Political Theatre
Pomona's revival of Zoot Suit should point the way to a wider rebirth of a play that is as socially relevant today as it was three decades ago.

Story by Hugo Martin '87 / Photos by Jason Foong

Zoot Suit, the theatrical production staged at Pomona College in April, opened with a wiry Latino, sporting a cool gaze and a gangster lean, silently sharpening the crease on his pegged trousers with his fingers.

He is El Pachuco, a cynical street-wise Chicano, invisible to everyone but Henry Reyna, the play’s protagonist and wrongly persecuted leader of the Los Angeles 38th Street Gang.

The student production revived the groundbreaking play 30 years after it premiered in Los Angeles. It dramatizes the real-life story of the prosecution of 22 Mexican American men, including Reyna and his gang, in the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial. A couple of years later, tension between military men on leave in Los Angeles and the so-called zoot suiters erupted into what is now known as the Zoot Suit Riots, with sailors and soldiers beating and stripping Chicanos of their suits with the consent of police and press.

Luis Valdez’s hugely successful play was seen by more than 40,000 people, first at Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum and then on Broadway, and spawned a 1981 film version starring Edward James Olmos as El Pachuco.

Since then the play has been produced only by Valdez’ own company, Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista, Calif., and a handful of schools and community theatres.

Although I never saw the play as a youngster, I did, for a time during my freshman year at Pomona, call myself a Chicano, mostly because it sounded cool and militant. But I was neither, so I dropped the label.

Before watching a matinee performance at Seaver Theatre, I was excited to hear that the college production had sold out throughout its 10-day run.

But why? What about the play still commands such interest?

Maybe it’s the hip Chicano slang sprinkled throughout the dialogue, like “chale” (no way!), “carnal” (brother), “ese” (dude) and “orale” (right on!).

And then there is the music and the choreography. In the play, cool vatos in suave drapes, spun and flipped pretty rucas in big hairdos and short skirts to sizzling hot Latino swing.

Maybe crowds flocked to the play because it portrayed historically momentous events and galvanized Chicano pride in the 1970s?

Watching the play a few seats away from me was John Avalos Rios, a college dance instructor who performed as a feature dancer in the 1981 Zoot Suit movie. During an intermission, he leaned over to me and explained his theory for the play’s success 30 years ago and its popularity today. Although the play was written in the ’70s about a tumultuous time in the ’40s, it is still very relevant today, he said. The play hits on universal themes, Rios added, such as xenophobia, the growing disparity between rich and poor and the racial profiling by police, issues that continue to dominate the news.

In Los Angeles during the early ’40s, young Latino men used zoot suits to express their individuality. But for many in positions of authority at that time, the clothes were simply a way to identify delinquents and subversives.

Fast forward: Don’t young Latinos and African Americans who today wear baggy pants, shaved heads and tattoos get labeled in the same way? Today’s Los Angeles is still immersed in racial tension over Latino immigrants. Nowadays, the term for these outsiders is “illegal aliens” and they are targeted for their dark skin, the language they speak and the unskilled jobs they perform.

So, that is part of the play’s strength: it is a lesson about the injustice and flaws in our society.

Outside of the theatre, I ran across Alma Martinez, the Pomona College theatre professor who directed the cast of more than 30 students from The Claremont Colleges. I thought, she must have an idea about what makes Zoot Suit so popular, having acted in the original production and film.

Martinez believes the play is riding a wave of popularity carried over from a generation of Latinos who saw it 30 years ago and now want to pass the play’s message on to younger Latinos. She said older Latinos have been bringing their families to the play to show them what earlier generations had to endure.

“It’s amazing that this happened only one generation ago,” said Martinez, who stood outside the theatre greeting the departing audience members after every performance.

So, Zoot Suit is also point of pride, a reminder of how far we have come.

But Zoot Suit plays on so many themes and tackles so many social wrongs, that I wondered why it isn’t playing now at the Mark Taper Forum, the Pantages Theater or some other large venue.

A spokesman for Valdez and his theatre company said legal obstacles over the rights to the music in Zoot Suit have barred him from selling the rights to the script for public use. But those problems were recently resolved, and Pomona College was one of the first schools to purchase the rights to revive the play.

It’s only a matter of time now before professional theatre companies offers productions of Zoot Suit at major civic auditoriums and spacious downtown forums.

Or will they?

It’s also possible that theatre companies will refrain, fearful that the powerful and poignant play will only increase tensions between ethnic groups.

But a major production of Zoot Suit could help empower a generation of minorities who feel marginalized and persecuted.

Is it worth the risk?

Orale!