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 Borderlands Theater Continues An Entertaining And Important New Christmas Tradition. By Margaret Regan IT TAKES THE shepherds a long time to get to Bethlehem in A Tucson Pastorela, but then the struggle for justice takes a long time, too. Borderlands Theater's rollicking new version of the old Mexican Christmas play about the shepherds' search for the savior is a delicious family affair. Full of over-the-top devils in red high heels and a preening Michael the Archangel, illegal aliens from outer space and alien-busting men in black, it even features an appearance by the chupacabra, blood-sucking monster of local lore. But underneath all its laugh-out-loud gags and lovely carols, the play reminds us that the battle between good and evil didn't end in the mythical days of angels and devils: It continues right now in the contemporary world.
It's gratifying to see Borderlands embrace a radical Christian view of the Christmas story, instead of indulging in the usual holiday sentimentality that divorces the tale from real-life injustice. First written last year by Max Branscomb of California, A Tucson Pastorela has gotten a topical update by the author for its second annual appearance in the Old Pueblo. The evolving play, which Borderlands intends to put on each year in a new version, is part of a theatrical tradition that's already centuries old. Pastorelas (shepherds' stories) and the similar Posadas (the story of Mary and Joseph's search for shelter) were brought to Mexico by Spanish missionary priests soon after the Conquest. Like their European antecedents, the plays have always been gala participatory affairs full of processions and songs meant to beguile the faithful into religious belief. But the tradition has always been elastic, and topical elements have always been incorporated to help bring the message home.
The production's talking sheep and pup will help kids with the show's slow pacing, made all the more leisurely by the frequent processions of the singing shepherds. And they can look forward to battering a piñata at the end of each and every show.
A Tucson Pastorela continues through Sunday, December
21, at the PCC Center for the Arts Black Box Theatre, 2202
W. Anklam Road. Shows are at 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 3 and
7 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. There will be no performance on
Thursday, December 11, and only one performance on the closing
day, December 21, at 3 p.m. Tickets are $10 and $12 general, $8
for seniors, $6 for students with ID and $4 for children under
12. For information or reservations, call 882-7406.
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There may be no murderous Herods in this topical version of the
shepherds' difficult journey to Bélen, but there are plenty
of other villains: a corrupt U.S. Border Patrol, corporate honchos
stealing the lands of Mexican peasants, a U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service that locks up brown-skinned people wholesale.
Harassed by devils in the form of the Border Patrol, one shepherd
begs Michael the Archangel to save his companions "from the
bullies that vex us, lest we end up like that shepherd in Texas,"
an allusion to the real-life Chicano teenager who was shot to
death by a U.S. Army drug patrol while tending his sheep. At one
point Michael (Leonard Rodriguez) swoops in to help in the guise
of Sub-Comandante Marcos, leader of the rebel Zapatistas in Chiapas.
Another time he incarnates as Zapata himself.
The pleasure of the Borderlands version is that it moves toward
its serious purpose through a warm mix of comedy and pathos, punctuating
its puns about Fife Symington and Raul Grijalva with heartfelt
carols sung in Spanish and lively tunes by a musical trio. Branscomb
does a wondrous job with his sing-song rhyming couplets, seasoning
them with pungent Spanish words. Directed once again by Chris
Wilken, the cast of 32 attack their parts with great good humor.
Suzi List reprises her sublime Lucifer, and Albert Soto his Satan,
while Patrick Burke is hilarious as the tubby new Gluttony, one
of the seven deadly sins. Hector Ayala is transcendent once again
as the hermit who exhorts the weary shepherds to keep to their
journey despite all the roadblocks put in their way by the devils.
