In the late 1980s, when I was doing Latino theatre in Houston, there was a company called Teatro Bilingüe de Houston headed up by a man everyone called my tocayo — my name twin — Richard Farías. Their big thing was a Christmas play they produced every year at Ripley House called Pancho Claus. It was raucous fun, and filled every seat in the East End community center with its popular bilingual shenanigans involving Santa.
Meanwhile the highly educated and sophisticated Latin American company whose Board of Directors I was on had to struggle to get the message across: Latinos are not just piñatas and Church. We are a culture with Nobel prizes and please be quiet when you are here.
The Miracle Theatre would probably not like to remind you that they started out exactly like me. Founder José Eduardo González y Salazar holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy from a German university, and his wife and co-founder, Dañel Malán-González, holds a degree in Art.
So naturally . . . Theatre!
The earliest seasons I saw here twenty-five years ago had plenty of Pancho Claus interspersed with a tiny bit of high art. That was how they paid the bills, because that was what the audience, both Latino and non-Latino, expected.
A theatre has to fill seats, and as much as you may like to do interesting things, the bottom line is in command.
I have let the theatre kind of rest for the past few years as I have done healthcare work in facilities. Older workers like me have to take whatever shifts we are offered, and invariably it was the weekend evenings I got stuck with, so the young people could go out on dates. It has been a while since I have had regular attendance, so I have not been here for these past few seasons.
Empeños de una Casa is my third show this season, and I have to conclude that this company, my former employer, which has always had so much potential, is now a full-fledged regional theatre. Gone is the slide into rough-ish skit. The work now is careful and aesthetically masterful high art. This season is almost better than the Rep.
Would you look at that? The Miracle finally got free from Pancho Claus.
Steam Spiegel 