More Room at la Posada for Latin Traditions

South Coast Repertory commissioned “La Posada Magica” to present holiday theater from a Latino viewpoint alongside its annual mounting of that most dominant and Anglo of yuletide blockbusters, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

Now in its sixth year on SCR’s Second Stage, Octavio Solis’ play is part of a spreading, decentralized movement of Latino writers bringing their own seasonal traditions onto the boards. Many of them draw on communal observances dating back to the 1500s.

Solis’ motif is La Posada (the inn), a procession that goes door-to-door reenacting the story of Joseph and Mary seeking refuge for the birth of the baby Jesus.

In San Diego, Latino directors since 1987 have mounted annual versions of another traditional form, La Pastorela (the shepherd’s play), which originated in Europe and migrated to the New World with Spanish missionaries.

The San Diego version, produced by the Latino troupe Teatro Mascara Magica (Magic Mask Theater), has graduated from local churches to the Old Globe Theatre and now to its current home at the San Diego Repertory Theatre.

Its plot is simple: Devils try to waylay shepherds flocking to Bethlehem. As with La Posada, it is common for each theater or community to embroider the play with topical, pop-cultural, satirical or political references.

This year’s version is “La Pastorela de los Pobres” (“The Pastorela of the Poor”), in which dramatists William Virchis and Max Branscomb imagine a homeless, one-legged war veteran leading shepherds to an infant born in 1999 in the border town of San Ysidro. Ricky Martin and the Teletubbies are among its contemporary references.

New plays also are adapted from a third story, the Virgin of Guadalupe, about the apparition of the Virgin Mary to a Mexican Indian, Juan Diego--a tale fundamental to the development of Christianity in Mexico.

Solis praises Luis Valdez, a founding figure of Mexican American theater during the mid-1960s, for sparking fresh takes on tradition. Valdez’s El Teatro Campesino has staged “La Virgen del Tepeyac” (Guadalupe) and “La Posada” for 20 years, alternating them in annual productions at the Mission San Juan Bautista outside San Jose.

The Latino Theater Company in Los Angeles produced an annual adaptation of Valdez’s “La Virgen” the past four Christmases, but funding difficulties made it impossible to stage this year, said director Jose Luis Valenzuela.

“Paquito’s Christmas,” a contemporary, nontraditional musical by actor-writer Luis Avalos, is the big Latino holiday play in L.A. It traces a Los Angeles boy’s discovery that family is the essence of Christmas.

“Paquito” has gone from humble origins--it received its premiere in 1994 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center--to the 3,000-seat Pasadena Civic Auditorium, where it was staged last year and returns for two performances this weekend. Earlier this week, it was staged in Washington, D.C., at the Kennedy Center’s 1,100-seat Eisenhower Theater.

Latino theaters in Albuquerque, N.M.; Dallas; San Antonio, Texas; Minneapolis; and Denver have fueled this burgeoning Christmas play movement with original works, often grounded in the traditional stories.

Amid all this activity, “La Posada Magica” is noteworthy because it sprang from a major mainstream regional, rather than an ethnic, theater, says Luis Alfaro, co-director of the Mark Taper Forum’s Latino Theatre Initiative.

“Octavio’s is the first where I’ve seen a [mainstream] theater commit to it year after year,” said Alfaro, whose own take on the shepherd’s play, “Los Vecinos: A Play for Neighbors,” was produced by L.A.’s Cornerstone Theater in 1997.

In “La Posada Magica,” a teen named Gracie must decide whether to remain shrouded in despair over her brother’s death or embrace the hope and spiritual rebirth embedded in the story of Christmas.

Solis, who lives in San Francisco, drew on his own Christmas experiences growing up in El Paso, Texas.

“It’s more than kids going door to door singing Christmas carols. It’s real. That’s the Virgin Mary and Joseph . . . and they need shelter. . . . The reenactments are powerful.”

In choosing a tone, Solis went back to the “wonderful naivete” of community Christmas performances.

“The work should feel not like it’s written by a playwright who knows how to turn a phrase, but by a community member who wants to get the word out about Christ.”

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The question now is whether “La Posada Magica” and other Latino Christmas plays can take hold in the mainstream alongside “A Christmas Carol” and “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”

Solis’ play has gone beyond Costa Mesa. The San Jose Repertory Theater produced it in 1995, and La Compania de Teatro de Albuquerque staged it in 1996. A spokeswoman for the Alley Theatre, a major regional in Houston, said the theater is seriously considering running “Posada” concurrently with “A Christmas Carol” next year.

“It’s going to take some time” for major regional theaters to add Latino-themed Christmas plays to the standard holiday repertory, said Jose Cruz Gonzalez, a Los Angeles playwright-director and former head of SCR’s Hispanic Playwrights Project.

But he is pleased that plays like his own version of “La Posada,” staged annually in Minneapolis, have taken firm hold at Latino theater companies which cast many roles with amateurs.

“Any artist would say, ‘I’d love for my work to get to a much broader audience.’ But where my play has been playing is a perfect place. [Latinos] don’t have many stories being told about them, so they’re hungry for that.”

Virchis, of Teatro Mascara Magica, is upbeat about posadas and pastorelas eventually becoming part of the general theater experience at Christmas.

“It’s good for the box office, it’s good for the spirit, it’s good for building audiences. I think it will be a traditional mainstay.”

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“La Posada Magica,” by Octavio Solis, with songs by Marcos Loya. South Coast Repertory Second Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Continues through Dec. 26. Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m., except Dec. 24, 12:30 and 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays, 3 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 12:30 and 4:30 p.m. $18 to $30. (714) 708-5555.

“Paquito’s Christmas,” by Luis Avalos. Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena. Today and Sunday, 2:30 p.m. $10 to $21.(626) 449-7360.

* “La Pastorela de los Pobres,” adapted by Max Branscomb. Presented by Teatro Mascara Magica at San Diego Repertory Theatre’s Lyceum Theatre Space, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego. Continues through Dec. 23, 7:30 p.m., with added 2 p.m. matinees Dec. 18 and 19. $8 to $12. (619) 544-1000.