Zoot Suit and Other Plays

Valdez, Luis

• Publisher: Arte Público Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781611924985
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Teatro

This critically acclaimed play by Luis Valdez cracks open the depiction of Chicanos on stage, challenging viewers to revisit a troubled moment in our nation's history. From the moment the myth-infused character El Pachuco burst onto the stage, cutting his way through the drop curtain with a switchblade, Luis Valdez spurred a revolution in Chicano theater.

Focusing on the events surrounding the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial of 1942 and the ensuing Zuit Soot Riots that turned Los Angeles into a bloody war zone, this is a gritty and vivid depiction of the horrifying violence and racism suffered by young Mexican Americans on the home front during World War II. Valdez's cadre of young urban characters struggle with the stereotypes and generalizations of America's dominant culture, the questions of assimilation and patriotism, and a desire to rebel against the mainstream pressures that threaten to wipe them out.

Experimenting with brash forms of narration, pop culture of the war era, and complex characterizations, this quintessential exploration of the Mexican-American experience in the United States during the 1940's was the first, and only, Chicano play to open on Broadway.

This collection contains three of playwright and screenwriter Luis Valdez's most important and recognized plays: Zoot Suit, Bandido! and I Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Badges. The anthology also includes an introduction by noted theater critic Dr. Jorge Huerta of the University of California-San Diego. Luis Valdez, the most recognized and celebrated Hispanic playwright of our times, is the director of the famous farm-worker theater, El Teatro Campesino.

CHARACTERS

EL PACHUCO

HENRY REYNA

His Family:

ENRIQUE REYNA

DOLORES REYNA

LUPE REYNA

RUDY REYNA

His Friends:

GEORGE SHEARER

ALICE BLOOMFIELD

His Gang:

DELLA BARRIOS

SMILEY TORRES

JOEY CASTRO

TOMMY ROBERTS

ELENA TORRES

BERTHA VILLARREAL

The Downey Gang:

RAFAS

RAGMAN

HOBO

CHOLO

ZOOTER

GÜERA

HOBA

BLONDIE

LITTLE BLUE

Detectives:

LIEUTENANT EDWARDS

SERGEANT SMITH

The Press:

PRESS

CUB REPORTER

NEWSBOY

The Court:

JUDGE F.W. CHARLES

BAILIFF

The Prison:

GUARD

The Military:

BOSUN’S MATE

SAILORS

MARINE

SWABBIE

MANCHUKA

SHORE PATROLMAN

Others:

GIRLS

PIMP

CHOLO

SETTING

The giant facsimile of a newspaper front page serves as a drop curtain.

The huge masthead reads: LOS ANGELES HERALD EXPRESS Thursday, June 3, 1943.

A headline cries out: ZOOT-SUITER HORDES INVADE LOS ANGELES. US NAVY AND MARINES ARE CALLED IN.

Behind this are black drapes creating a place of haunting shadows larger than life. The somber shapes and outlines of pachuco images hang subtly, black on black, against a back-ground of heavy fabric evoking memories and feelings like an old suit hanging forgotten in the depths of a closet somewhere, sometime … Below this is a sweeping, curving place of levels and rounded corners with the hard, ingrained brilliance of countless spit shines, like the memory of a dance hall.

ACT ONE

PROLOGUE

A switchblade plunges through the newspaper. It slowly cuts a rip to the bottom of the drop. To the sounds of “Perdido” by Duke Ellington, EL PACHUCO emerges from the slit. HE adjusts his clothing, meticulously fussing with his collar, suspenders, cuffs. HE tends to his hair, combing back every strand into a long luxurious ducktail, with infinite loving pains. Then HE reaches into the slit and pulls out his coat and hat. HE dons them. His fantastic costume is complete. It is a zoot suit. HE is transformed into the very image of the pachuco myth, from his pork-pie hat to the tip of his four-foot watch chain. Now HE turns to the audience. His three-soled shoes with metal taps click-clack as HE proudly, slovenly, defiantly makes his way downstage. HE stops and assumes a pachuco stance.

PACHUCO:

¿Que le watcha a mis trapos, ese?

¿Sabe qué, carnal?

Estas garras me las planté porque

Vamos a dejarnos caer un play, ¿sabe?

(HE crosses to center stage, models his clothes.)

Watcha mi tacuche, ese. Aliviánese con mis calcos, tando,

lisa, tramos, y carlango, ese.

(Pause.)

Nel, sabe qué, usted está muy verdolaga. Como se me hace

que es puro square.

(EL PACHUCO breaks character and addresses the audience in perfect English.)

Ladies and gentlemen

the play you are about to see

is a construct of fact and fantasy.

The Pachuco Style was an act in Life

and his language a new creation.

His will to be was an awesome force

eluding all documentation …

A mythical, quizzical, frightening being

precursor of revolution

Or a piteous, hideous heroic joke

deserving of absolution?

I speak as an actor on the stage.

The Pachuco was existential

for he was an Actor in the streets

both profane and reverential.

It was the secret fantasy of every bato

in or out of the Chicanada

to put on a Zoot Suit and play the Myth

más chucote que la chingada.

(Puts hat back on and turns.)

