Scheduled world and area premieres for OBIE-winning playwright Caridad Svich in the 2012-2013 theatre season:
Her new play GUAPA will receive an NNPN rolling world premiere at Borderlands Theatre in Arizona, Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, and Miracle Theatre in Oregon; her play based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Love in the Time of Cholera will receive its Spanish language world premiere at Repertorio Espanol in the fall in New York City, and her play The Tropic of X will receive its English language premiere at Single Carrot Theatre in Baltimore, MD.
There will also be regional premieres of her bilingual version of In the Time of the Butterflies (based on the novel by Julia Alvarez) at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis and The House of the Spirits at Gala Hispanic Theatre in Washington D.C.
Academic productions in 2012-2013: 12 Ophelias (a play with broken songs) at USC-Los Angeles, and Chico State in California; The Archaeology of Dreams at University of Nebraska-Omaha.
In one sense, new plays are old news in Austin. Local theatre companies have been spotlighting work by hometown playwrights for more than 30 years, and for half that time, new plays have constituted more than a quarter of the work produced on area stages every year. However, when you consider that only a small fraction of those Austin originals have come from writers of color and that Teatro Vivo – one of a handful of companies that consistently mount new works by Latino writers – only launched its festival devoted to such writers last year and that that inaugural festival attracted standing-room-only crowds to its staged readings of three plays, well, it’s clear that new plays are still making news here.
This weekend, Teatro Vivo follows up on that initial success with another trio of dramas fresh from the keyboards of Latino playwrights. For the second round, Artistic Director Rupert Reyes sought scripts from beyond the state’s borders as well as inside them and made room specifically for younger voices. As a result, this festival includes work by a University of Texas student, Arthur Marroquin, and a nationally prominent writer known to local audiences: Caridad Svich, who’s had three plays staged by Salvage Vanguard Theater.
Read the whole thing here.
Democracy
(November 2011)
By Caridad Svich
The swelling tide of democracy
Aches the heavy bones,
As slogans are wrought in inky black
And voices echo in tones
Of shouts long heard
And shouts rung out
Free upon the wind.
Go on, my friend,
Where ever you go.
See what lies within.
For there isn’t a now
Without ten years ago,
And without twenty before that.
Remember trickle-down economic woes
And a smiling leader’s decorous spat,
As Contras raged and lies were told
At the expense of memory’s lapse?
It was again, as perhaps it is now,
A failing, struggling land,
Where poverty reigns
In majority claims,
And where a working class
Vanishes fast.
Surrender the tide of vaulting cries
Over the reedy mast.
You’ll find o’er there
In some central square
The remnants of revolutions past.
What can be said
As shopping carts
Are thrown over stores and rails,
And land upon innocent heads
And shatter innocent veils?
It’s said that hate rises again
In crimes across the land.
In boroughs lined with empty flats
And meager little hands
That reach out with guns
And knives and lead
And an occasional smile or two,
Half-wrought in pain,
Half-sought midst blame –
Convenient wreckage,
Painted blue.
For blue is the color
Of sorrow’s mane.
Without it, we’d be doomed
To write the scores
Of many laws
Broken
By necessity’s gloom.
Occupy the streets,
The slogan rings,
While tents sway in the chilly breeze
And infants nest in strollers’ breasts
And seek solace, please.
For here we are
In autumn’s muddle,
Tangled in its thorny cocoon,
As budgets get mangled
By intelligent wranglers
Who somehow can’t add
A line item or two,
Because indebted they are
To those who’ve seduced them
And those who are said to be
Through and through.
Who are these invisible wreckers?
Which flag do they hold high?
Are you now or have you ever been…?
Is that the rallying cry?
So far are we from those shady times
When blacklists and witch-hunts
Ruined lives.
How can it be that ever yet
Our present can’t surmise
The rolling shout of those gone by
The bitter, angry wails
Of shuttered doors
And sad goodbyes
Pledged on democracy’s tails?
How swift is this
Simple word
How common it has become
Does anyone remember democracy’s name
Or is it simply better
To lie and run?
Occupy this land, we shout.
And yet is that the word we want to use?
