Race and cultural differences are brought to center stage in Chicano playwright and SF State professor Roy Conboy’s new play “Tailor from Chihuahua."
The play, which premiers Nov. 2 at El Teatro de la Esperanza, located in the Mission District, features both current SF State students as well as alumni tackling issues of war, racism, and terrorism through the lives of Mexican-American and Jewish characters.
“A lot of what I write about is my family and culture and how we operate in the world as immigrant Mexican-Americans,” said Conboy. “People have funny ideas about Mexican-Americans and what we do and don’t do. We are part of the fabric of this country.”
Conboy, former chair of the theater arts department, has been working on the play for the last three years. He took this fall semester off from teaching to dedicate more time to the production. El Teatro de la Esperanz, a production company that Conboy has been working with since 1991, is producing the play in collaboration with SF State. The production company also helped produce Conboy's play “Dancing with the Missing.”
In “Tailor of Chihuahua," the lives of Alberto and Rick are paralleled when they both find out their jobs and families disapprove of the people they love. Alberto, who lives in Mexico in 1930, falls in love with a Jewish woman named Amelia. Years later in Los Angeles, Amelia’s grandson Rick falls in love with a social activist and must make some of the same choices that Alberto made 73 years earlier.
“It’s a story about struggling through life and taking control of your own destiny,” said cast member Juan De La Rosa, 23, who is double-majoring in theater arts and dance. De La Rosa has worked with Conboy on two plays.
Though the play tackles social and political themes, swing dancing also plays a vital role in showing the relationship between characters. The importance of the music is carried on through the 1930s as well as into the year 2003. Cast member and SF State alumnus Steve Ortiz, who received his bachelor’s degree in theater arts in 1992, said dance and music are the common elements that bind the generations together.
The cast has been rehearsing for the past five weeks and spend a portion of each rehearsal working with choreographer and cast member Rocky Haro to perfect the moves.
Haro said the characters’ personalities helped form the choices she made with the dance moves. She choreographed the dances so that actors could use the movement to add to their characters. For example, villainous characters do a lot of high kicking while characters who are softer have moves that are more rounded and fluid.
“Dancing is the outward expression of inner feelings,” said assistant director Gabby Gomez, who received her bachelor’s degree in theater arts and creative writing from SF State in May 2006. “It shows that the characters really trust each other. When you dance you connect with the other person.”
Though the play is being performed off campus with the cast, which includes two current SF State students, many of the crew members responsible for lighting, costume, and set design are also affiliated with SF State.
“We have a very large Latin cast and we all share something in common with each other,” said cast member and senior theater arts major Aileen Clark, 23. “It’s really easy to say something in Spanish and we all can understand and laugh at the joke, it’s like being at home with your family.”
After five weeks of rehearsals, the 10-person cast has become undeniably close with each other and with Conboy. Many of the actors and crew have worked with him in the past and credit his distinct directing and writing style for bringing them back.
“Roy’s very into magical realism and takes a lyrical approach to his work,” said Ortiz, who worked with Conboy on a previous play. “In everything he writes his themes are universal. The power of history, relationships, social and political movements can always be found.”
“Tailor of Chihuahua” opens Nov. 2 with performances running until Nov. 19, tickets are $10 for Thursday and Sunday shows and $15 for Friday and Saturday, $12 for students and seniors. Call the box office at (415) 240-9594 for performance times.
