Published
on LatinoLA.com: June 4, 2001
Since
the 1980s and the emergence of Latina feminism, there has been an increasing
amount of critical attention devoted to gender roles and expectations in Latino
cultures. Led by noted theorists Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga, Latina
feminists in the 1980s began talking about their personal experiences as women
to expose and critique the oppression and abuse that Latinas often endure.
This
critical work also initiated the exploration of how masculinity is usually
defined in Latino cultures and how the patriarchal organization of the family
affects both men and women as well as their sons and daughters. Over the last
ten years, there has been more and more discussion about Latino masculinity by
both male and female critics and artists in an effort to understand how it
works in Latino cultures and how Latino men are pressured to be "real
men." One consequence of this increased examination of Latino masculinity
is a growing recognition that it can and must take new forms.
The
one-woman show Afro-Spic starring Maria Costa clearly follows in the
footsteps of the Latino/a gender studies work of the last two decades.
Advertised as a "comedic journey of Latina liberation and taming the macho
man," Costa primarily attempts to portray the obstacles and
anxieties that Latinas must overcome as they struggle to arrive at a sense of
self-reliance and, ultimately, self-respect. Toward the end the show begins
turning toward an exploration and critique of machismo. Overall, the show is
driven by good intentions and is marked by some outstanding features. However,
Afro-Spic really does not break any new critical ground, and over the last few
pieces its focus gets a bit muddled as it tries to cover too much ground.
Costa
is definitely the right person for this show. Her dexterous ability to
nail-down the idiosyncrasies of the different characters that she portrays in
the eight pieces helps her to convey an appropriate emotional depth for each
one. Unfortunately, on the night that I saw the show Costa performed to a
painfully small audience that did not provide her with much energy to feed off
of. The fact that her performance space was the second floor of a restaurant
did not help either, and ultimately it felt like this critical work deserved a
different context.
The
show opens boisterously with Costa leading a line of four Afro-Cuban drummers.
As she makes her way through the audience, she stops to gyrate in front of or
with a few people. This is an effective way to begin, for it captures the
audience's attention and, as often occurs when Latin music is played, triggers
a powerful sense of latinidad amongst those in attendance. By tapping into a
Latino consciousness at the outset, a receptive audience gets secured for the
first piece, "Libre Como el Viento."
In
this opening piece, Costa is Rebecca Gonzalez, a Cubana who invites the
audience to party with her because she has just graduated from high school. At
first she tells the audience how happy she was strutting across the stage at
the graduation ceremony, "waving and feeling sexy." This narrative
soon devolves, however, into a confession about her relationship with her
abusive husband Pedrito who "has a lot of fucked up shit to deal
with." Thus in this very first piece, we meet a Latina who clings to an
ethos of "pa'delante" yet is violently prevented from realizing her
full potential by a man in her life who clings to an ethos of machismo. The
conspiracy of culture and tradition with the containment of Latinas is next
thrown into relief when Rebecca relates that in a vision she had her mother
basically dismissed Pedrito's reprehensibility by saying that all that matters
is that he loves her.
But
it turns out that instead of being completely cornered by her lover, family,
and cultural tradition, Rebecca -- drawing courage from her perfectly-chosen
hero, Tina Turner -- opted to liberate herself and knock out Pedrito. As the
drummers burst back into action at this point in apparent celebration of Rebecca's strength, I found myself thinking that the current hit
"Survivor" by Destiny's Child would have been appropriate, too.
The
next three pieces -- "Diva," "R.E.S.P.E.C.T.," and
"Pelo Malo" -- continue to foreground the theme of Latina
self-respect. In "Pelo Malo," Costa is a Chicana child named Marisela
who, already at her young age, is acutely aware that her dark skin is not
"beautiful." "R.E.S.P.E.C.T." effectively uses irony to
make its point about the importance of Latina self-respect. In this piece,
Costa is a self-proclaimed strong Latina who ultimately is a conflicted
heroine. At the same time that this woman assertively yells out to her
boyfriend, "Nigger, wait!" she fusses over looking beautiful in an
effort to secure a man who will make her feel "loved, desired, and treated
like a lady." At the end of the piece she strikes a pose and asks,
"How do I look? Beautiful, huh? Something missing?" and she then
proceeds to remove her jacket to expose some more skin. Of course, the irony
and point is that what is missing is some self-respect.
In
my estimation, the smartest moment of the show occurs in "Diva."
"Diva" is about a woman who has a feminist consciousness yet is
simply unable to escape completely macho domination. As she relates, "I
went to the testosterone dark side and I loved it. Yes, me, a strong woman fell
for a macho." This piece effectively portrays a Latina feminist who struggles to enjoy a heterosexual desire that does not compromise her politics. It thus captures a vexing issue that continues to be debated within
feminist circles. At one point Costa mimics sex with her macho lover. Initially on top and approaching orgasm, she is soon enough brought down, turned around,
and entered from behind. On all fours pretending that her lover is forcefully
thrusting into her, Costa uncomfortably reveals to the audience that her macho
man wants her to be a wife, cook, and the mother of his children. Although this
simulation of sex seemed to make a few people in the audience uncomfortable, it
was a brilliantly pornographic metaphor for the multi-leveled (re)subordination
of this Latina.
Over
the rest of the show, the play's focus gets dispersed. Latinos in Hollywood,
Latino homosexuality, and Latino machismo are the subjects of the next three
pieces. In particular, "Hispanic American Princess" -- which suggests
that if Latinos/as want to work in Hollywood they can either bleach their hair
and act white or play the parts of criminals -- seemed to swerve too far from
the trajectory that the first three pieces establish.
With
"Perfectly Fabulous" and "Confessions of a Macho," the show
comes back to its emphasis on gender roles and expectations by attending
briefly to Latino masculinity. In "Perfectly Fabulous," we are
introduced to Lola, a Cuban-Nuyorican drag queen who "tried for years to
be the man that [my father] wanted me to be" but years ago liberated
himself from compulsory heterosexuality and embraced his queer identity. In
"Confessions of a Macho," Lola's aging father reveals how he has been
a macho (e.g., he is unsure of how many illegitimate children he has fathered)
yet at the very end manages to tell Lola, "I love you."
This
understated moment of change sets up Costa's spoken-word poem,
"AFROSPIC," in which she talks about the necessity of change in the
face of the fear of change. A few factors, however, get in the way of the poem
being as inspiring as it could have been. First of all, the call for change
would feel more urgent if the play itself had a tighter focus. Because of the
dispersal of the play's focus over the last half, the call to change in Afro-Spic feels too general.
Also,
the concluding call for change is not unfamiliar. In many ways, Afro-Spic reperforms work that others have done. Many writers have already talked about
the disparagement of the brown body inside and outside of Latino cultures, and
the Hollywood dilemma/problem is constantly under discussion. Moreover,
"Libre Como el Viento," "Diva," "R.E.S.P.E.C.T.,"
"Perfectly Fabulous," and "Confessions of a Macho" echo a
bit too much the performance work of Luis Alfaro and John Leguizamo, especially
the latter's Mambo Mouth and Freak.
Of
course, it is perfectly possible that for some who see Afro-Spic the show is
an exhilarating introduction to the critical issues that for others are not so
new.
And makes it worthwhile, no?
Afro-Spic
plays Saturdays at 7 p.m.. Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd.,
Hollywood. 323 288-9034. Reservations encouraged. $10.
