny bit [about muecas].

JJG: It’s outrageous. If you don’t know those things– So, for me, it’s so natural when I go see Pregones. There’s music. We’re musical people, look at all the things that we do as a people. Why wouldn’t you include that in every single thing that you do instead of going into this naturalistic thing that people are doing. And as for Rubí Theater, at the risk of tooting our own horn and sounding pretentious or whatever, we’re really thinking about exploring hip-hop language on the stage and expanding it. Because we’ve been invited to do the [Danny Hoch’s] Hip-Hop Theater Festival. But for me it’s, like, "What the hell is hip-hop theater? Did I miss something?"

AL: That’s the question that the people who are actually practicing it [hip-hop theater] have.

JJG: Exactly. So, is there hip-hop theater? Is there a repertoire of what is hip-hop theater? I don’t really think so. I think there’s different things and the closest on is probably Danny Hoch. Because he’s very focused and he departs from that. But for us, our big thing is doing the Martín Espada [the Puerto Rican poet whose "Imagine the Angels of Bread" Rubí Theater is adapting], big deal. And the big thing is when hip-hop was created, and that’s one of the things that is the driving force of the Martín Espada. Ultimately, what you saw today is going to be done with a stand up base and a Puerto Rican cuatro [a string instrument]. None of them plugged in, it’s going to be all acoustic.

AL: I think he [Martín Espada] will be pleasantly surprised because of what you bring out of the poems. The way that you read them. You read them in a completely different key [laughs], and that’s pretty interesting and quite fantastic. Are you approaching "Nilda with the same musical ideas.

JJG: No, because "Nilda," when we talk about 1945, we talk about pioneers, where things are not built in, but these are the people who are building those things and later people come in like after World War II. So, it’s not that it’s innocent, that’s not the word I want to use, but I definitely try to juggle the whole thing of being romantic about the piece. Like "El Bronx Remembered "[another work by Nicholasa Mohr adapted by Rubí] and a lot of it is poignant, a lot of it.

It’s wild talking about this, and [it] may sound self-important and pompous, but I don’t give a shit. I felt that I was able to hone in and be romantic about the piece. Like when I did "El Bronx Remembered," it really was [in order] to write a love letter to those who came before us, a real love letter, all the struggles, all the optimism. That when people came here, that it wasn’t – we learned so at Pregones and it always came back – that we didn’t come here to be on welfare. We came to work, "a trabajar!" I can’t remember the actual line but that’s one of the things that came up over and over [again] as I was doing "El Bronx Remembered." Because, of course, you go back to what you know and what I knew [were] these things.

One thing that happened, I have to tell you. Coming out of Pregones I started doing a lot of freelance and stuff, doing other groups too. Grupo Bridges, Theater Science. And I knew that I wanted to direct and I felt I was getting better. But when I met Nicholasa Mohr, who’s Puerto Rican but who’s also from New York, I realized my pleasure is focusing in what it is that I really, really know. Like when I did "El Bronx Remembered," before even seeing Nicholasa, because as a Puerto Rican I know what the hell she was talking about. Even if it was a different reading, but they’re about things that she knows, so we didn’t have to have discussion about a lot of things. You just place it up there and she’s going, "Yeah, that’s it!"

So it completely changed my life, I found my purpose and in finding my purpose, again, this has to do [with Pregones Theater]. Every time I see them I have to mention their influence because it’s real – in the middle of this room, when I’m working. When Jennifer [Fleming] walks in with Joaquín [their son] like Rosalba [Rolón] would walk in with Rosal [her daughter], it’s the same thing. It’s the same when we were rehearsing and Rosalba had the child and sometimes we’d get frustrated. Jorge and I felt that rehearsals were going slow because the baby was around, and I remembered Rosalba saying, "You know, where there are women there are usually babies, and what type of theater are we talking about? We have to be responsible." [It] completely changed my life. My son walks around, my son is raised very much like Rosal because of these examples.

AL: Singing a lot.

JJG: Yeah, singing. Oh, and the networking, Jesus! Pregones, how much more giving can you get as a group? We’re the same way. We can have people here, but if opportunities come up for what we think will be better, not for the group, but better for the development [of] this particular person as an artist, we’re going to go and offer that to that person. "You know what? You don’t need to do that. You need to go to California and do this camp thing and go and teach, because we’re going to be here anyway." We really are nurturing artists, that’s where the revolution is, that’s where it really is.

AL: The next question I have is, Who are your actors? Where do they come from? And does the word "grassroots" mean something to you in relation to where they come from?

