Shattering the Myth: Plays by Hispanic Women

Feyder, Linda

• Publisher: Arte Público Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781518503153
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Cherríe Moraga, Migdalia Cruz, Caridad Svich, Josefina Lopez, Edit Villarreal and Diana Sáena are in the vanguard of contemporary Hispanic women playwrights in the United States. The voices of three generations of Hispanic women are heard in these plays as the women explore their bicultural heritage, articulating what it means to be an Hispanic woman and, in essence, shattering the myths that have been associated with that heritage.

My Visits with MGM (My
Grandmother Marta)

Edit Villarreal

CHARACTERS

MARTA GRANDE: fifteen through eighty years of age, a Mexican refugee.

MARTA CHICA: Marta Grande’s daughter, present in play only as memory.

MARTA FELIZ: ten through thirty-two years of age, American born, Marta Grande’s granddaughter, Marta Chica’s daughter.

FLORINDA: thirteen through seventy-eight years of age, Marta Grande’s sister, also a Mexican refugee (actor can be double cast as NURSE WITH WINGS).

JUAN: twenty through sixty years of age, Marta Grande’s husband, American born.

FATHER ERNESTO: early twenties, a priest new to the parish.

Note: The play is written so that one actor can play all male roles. The play calls for the actors to play a wide range of ages, age need not be presented realistically. In fact, youth, age and death should be treated as temporary states.

TIME

The present.

PLACE

Texas.

Optional suggestions: If possible, the Spanish in the play can be translated on an overhead projection strip. The scene titles can be used, or not, depending on production concept.

Marta Grande’s Poem

Yo salí.

Pero los otros se quedaron.

Candelaria y José María,

Mis Padres, ellos se quedaron.

I got out.

But the others stayed.

Candelaria and José María,

My parents, they stayed.

Pero yo salí.

No podría soportarlo.

Pero mis hermanos se quedaron.

Leopoldo se quedó,

Maclovio se quedó,

También Erasmo y Jafet,

Hasta Alfredo, se quedó.

But I got out.

I couldn’t stay there any longer.

But my brothers stayed.

Leopoldo stayed,

Maclovio stayed,

And Erasmo and Jafet,

Even Alfredo stayed.

Pero yo salí.

Yo ya no me aguantaba.

Pero mis hermanas se quedaron.

Ella y Soyenda, y Flora,

Las tres se quedaron.

But I got out.

I couldn’t take it any longer.

But my sisters stayed.

Ella and Soyenda, and Flora

The three of them stayed.

Pero yo salí.

Mándeme Dios, pero yo ya no me aguantaba.

Con Florinda, la más joven,

Con ella me salí.

But I got out.

Forgive me, God, but I just couldn’t take it.

With Florinda, the youngest,

With her I got out.

ACT ONE

......................... PROLOGUE .........................

In the dark, sounds of fire rise. Fire engine sirens rise and fade. Then silence. Lights rise on a burnt-out shell of a house. Here and there unrecognizable objects can be seen. MARTA FELIZ, in her late twenties, enters. As she searches through the rubble of the house …

FLORINDA’S VOICE: (Whisper.) This house is mine, Marta. ¿M’entiendes? (Pause.) ¿M’entiendes? (MARTA FELIZ frowns. A bad memory.)

FLORINDA’S VOICE: (Whispers, then rises in anger.) ¡Sinvergüenza! ¡Necesitas un palazo!

MARTA FELIZ: (Discovers the remains of a Mexican morral or hemp bag, the bright striped colors still visible on the bag.) ¿’Amá? Where are you? ¿’Amá?

MARTA FELIZ: (Light rises on MARTA GRANDE, holding a similar bag.) Look. It’s one of the old ones, ’Amá. It survived the fire.

FLORINDA’S VOICE: (Whisper.) You made a will? American whore!

MARTA GRANDE: (Smiling.) Your tía! (MARTA FELIZ and MARTA GRANDE giggle at the old memory. Light dims on MARTA GRANDE.)

MARTA FELIZ: (To audience.) After my ’Amá, my grandmother, died, I threw away clothes. And I stored away photos, green cards, letters and bills. The only thing I kept for myself was her coin purse. Fake leather from the five-and-dime with a rusty hinge that still closed tight.

MARTA GRANDE: In Texas, everything rusts.

MARTA FELIZ: Inside the coin purse were fourteen silver packages. Bus fares individually wrapped in tin foil. Exactly the right combination of nickels and dimes for one bus ride to town and back.

MARTA GRANDE: Una semana. One week.

MARTA FELIZ: She never learned to drive. After she ran over a dog learning to back up for the first time, my grandfather wouldn’t ever let her have the wheel. But, as she used to say …

MARTA GRANDE: Ni modo.

