the beautiful land i seek (la linda tierra que busco yo) (Photo: Krystal Pagán)
In Matthew Barbot’s play about Puerto Rican history, the beautiful land i seek (la linda tierra que busco yo), at some point West Side Story’s Maria is singing and crying over the body of Christopher Columbus surrounded by a whole lot of rolls of paper towels.
As you can imagine, this sets a certain satirical tone within this sincere and funny play that looks at political activism, Puerto Rican independence, and what generations of repeated colonization and oppression fosters. Director José Zayas cuts a confident path through the humor and stark political history giving this fantastical story a solid emotional grounding in this co-production from Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Latinx Playwrights Circle, and Fault Line Theatre.
Barbot does not expect us all to know Puerto Rican history but if you do (even in bits) it helps contextualize some of what takes places on a very unusual train headed to Washington DC in 1950.
On the train are Gris (Bobby Román) and Oscar (Alejandro Hernández ). Longtime Puerto Rican nationalists, they are planning to shoot Harry Truman (Daniel Colón) over a U.S. bombing in Puerto Rico. They have been fighting for Puerto Rico’s independence and they plan to sacrifice themselves to their cause. Though Oscar is more sure about this than Gris who keeps wondering what their deaths will accomplish. What will change for Puerto Rico when Truman dies?
On this train ride, where time is suspended for a bit, various historical figures appear to them from the past and the future. While this sounds like something out of a Wikipedia article on Puerto Rican history (Early Years: Christopher Columbus, References in Media: Alexander Hamilton, Controversies: FBI files on activists) it is anything but a rote history lesson. Though it might drive you to Wikipedia afterwards to look up more details on this history.
In a mix of English and Spanish (with supertitles in English and Spanish), Oscar and Gris are trying to figure out what is happening to them on this train, what their place in this history is, and why the hell Alexander Hamilton is “singing rhythmically.”
the beautiful land i seek (la linda tierra que busco yo) (Photo: Krystal Pagán)
The brief send-up of Hamilton with the very able Colón doing the honors as a very overwrought version of the stage musical character Alexander Hamilton, is a highlight. When the characters ask of Hamilton, “Does this change anything?” in this political moment, it is hard not to laugh.
Colón plays the unhinged Christopher Columbus declaring he has “discovered” this “train compartment” (“This is India, right?”). He is also John Wilkes Booth leaning into a portrayal of the narcissistic actor living for the applause. He digs in with glee to these megalomaniacs.
But the questions Barbot’s play asks are deeper than a throwaway joke at LMM’s expense.
Bear with me for a political aside. But with martial law being declared and then rescinded this week in Korea (and an ongoing constitutional crisis there) I have been thinking a lot about the Korean fight for democracy, the people who died over the years in Korea pushing back against colonial powers and then dictators (often propped up by the U.S.) and the legacy of those sacrifices. Interestingly, in the same time period as this particular Puerto Rican fight, Harry Truman has things to answer for in Korea as well. So my brain making this leap may not be as much of a stretch as you might think. Paternalistic colonialism of different shades.
As activists, or merely as people living under oppression, all you can do sometimes is face the thing that is right in front of you. In Korea, many people died during the dictatorship era during democracy protests and government crackdowns without knowing what their deaths would mean. Worse, for years, their deaths at the hand of the government were covered up. Mass graves continue to be found. And it was through the efforts of some activists to preserve and fight to make a record of this history that names and events were not all lost. Many of the protests this month in Korea have been inspired by those who sacrificed so much 40 years ago.
So, I had these people on my mind watching Oscar and Gris as they contemplate what they are about to do. Admittingly, I’m leaning on this Korean history a bit because I know that better than the history of Puerto Rico. It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to see this play.
But as I watched I found Barbot’s characters resonated for me. His play benefits from rooting these big questions about history, meaning, and legacy into the flawed and doubting characters standing before us. Román and Hernández offer up tender, nuanced portraits of characters who might otherwise be flattened into labels such as assassins, terrorists, rebels, or martyrs. But here they are fallible men grappling with the knowledge they gain on this train. The actors communicated the weight of what Oscar and Gris were facing.
As Oscar and Gris learn about the future, confusing though it may be at times for them, it is not reassuring. Puerto Rico has not in fact gained independence and the island’s setbacks, especially as of late with the hurricanes and financial crises, have been hard to take. And so how do you proceed in your actions knowing that?
This hard truth is lightened by the play’s more musical theatrical moments. But even with the bits about Hamilton and West Side Story, Barbot is contemplating what these famous theatrical characters mean and what can we takeaway from these portrayals. In the play, Maria (Ashley Marie Ortiz) “discovers” she has been performing in brownface and it short circuits something in the character to make her reflect on her role differently and what Maria saw and felt.
Some moments in the play work better than others. While Oscar and Gris sit in their train compartment, a couple looking for a seat on the crowded train return to the compartment over and over casting a white gaze on these men. It’s an important bit of context though it took me a minute to figure out what exactly was happening. There is a meta moment about a playwright writing the story of Oscar and Gris which does not wholly click. There is a slight opaque final scene that did come together for me either. My lack of knowledge of the historical figures was the cause of this. The resonance of the scene was lost on me.
Throughout the play, the characters are repeatedly asking, “Are we speaking Spanish?” “What language are we speaking?” It’s nice device to indicate maybe dizzying code switching, language as preservation of culture or something lost to assimilation because of that white gaze, or perhaps simply the fluidity of bilingual existence where your brain is weaving in and out of multiple languages. In a bilingual play, with characters living in two languages, it felt like an important reminder for the audience to contemplate.
Barbot prompts lots of meaty questions with the play and it was refreshing to see a story on stage I had not heard before. Clearly, I have a lot of Wikipediaing to do.