JJG: For me even to do hip-hop is to be grassroots. I mean, we’re realizing right now this is how we’re utilizing hip-hop, how we don’t need any instruments, it’s ready with a pppffff..uh...pppff [beat-boxing]. The self. You don’t have to plug anything in, it’s just [here]. Here’s something that we can do, incredibly musical, as musical as Bach, or much more exciting than that, you know, with our mouths. What is grassroots? Most of the people who are here are people who were students of mine at Henry Street [Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center], people that I mentored. Some, people who I mentored for, oh, maybe six, seven years. I felt I didn’t have a consistent elder/artist who was able to see me through all the steps. It was just chance meetings, although there were key people, no doubt. But I felt that there wasn’t anyone constant. So, I feel like these guys and my relationship with them is seeing them more or less through every step and building a friendship. Or, not building a friendship, understanding very clearly that I’m the teacher and you’re the student, and that’s really, really cool. So ,if we have a difference of opinion we’re not arguing, you’re arguing with me, I’m not arguing with you, because you’re the student, you’re just learning how to do this.

Even within this group, I’m the teacher but what has happened now, since they’ve come in with Rubí Theater, now we’re going through this transition where now you’re the actor in the group and I can’t baby you, and I mean that in a good sense. Now, it’s like one of the actors was not here, he didn’t call up, he just told a friend. And I said, "You know what? This isn’t Urban Youth Theater, you don’t come here and now you’re affecting me, you’re affecting Jennifer, you’re affecting the whole work, and you can’t do this." I won’t tolerate this, and a lot of it is something that I learned from Flora in the running of Ruby Theater. This is no fucking democracy. This is theater, baby, and we’re doing it. But then, I pretty much have the last say when we do this, and that’s completely okay, because I think one thing is that sometimes your dealing with different schools of acting.

When I came out of Pregones, I remember, I think I did seven years with them and all of a sudden I felt like I just had to get traditional training. So I went to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and I remember I had to do this really dumb scene and the teacher had us go do this in a restaurant, it was a restaurant scene. And I remember thinking, "Well, with Pregones I did 'Voices of Steel,' but I didn’t go to a jail. I didn’t have to go to jail to do this part." You know, that type of thing. But I learned so much. I believe very much in mentoring and following, seeing people through. Hopefully these guys are going to move on and start their own thing, not go and audition. You’re not going to knock on the door, you’re going to build a door and then you’re going to build a house for that door. That’s what it’s about.

So we have a lot of people here who not only have their own company, but when they do work they’re doing work about the community and for the community which is really, really cool. One thing that has happened, because of my work at Henry Street, I think is as we talked about before, there were plays that required teenagers and they were done by adults. And what happens [with Rubí] is a lot of young people come to see the show because you want teens seeing teens, young people seeing young people, I don’t like young people playing adults. What frame of reference does a young person have? That’s ridiculous. The only way I would have a young person playing an adult is if it’s exaggerated. For example, we have a piece called "My Life Is a Telenovela" about a Dominican girl who wants to be an actor and the father [who] wants to be middle class and he moves everyone to New Jersey. So, the older people are going to be on platform shoes, really like clowns, and that’s how were going to do it. But we’re not going to try and be adults. I hate when people do that. It doesn’t come out right.

AL: It doesn’t ring true.

JJG: Doesn’t ring true. You can’t. I don’t know if I answered your questions.

AL: A lot of good stuff. I want to ask about going back to Pregones to do "El apagon." Particularly, one thing that caught my attention was how the piece was transformed, because now there was an actor from New York and actor from the island [of Puerto Rico], so the whole identity thing becomes plural and a lot richer and it shows in the language. What was your experience going back? And you’re doing it [El apagon] again?

JJG: We’re doing it again. That was a real, real actor's treat. You just can’t say no to a piece like that, you can’t. I didn’t know whether they were going to do it again and I was saddened, so when they called me I was like, "Yes! Very cool!" Going back, and I’ll start with just going back there, I just remember, well, I never felt comfortable speaking in front of people doing shows and stuff, but whenever we had to have questions and answers, Jesus. Someone would ask me something and I’d answer something else because it was absolutely stressful for me and I thought that everyone else did it much better. I remember we did a residency in Michigan and they were doing workshops and I was trying my best not to be there, I just had no interest because I was absolutely terrified. Then I was able to take over a young group that Jorge had, with young people, and then I began to love teaching.

