Split Personality

In the November 2009 issue of Harper's Magazine, there's a terrific essay by Arthur Krystal, entitled THE WORST OF TIMES: Revisiting the Great Depression.

The essay quotes Morris Dickstein, author of Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression:

"Trying to grasp the essential spirit of the thirties would seem to be a hopeless task...How can one era have produced both Woody Guthrie and Rudy Vallee, both the Rockettes high-stepping at the Radio City Music Hall and the oakies on their desperate trek toward the pastures of plenty in California?"

Dickstein calls this the "split personality of Depression culture".

So, one week before opening night, when the inevitable questions rise about what we've created and whether we took the correct path of inquiry, this essay arrives as a good omen, a reminder that Canta y no llores is, at the very least, accurate. We've woven in all those multiple personalities, and thrown in the Day of the Dead to boot!

Woody Guthrie and Busby Berkeley? Check.
Political, sentimental and funny? Check.
Bilingual and bicultural? Check.

The Horizon

Heading into technical rehearsals this weekend with thrilled anticipation. We're at the point in the process that resembles a roller coaster. We have rehearsals of active progress and joy, and rehearsals that challenge our spirits, when we know we've grown only because the rehearsal didn't kill us. Ironic for a dia de muertos show...

But now we jump on to stage, with our intentionally ramshackle set that looks a bit like a little raft floating in the middle of a vast ocean of trees. All the sound is our own, created by the ensemble. The props are antiques, the lighting will resemble the sunlight and moonlight of the woods, and the costumes a combination of Depression Era drudgery and Hollywood glitz.

Tonite's was terrific rehearsal, the actors took a gorgeous leap forward together, making their dances look easy, singing their songs perfectly in key, and remembering many of their lines, which is not an easy feat when working bilingually!

Watching the ease emerging from all their hard work, gliding into place like an autumn leaf floating toward the forest floor, not yet landed...

Home Sweet Home

With so many people losing their homes during the Great Depression, many were forced to create temporary shelter to protect themselves from the elements, using whatever materials they could find.

"Shelters were made of almost every conceivable thing - burlap, canvas, palm branches." - a California minister's report of a labor camp in the Imperial Valley. We have seen photographs of shacks made from cardboard, framed paintings on canvas, crate boxes, doors...

Unfortunately, this kind of housing was the norm for the migrant labor camps where itinerant farm workers lived, from one farm to the next. For more information, read: Picture This: The Depression Era, published the by the Oakland Museum of California.

These shacks have served as the inspiration for our scenic design by Drew Foster; they are sad images of poverty and yet resourceful testaments to the will to survive.

Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries

Talk about capturing the spirit of Dia de los muertos!
One great song," lyrics by Lew Brown, music by Ray Henderson (1931)

People are queer, they're always crowing, scrambling and rushing about;
Why don't they stop someday, address themselves this way?
Why are we here? Where are we going? It's time that we found out.
We're not here to stay; we're on a short holiday.
Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so,
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.
So keep repeating it's the berries,
The strongest oak must fall,
The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you've never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries,
So live and laugh at it all.
Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious.
At eight each morning I have got a date,
To take my plunge 'round the Empire State.
You'll admit it's not the berries,
In a building that's so tall;
There's a guy in the show, the girls love to kiss;
Get thousands a week just for crooning like this:
Life is just a bowl of . . . aw, nuts!
So live and laugh at it all!

Mae Catrina (West)

What if our Catrina is a Mae West kind of gal, glamorous, whip-smart, and dead?

Among our band of itinerants is a young girl who wants to be a movie star more than anything else in the world. She dreams of the riches that fame will bring, she'll never be hungry or dress in tattered clothing again. As a child of the Great Depression, she's known poverty most of her life.

Mae tells her the score...

Singing the Migrants

Yup, Rebecca, I've found the same. It's easier to find information about the folks who migrated west from other parts of the US, such as the Dust Bowl, during the 30s, than it is to find stories about Latinos during that time. Thank heavens Tim located that tremendous article on Impact of the Great Depression on Latino Americans. Many Latinos, in California in particular, where "repatriated" to Mexico (even if they had been born in the US!). I envision a family that travels north to Oregon rather than risk repatriation.

On the bright side, I found a few stunning Woody Guthrie tunes! He'd been commissioned by the WPA to musically chronicle the effects of the GD...

Talking Dust Bowl Blues
Talking Dust Bowl Blues lyrics

Pastures of Plenty
Pastures of Plenty lyrics

Grand Coulee Dam performed by Lonnie Donegan!
Grand Coulee Dam lyrics

And this is a personal favorite, Poor Lazarus
...dead or alive, come up and see me, dead or alive...
Poor Lazarus lyrics

Back on the Rails

Now that the temperature's hitting 100 degrees or so, what better time to contemplate the coolness of fall, the crisp wind and drying leaves that circle around Dia de Muertos?

Met with artist Analee Fuentes last week, who brought with her a beautiful book of photos by Arthur Rothstein entitled "The Depression Years" (Dover Pub., 1978). Alejandra Gonzales is putting the final touches on our Study Guide as she translates it into Spanish. One startling fact: The Great Depression featured 25% unemployment nationwide. Talk about a call for resilience and ingenuity.

I see one of our biggest challenges with this production is, how to balance the inherent dire circumstances of the era with the traditional irreverance and comedy of Dia de muertos (a good question for Philip Cuomo, who had to balance the WWII-era in the same way). Philip?

My thoughts are, bring on the dancing girls! The glamorous chorines of Busby Berkeley music fame! Rebecca Martinez provided a similar balance with the 'Angel' character in Noche Eterna ~ but she was an otherworldly (del otro lado) personage, surrounded by similar clowns. Will our BB chorine be a figment of our imagination, or a star-struck migrant who's gone a bit west off Broadway?

Employment & Gender

A tidbit from family members who lived through the Depression in Oregon:

Teaching was one of the most common and respectable professions for a woman in those times, but during the Great Depression a law was passed in order to stimulate employment. If a female teacher got married, she had to give up her job. The reasoning was that it would be of benefit for her job to go to someone else, instead of her two-job family. I wonder, what if she married someone who was unemployed?