MARTA FELIZ: Even in her eighties, she used to take the bus into town regularly. All the bus drivers knew her by name, Doña Marta. She’d make them stop for her mid-block, coming and going. (Female figures in silhouette appear, all wearing large Mexican rebozos, or shawls, which cover their heads and bodies. A corrido of leave-taking rises, plaintive yet insistent.) When she came here from Mexico, I guess she looked the part. (MARTA GRANDE begins to fill her hemp bag with her belongings.)

MARTA FELIZ: Quiet. Mexican. Patient. Mexican. Long-suffering. Mexican. Dependent. Mexican. But inside she was different. When she left Mexico she was only fifteen. And all she took with her was what she could carry in a few sturdy morrales or hemp bags. (MARTA GRANDE steps forward, the archetypal Mexican refugee icon wrapped in her rebozo and carrying her morral.)

MARTA GRANDE: (As a young girl.)

Yo salí.

Pero los otros se quedaron.

Candelaria y José María,

Mis padres, ellos se quedaron.

MARTA FELIZ: Her parents wouldn’t go. They were too old, they said. But she left anyway.

MARTA GRANDE: ¡Pos, sí! No podría soportarlo.

MARTA FELIZ: She couldn’t bear it.

MARTA GRANDE:

Pero mis hermanos se quedaron.

Leopoldo se quedó,

Maclovio se quedó,

También Erasmo y Jafet,

Hasta Alfredo se quedó.

MARTA FELIZ: Her brothers wouldn’t go. It was the Revolution, they said. The Revolution of 1910. But she left anyway.

MARTA GRANDE: ¡Pos, sí! Yo ya no me aguantaba.

MARTA FELIZ: She couldn’t stand it one minute longer.

MARTA GRANDE:

Pero mis hermanas se quedaron.

Ella y Soyenda y Flora,

las tres se quedaron.

MARTA FELIZ: Her sisters wouldn’t go. Things will get better. And, if not, they can’t get worse, they said. But she left anyway.

MARTA GRANDE: ¡Pos, sí! Mándeme Dios, pero yo ya no me aguantaba.

MARTA FELIZ: And so she begged God’s forgiveness. And came to Texas.

MARTA GRANDE: Okay! ¡Estoy lista!

MARTA FELIZ: But not alone. She talked one sister …

MARTA GRANDE: ¿Florinda?

FLORINDA: (One of the shawled silhouettes.) ¿Mande?

MARTA FELIZ: … her little sister, into coming with her.

......................... SCENE ONE .........................

Exilio / Exile

MARTA GRANDE: Florinda? (FLORINDA, a distinctly different type from MARTA GRANDE, enters.)

FLORINDA: (Plaintive.) ¡Ay, Marta!

MARTA GRANDE: You want to go to the United States? Or what?

FLORINDA: I don’t know. Tengo miedo, Marta.

MARTA GRANDE: Ni miedo. Ni pedo.

FLORINDA: ¡Ay! No hables así.

MARTA GRANDE: ¿Y por qué no?

FLORINDA: (Plaintive.) Me da miedo.

MARTA GRANDE: Pos, ¿sabes qué?

FLORINDA: ¿Qué? (Long pause.) Qué, what?

MARTA GRANDE: Yo también tengo miedo.

FLORINDA: You’re scared?

MARTA GRANDE: Sí.

FLORINDA: ¿Dónde?

MARTA GRANDE: Aquí. (Points to her head.)

FLORINDA: ¿En el coco?

MARTA GRANDE: Sí.

FLORINDA: ¿Miedo de qué, hermanita?

MARTA GRANDE: De chingarme …

FLORINDA: (Disgusted.) ¡Dios mío!

MARTA GRANDE: Aquí entre esta tierra desgraciada y el cielo …

FLORINDA: Y tú, ¿qué sabes?

MARTA GRANDE: ¿Y tú, ¿qué sabes?

FLORINDA: Y tú, señora, ¿qué sabes?

MARTA FELIZ: (To audience.) Somehow, my grandmother convinced the Baptist Church into bringing her and her sister, Florinda, to Texas.

FLORINDA: ¡Ni modo! We had to convert.

MARTA GRANDE: We were the first Baptists in a Methodist family. You should have heard the screams. ¡Por toda la frontera!

MARTA FELIZ: In Texas, they were housed in the basement of the Baptist Church.

FLORINDA: ¡Ay, Marta! It’s so dark in here. No hay nada aquí en Tejas. Quiero mi familia.

MARTA FELIZ: But Texas, for my tía Florinda, became a kind of torture chamber, I think.

FLO...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Shadow of a Man
• Miriam’s Flowers
• Gleaning/Rebusca
• Simply María or The American Dream
• My Visits with MGM
• A Dream of Canaries
• Footnotes