¡Pos órale!

(Music. The newspaper drop flies. EL PACHUCO begins

his chuco stroll upstage, swinging his watch chain.)

1. ZOOT SUIT

The scene is a barrio dance in the forties. PACHUCOS and PACHUCAS in zoot suits and pompadours.

They are members of the 38TH STREET GANG, led by HENRY REYNA, 21, dark, Indian-looking, older than his years, and DELLA BARRIOS, 20, his girlfriend in miniskirt and fingertip coat. A SAILOR called SWABBIE dances with his girlfriend MANCHUKA among the COUPLES. Movement. Animation. EL PACHUCO sings.

PACHUCO:

PUT ON A ZOOT SUIT, MAKES YOU FEEL REAL ROOT

LOOK LIKE A DIAMOND, SPARKLING, SHINING

READY FOR DANCING

READY FOR THE BOOGIE TONIGHT!

(The COUPLES, dancing, join the PACHUCO in exclaiming the last term of each line in the next verse.)

THE HEPCATS UP IN HARLEM WEAR THAT DRAPE SHAPE

COMO LOS PACHUCONES DOWN IN L.A.

WHERE HUISAS IN THEIR POMPADOURS LOOK REAL KEEN

ON THE DANCE FLOOR OF THE BALLROOMS

DONDE BAILAN SWING.

YOU BETTER GET HEP TONIGHT

AND PUT ON THAT ZOOT SUIT!

(The DOWNEY GANG, a rival group of pachucos enters upstage left. Their quick dance step becomes a challenge to 38TH STREET.)

DOWNEY GANG: Downey … ¡Rifa!

HENRY: (Gesturing back.) ¡Toma! (The music is hot. EL PACHUCO slides across the floor and momentarily breaks the tension. HENRY warns RAFAS, the leader of the DOWNEY GANG, when HE sees him push his brother RUDY.) ¡Rafas!

PACHUCO: (Sings.)

TRUCHA, ESE LOCO, VAMOS AL BORLO

WEAR THAT CARLANGO, TRAMOS Y TANDO

DANCE WITH YOUR HUISA

DANCE TO THE BOOGIE TONIGHT!

’CAUSE THE ZOOT SUIT IS THE STYLE IN CALIFORNIA

TAMBIÉN EN COLORADO Y ARIZONA

THEY’RE WEARING THAT TACUCHE EN EL PASO

Y EN TODOS LOS SALONES DE CHICAGO

YOU BETTER GET HEP TONIGHT

AND PUT ON THAT ZOOT SUIT!

2. THE MASS ARRESTS

We hear a siren, then another, and another. It sounds like gangbusters. The dance is interrupted. COUPLES pause on the dance floor.

PACHUCO: Trucha, la jura. ¡Pélenle! (Pachucos start to run out, but DETECTIVES leap onstage with drawn guns. A CUB REPORTER takes flash pictures.)

SGT. SMITH: Hold it right there, kids!

LT. EDWARDS: Everybody get your hands up!

RUDY: Watcha! This way! (RUDY escapes with some others.)

LT. EDWARDS: Stop or I’ll shoot! (EDWARDS fires his revolver into the air. A number of pachucos and their girlfriends freeze. The cops round them up. SWABBIE, an American sailor, and MANCHUKA, a Japanese-American dancer, are among them.)

SGT. SMITH: ¡Ándale! (Sees SWABBIE.) You! Get out of here.

SWABBIE: What about my girl?

SGT. SMITH: Take her with you. (SWABBIE and MANCHUKA exit.)

HENRY: What about my girl?

LT. EDWARDS: No dice, Henry. Not this time. Back in line.

SGT. SMITH: Close it up!

LT. EDWARDS: Spread! (The PACHUCOS turn upstage in a line with their hands up. The sirens fade and give way to the sound of a teletype. The PACHUCOS turn and form a lineup, and the PRESS starts shooting pictures as HE speaks.)

PRESS: The City of the Angels, Monday, August 2, 1942. The Los Angeles Examiner, Headline:

THE LINEUP: (In chorus.) Death Awakens Sleepy Lagoon (Breath.) LA Shaken by Lurid “Kid” Murder.

PRESS: The City of the Angels, Monday, August 2, 1942. The Los Angeles Times Headline:

THE LINEUP: One Killed, Ten Hurt in Boy Wars: (Breath.) Mexican Boy Gangs Operating Within City.

PRESS: The City of the Angels, August 2, 1942. Los Angeles Herald Express Headline:

THE LINEUP: Police Arrest Mexican Youths. Black Widow Girls in Boy Gangs.

PRESS: The City of the Angels …

PACHUCO: (Sharply.) El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula, pendejo.

PRESS: (Eyeing the PACHUCO cautiously.) The Los Angeles Daily News Headline:

BOYS IN THE LINEUP: Police Nab 300 in Roundup.

GIRLS IN THE LINEUP: Mexican Girls Picked Up in Arrests.

LT. EDWARDS: Press Release, Los Angeles Police Department: A huge showup of nearly 300 boys and girls rounded up by the police and sheriff’s deputies will be held tonight at eight o’clock in Central Jail at First and Hill ...