Yanga @ Cara Mía Theatre Company(“Teatro en Fuga” Festival of New Play Staged Readings)
—Teresa Marerro
The third and last of Cara Mía Theatre´s 2022 Festival of New Play Readings ended with its crowning glory—Yanga, an historical account of an Afro-Mexican slave hero set in the 1700s, while the country was still part of the Spanish colonies in the New World.
The well-known Mexican playwright Jaime Chabaud, founder and director of Paso de gato, a journal dedicated to Latin American theater, was in the house for the play and also conducted two afternoon playwriting workshops. He shared his two-year research trajectory into Mexico City´s anthropological archive collections, which provided him with background and inspiration to construct his version of a part of history that Mexico has been remiss in acknowledging: its Afro ancestors. Chabaud also spoke of his theater company, the first (but thankfully now not the only) dedicated to Afro-Mexican roots.
Yanga was originally written and produced in Mexico (and in Spanish, of course). The work of translation (making this a “new play” of sorts) fell to local resident Tomás Ayala-Torres, who rendered a highly engaging version in English. Although I have not read the play in Spanish, Chabaud stated that the language in the original was colonial in flavor, somewhat in the tone of the Mexican genius nun-poet-philosopher-playwright Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
We are talking about one of New Spain´s (as Mexico was called prior to independence) most respected writer of the Baroque. This literary and artistic period is categorized by scholars as one of highly ornate, stylized and complicated language and metaphors. Not an easy read. Nevertheless, the 90-page translation read smoothly without contrivances of speech. Commissioned by Cara Mía, Ayala-Torres spent six weeks of nonstop work on this. As a bilingual person myself, his rendition sounded authentic, and not at all pedantic or heavy-handed.
And what a reading it was.
The reading was done in collaboration with Soul Rep Theatre, and Soul Rep founder/director Anyika McMillan-Herod did a fantastic job bringing the spirit of this play to life. While readings can feel a bit static since the actors usually remain seated, McMillan-Herod inserted some physical action, all of it well-timed to punctuate specific scenes. In my opinion, this was the most profound and vigorous reading of a full play this season.
Then again, it was evident that the actors were fully committed to their roles. There were outstanding performances by Whitney Coulter as Santiaga, the mulatta woman around whom much of the action and feelings center; by Rodney Garza as the despicable slave owner Don Diego; by Irvin Daye as the statuesque yet mild-mannered Yanga; Victor Santos as Fray Lorenzo, the supportive monk; Joe Chapa as Don Gonzalo the benevolent slave owner; Iv Armenti as Narrator; and J.R. Bradford and Eduardo Velez III as Ensemble. Ana Armenta served as the translator during the talkback.
The play begins with a rather long yet heart-wrenching monologue by Santiaga, the beautiful light-skinned Black slave woman who addresses an unknown person, begging him not to go. At first, it is not clear to whom she is speaking, but it doesn´t matter. Her story of sexual abuse is all too common in slaveholder societies: beautiful Black women end up as bed partners to the masters; older or less attractive ones do manual labor. Santiaga is in love with Yanga, but the object of Don Pedro’s sexual obsession. The fatherhood of the child in her womb is questionable and problematic.
The story ends as it begins, with Santiaga´s monologue. But by the end, we know why her heart is broken and she feels soulless: after a brief breakaway with Yanga in the free territory of San Lorenzo de los Negros, Yanga and she are married. Yanga is betrayed by the Viceroyalty, which allows Don Pedro to invade the Black territory; Santiaga is returned to Don Pedro, who insists the child must be his, even though it is a Black child almost certainly fathered by Gaspar Yanga. Torn away from her newborn and punished for her “betrayal,” Santiaga tells us her story from the congal, the brothel of black female slaves in Cuba. This circling back to her opening story highlights how a woman’s body is subject to yet another of slavery’s most cruel practices: she does not own her reproductive (or parental) rights.
I was strongly drawn to Santiaga’s part of the story; however, the play does tell a broader one: of Don Pedro’s lust and avarice, Yanga’s idealism in creating a free Black territory, and Don Gonzalo’s and Fray Lorenzo’s moral, yet too weak, support. Rodney Garza did a fantastic job as the villainous Don Pedro, to such a degree that actor Courtney Coulter mentioned in the talkback that it was sometimes difficult to separate the actor from the role.
During the talkback, the playwright mentioned that he is a library rat and spent two years researching this little-known story in Mexico City’s anthropological and historical archives. Indeed, while Mexico owns up to its indigenous and mestizo heritage, it has been remiss in recognizing its African roots. Chabaud stated that “90% of Mexico does not know this story”—adding that it was only in 2019 that the Mexican Constitution was changed to recognize the existence and influence of the Afro-Mexican community. This is two hundred years after Mexico’s independence from Spain. He also added that many Black men had children with indigenous women, in part because these children were born free, while those of Black women were born into slavery. Today, Chabaud mentioned, there is a neighborhood in Mexico called Yanga—yet there are no recognizably Black residents after centuries of intermingling.
Anyika McMillan-Herod mentioned how pleased she was with this collaboration, and that Soul Rep is interested in producing Yanga for an upcoming season. The multi-racial audience agreed that this is a story that needs to be told, again and again.
Like the other staged readings of Cara Mia’s festival, Yanga is a work in progress. A few notes, in a spirit of admiration for the play: I would suggest the playwright and translator might do well to work with a dramaturg to get the most from what is known of the history and culture. A bit of tightening-up is warranted: Santiaga’s introductory monologue felt particularly long and somewhat repetitive, though its impact is essential in setting the mood. In Chabaud’s attempt to create a soft-spoken Yanga, it was sometimes difficult to discern what was being said by actor Irvin Daye. Some of the historical narrations might benefit from sounding a bit less like a university lectures and more a part of the dramatic action. And a short intermission (the play runs a bit over two hours) would have been welcome. While Latin-American audiences tend to display higher tolerance for plays longer than 90 minutes, it is my experience that U.S. audiences do not.
All in all, here´s hoping Dallas will soon see a fully staged production of this important and engaging play. For information on future productions, keep an eye on: caramiatheatre.org and soulrep.org
(Dr. Teresa Marrero is a professor in the Spanish department of the University of North Texas who specializes in contemporary Latin American and Latinx theater.)