Has it all come down to terms of war?
Can our language not help but excuse
The penchant toward battle
Invasion and other such ploys?
Can we not absent our language?
From words that seek to destroy?
Gather here, the celebrant says
In some distant church
On some distant isle.
Gather us all
For our daily bread
And let our troubles recoil
At the battles raged
In word and name,
In weapon and dagger strong.
Rest now, my brethren,
Oh sleepy children
Of revolutions
Of post-consumerism’s bile.
Oh blackened day.
Oh little wars.
Rest now, your weary heads
As once sung an ancient song
Upon a pagan’s breath.
Mourn this, oh land
In celebration
Of non-occupation
At long last.
For too many lands
Are occupied still
And who is fasting their fast?
Abated hunger
Gather at the table,
Speak now of one and many
Speak of all who borrow plenty
To simply get by.
Creditors, debtors
Join hands
In the unending cycle
That makes us all
Eternally entwined
In the lender’s library
Of some god-like design.
Pity us all
In this raging mess,
In this errant lunacy
We call success.
Pity the ones
Among us now
Who raise their hands
Without knowing how,
And whisper the strength
Of a sound beyond rage
Beyond indignance ever waged
Change is a-comin,’
Said a lone song once.
Its soulful shout still rings midst the leaves,
As pieces of paper are swept up in the digital debris.
Still waiting, we are
For change to roll by
Ever-comin’
It is
As another November
Lets out a sigh.
Savages
(April 2011)
By Caridad Svich
Salvage all,
Save this I keep for you –
Bitter worn
empty,
yet full of longing
(For another life led
In mystery).
Savage this,
I made for you,
For it will not be here
Much longer.
Torn in pieces long,
In remnants passed
From one hand to another
Liquid, porous –
It awakens every ounce of desire
In my palm.
How could I know you’d leave this
Unknown, strange sensation
Of melancholy?
Rooted in despair
Yet exhilarated
By it,
I’m anxious to relive
Some aspect of damage,
That I never knew
I craved.
It was this you opened
In my consciousness:
Radiant light
Streaming through the eye,
Beam of desire pulsing
Through some vague memory
Once erased from my mind –
Blurry substance of fire
Burn of angels lost
In their own reverie,
What solid thing holds us to earth
And jettisons hope
Of the everlasting fear of loss?
I will learn what it is to let go
Of everything
And in so doing
Rob you
Of your longed-for destiny.
It is here
We make ourselves.
In this light
Burnished
Replicated by a thousand desires
Shaped by destinies
Of those bereft
Of their citizenry.
Damascus ancient
Weaves dark spells
Of enchantment over the land.
A blue wall
A cigarette in the mouth
A scarf on your head
And tired hands rest
Along a wall
And think about a gun once held.
Eyes once witnessed in agony:
Another life.
Another time;
Not me,
Not now,
In end days.
Soon another will be mourned
Along the road.
No words anymore
But smoke,
A look at the sun,
And a cradling of a forgotten gun.
Memories of battles waged –
Old songs of glories and praise.
Hymns for those who have shed blood,
Forgotten names who’ve left their mark
Upon the land.
Pity them, I say
But pity too the sun burnt who stand
Held in fear
Awakened eternally by disparities
Leveled by civilization
Sorry earth,
Forgive us all our trespasses
And when we blight your stones,
And rock dirt blooms,
Be kind.
photo by Caridad Svich
Luna Vida
una canción-poema para el teatro para una o mas voces
(para los mineros de Chile, 2010)
de Caridad Svich
La vida canta una triste alegria
El sol se levanta sin saber porque
Viajamos por una luna salvaje
Y regresamos a la infancia como si fuésemos pequeñas bestias
Que nos sacaron de un laberinto de ansiedad
La paz es lo que deseamos
Nos pasamos la vida buscándola
En relaciones con parejas
conversaciones de teléfono
y en largas noches mirando a un cielo sin cielo
Deseamos la libertad
Queremos que corra por nuestras manos
La queremos tocar y hacerla realidad
La busca nos lleva a muchas partes
Algunas veces a otros países
Pero en fin
Aquí estamos
Sin saber que la libertad esta adentro
De nosotros
Si decimos, sin pena, Aquí estoy.
