Translation not needed for ‘Misa Fronteriza’
The play “Misa Fronteriza,” by Gorguz Teatro and Universiteatro, begins with a man pouring tequila over a strip of light on a dark stage.
Three actors remain behind this line, occasionally fortifying it with more materials — first lighting, then tequila, then sand, then tape, then brick, then barbed wire. As they build their strange little wall, they speak about what it means to try to cross a border. The actors explain that they wish to cross many borders during their performance — the border between audience and actor, between Mexico and the U.S., the border between groups of people with divergent identities and desires.
Borders exist everywhere, of course, on the basis of nation-state, politics, race, generation and so on. But short of political catastrophe, borders also exist on a daily basis, particularly in Houston, a city that trumpets its diversity but rarely discloses its own segregating lines. Here’s one example: “Misa Fronteriza,” which arrives in Houston from Monterrey, Mexico, due to a major grant from the city of Houston and the National Endowment of the Arts, is performed in Spanish, a language that I do not fully understand. Some patrons during a Sunday performance at the Alley Theatre choose to put on headphones, which feeds them live English translations, but I opt out.
Initially I worry that eschewing the translation device is the wrong choice. The opening speeches are difficult to understand. Actors Jorge Antonio Segura Gomez, Vicente Galindo and Javier Serna speak with loud, declarative sentences over a minimalist set consisting of a podium, a table and some chairs. I have no idea what they’re saying. The audience, a semi-full crowd of mostly Spanish speakers, goes “oooh” and “ahh.” They laugh and clap and even sing along to songs that I later learn are neither specifically Tejano nor northern Mexican but a combination of both traditions — songs expressing the music and alcohol-filled lifestyle of a place in between.
I speculate that the play, based on the essay by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite and adapted by Alberto Ontiveros, is a sharp criticism of artificial barriers that makes its points through warm, affecting and universally human vignettes. Sans linguistic understanding, I can’t help but view the art with an intense curiosity, leaning in to decipher the meaning of each action and image.
A man tears open his shirt, pulls out a marker and draws a diagonal line from his heart to his groin. An immigrant attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border is caught by the border patrol, who calls the man a stupid little Mexican. The immigrant, now criminalized, stands straight, raises his arms to his sides and slinks his head and hands downward, as if pulled down by the gravity of defeat. No words are necessary to explain this image. The image of the crucifixion of Christ is instantly recognizable. It reminds me that the word “cross” is both the most powerful symbol of the Christian faith and an action verb that means to go from one place to another. Both meanings are tied to the idea of sacrifice.
The play is appropriately delivered using the structure of a Catholic Mass. One of the actors portray a preacher raising his hands to praise God, again and again, except what he praises is ironic. He praises the American dream (I think), then he praises Donald Trump and the man’s plan for a big, beautiful wall. Middle fingers in the air, he chews Trump’s name, and the Latino-majority crowd goes wild.
It was easy, even using my foreign ears, to tell that the play is intensely political. Strange, I thought, that, theater north of the border rarely has the courage to make such bold statements on American immigration policy. The 50 Playwrights Project and Rogue Productions staged Karen Zacarías’ “Just Like Us” in response to the Trump administration’s stance on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) last year, but it was an exception to the rule. How would the Alley Theatre’s predominantly white base, which was not in attendance on Sunday, respond to such a play as “Misa Fronteriza?”
The answer could be cynical. It doesn’t have to be. After all, I didn’t believe in cynicism for a few moments after the performance, partly because the actors treated the audience to shots of tequila and partly because I felt like I understood the play without knowing its language. Gomez, Galindo and Serna ended their show by trampling over the wall of brick and sand. To me, the metaphor wasn’t about racism or policy but about communication, and how they used theater to express ideas that could touch even a complete foreigner.
The actors approach the audience with a bottle and shot glasses after the show. I accept the alcohol and shake hands with the actor. I want to ask him what his show is about. Instead, I down the shot with him and nod downward with my hands clasped together, a Taiwanese gesture of gratitude I have learned that Americans (and perhaps Mexicans as well) understand intuitively. An organizer of the event suggests I return to another performance and use the translating device. And I wonder if that’s not necessary anymore.