So, when I came back, I felt that they had recognized, not that they hadn’t recognized it before, but they had recognized at that point my journey as an actor and I get really emotional because it’s going back to your family and it’s Pregones, and I can’t tell you. I always wonder whether they get sick of it, but I just have to, because it’s there, because it’s a big deal, because I think of them every day as I walk in to this room. So, going back there was beautiful, they had recognized my journey. Also, you know how we always think, "What were they thinking?" And they could have easily thought that I wasn’t going to continue this route, doing ensemble work, community work. Then I would go and do commercial stuff, be it "The Capeman" or whatever, but there was also the unspoken thing. I felt that coming [back] they recognized that I came to this group and that I learned a lot and I went and I applied it somewhere else. I’m very clear with that, it’s not something that was spoken, but I know they understand that. I’m very clear with that. So going back there and having all this experience, going back there and not having any insecurities. Not for lack of being my own [name], it isn’t that. It was like being a guest artist, but you’re not really a guest artist because you had been with them all along. Fantastic. Doing the piece and dealing with the language in it, I was able to really stand outside myself and see the different gestures of Jorge being from the island and my gestures from being from New York. And I was very aware of that, it was very different, very different, which is for me what makes the piece so beautiful. It’s like the Yin and Yang thing that a lot of times happens simultaneously and a lot of times they do meet. The dialogue, "Una rumba, a veces nos cruzamos." (It’s a blast, sometimes we cross each other, really) One of my characters I based on my uncle. He did a lot of living here in New York. And I was able to see the tape of people who did it before and, of course, having been with Jorge, someone who I’d spent so many times on stage with, I don’t have to tell him anything, it just happens, and I trust him with my life on stage. I was really excited that they were excited about the work that I brought to the table as well.

AL: Very much so. It transformed the piece. I haven’t seen the other piece except on video, with the other actor, but I heard Rosalba speak a number of times with Alvan and Jorge about how the piece was being transformed in the process. So, when I saw it was a big impact.

JJG: You know, there is a difference between singing in Spanish and speaking in Spanish, oh my goodness. That was a lot of work. A lot of exciting work, but a lot of work. Many times I felt, in rehearsals, like I wasn’t prepared, but that’s just my stuff having to do with this, there were insecurities. There was a challenge of doing this in Spanish and going back to Pregones to do this in Spanish..

AL: Claro.

JJG: Which is really, really cool. There was the subject of the language, which was struggle. I literally had to go home and make music and make sense out of it, so it could come out as natural and with as much ease as possible. And what was really good is that there were phrases that were all in Spanish, that, because I’m from New York, just didn’t work for me. It wasn’t only that I couldn’t do it, but [that] this guy just would not say it, because he’s from here, and that’s not the rhythm in which he speaks and if he were to say this he wouldn’t say [it] this way. One of the big differences in the way I play the character from Puerto Rico is that there is this confrontational thing with the Puerto Rican here from New York, because there’s an edge, a real edge.

AL: La "vivencia," the real life.

JJG: It’s the real life, not that it’s malicia, but there is this dangerous current, for me, from the character. Even though he loved his life, he had this kid and he was a bit macho, the honest machismo, as they call it, which I completely agree with. Oh, and working with Ricardo [Pons] and the music again and doing these beautiful song. Again, the connection of music with movement and exploring gestures.

AL: Anything else you want to leave us with ?

JJG: I remember when Pregones moved into St. Ann’s and my memories. I remember we did a lot of shows where there were, man, four people in the audience in the beginning. And I remember and I love and enjoyed all the work that it took, be it knocking doors, and via students, to get people from the community to come. It was a lot of hard work. I remember Alvan was putting up a flyer outside the church about the show and somebody came up and said, "Que es eso? What’s that?" Alvan said, "Estamos haciendo teatro. We’re doing theater." And the guy said, "Que es eso? What’s that?" And Alvan made these gestures, "That’s when you’re on stage and you go like this," he takes a bow. And when he did that I was like, "Wow, we’re not talking about creating an audience, we’re talking about developing, we’re talking about starting a theater." My recollection is that it took three years until you got people from the community and of course people from outside the community, because that’s community too, into the theater. That’s what I remember the most, the positiveness.

And I also learned, more through Alvan, about group dynamics. And there was something about Alvan where it didn’t matter if people did things wrong or things he didn’t agree with. I’m not sure how to phrase [it], but just things that weren’t very cool and he always had this tremendous heart. "It’s not that people are bad, they’re just going through something." When they happened to Alvan, it really wasn’t about Alvan, it was about this person going through this thing. So, I carry that with me, when people do stuff I remember Alvino’s heart and I go, "That is not about me, it’s about them, and I’m sorry they are in pain." Alvan was always very genuine. Oh, and one thing that we do differently from Pregones is that we do a circle and we do check in, that whole thing of belonging.

An ensemble-theater scholar born and raised in Puerto Rico, Arnaldo J. Lopez studied English literature, typography and letterpress arts in Pennsylvania, where he also lived and worked as a graphic designer. A Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at NYU, he likes to write on issues of identity, arts and politics.

PERFORMING COMMUNITIES
Carpetbag | Cornerstone | Dell'Arte | Jump-Start
LAPD | Pregones | Roadside | WagonBurner
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