Cuantos ratos libres
En tus brazos
Cuantas sonrisas en la oscuridad
Que canciones le cantamos a los niños
Cuando duermen
Y no so quieren levantar?
La música extraña de nuestros países
Perdidos, encontrados, desbocados algunas veces
En las Americas
Nos consuela a medianoche
Y nos da animo para seguir
Quizás
Un dia mas
No hay nadie que nos diga nada
Sin lo queremos es
Buscar la felicidad
Solo hay las ganas
De tomarse la meta como preciosa medicina,
Vitamina para el alma,
Fuerza vital
Nos reimos a carcajadas
Nos jugamos trabajos, amistades, y amantes
Levantamos pueblos
Y todavía nos queda mucho mas
Dentro de la pesadilla de la pesadumbre
Dentro el sol que nos esquiva
Miramos la vieja luna
Y le cantamos un adios
A sangre caliente
Con buena fe
Y poca plata en los bolsillos
Nos llenamos de oro
Cuando alguien nos llama
Y dicen nuestro nombre
Sin vanidad
Nos llenamos de placer
Cuando alguien se acerca
Y nos pide que le contemos
Otro historia del pasado
Para que no se olvide nunca,
porque la memoria de los países
es frágil y tenua
Que rico estar entre la cobija
De una dicha igualdad
Con el pecho hacia el cielo
Y los manos al despertar
Que dicha
Cuando todo se desvanece
Y solo quedan tu y yo
En la humeda de la noche
Y me das tu calor
Es aquí donde me siento completo
Aquí donde dejo mi dolor
Porque sin ti el mundo se quiebra;
nadie sabe lo profundo que es el amor
Abre tus brazos
En esta paz de hermanos
Deja las lagrimas en el vacio del mar
Levanta tu voz
En la belleza de ser,
un individuo en esta tierra/que encuentra otro ser
a la orilla de la claridad
es casualidad que estas aquí?
Es misterio que nos abrazamos?
Que compleja es la vida
Cuando la luna nos traiciona
Que deliciosa es la mañana
Cuando el sol nos abandona
El mar parece otro
La tierra no es igual
Alucinamos cuentos de monstruos
y las hadas nos hacen bailar
parecemos aquellos viejos
acostados en la arena roja
jugando el golf “a ojo”
creyendo que hemos ganado
pareces aquellos ellos
levantando sus sonrisas
creyendo la vida es sueño
como dijo Calderon siglos atrás
que luna esta
luna vida
que delirio de ser
cada dia
abre tus brazos
en esta paz de hermanos
deja tu pena
en un largo verano
aquí hay solo
esta luz, esta mano
un paso por vez
podemos
caminar.
photo credit: Caridad Svich
WAR SONG by Caridad Svich
(September 2, 2010)
This is how we sing
In the cool of the mountains
Drained by the sun
Spent from work
We rise
This is how we bleed
In the thick of the valleys
stained by the moon
Bent from work
We rise
Desert felled
In an ocean’s swell
We carry our histories on our backs
The weight of memory in our skins
We do not surrender
We rise
And we pray
Another day
Escapes our breath
Another day
Revives our deaths
So little they are
When compared to many
I want to see the blessed chill
Of anguished smiles
When I walk again
And walk some more
Along the long white hallway
til heaven’s door
Again is he?
Again is she?
Oh bitter earth
What crime is this
when desert sons
And desert winds
Cannot promise
ripe deliverance?
The sorrow sung
In ancient glow
Arrives tonight
In peace, although
One never knows
Who answers still
The siren’s call
Of war below
Always son
Always daughter
Roaming in fever’s den
Surrounded by lions’ cries
And slaughtered infants
At mother’s sides
We call it peace
A talk, a meet,
A wish to quell
The shame of defeat
But could we mark
A better song
Upon this earth
If guards are let
To bury mirth
In bitter cups
Of blissful shame?
Think now
Oh sons
Think now
Oh daughters
This cry
Held long
For all our martyrs.