Pain of the Macho & Other Plays, The

Najera, Rick

• Publisher: Arte Público Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781611927436
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

In the face of political correctness and the feminist movement, renowned stand-up comedian, scriptwriter and satirist Rick Najera dares to proclaim—tongue in cheek, of course—that machos are regular guys, too. In The Pain of the Macho, Najera has assembled an ensemble cast of quintessential Latin lovers or wannabes who pour out their souls in side-splitting monologues. But the zing in the punch line hits us when we realize that melodramatic, teary-eyed spiels lead sly insights into the dilemma faced by not just Latino men but all those who must exist at the margins of two intersecting cultural spheres. The other two plays included in this wildly entertaining collection are A Quiet Love and Latinologues.

A QUIET LOVE

Note:

This play was originally commissioned by San Diego Reperatory Theater under the direction of Doug Jacobs. All characters mentioned in this play are loosely based on my family. The dialogue is fictional.

This play is dedicated to Mary Ubale Najera, who taught me the meaning of the title of this play.

A QUIET LOVE

A Quiet Love is a cross generation story of the Najera clan. The show has a lot of characters that can be performed by six actors, each portraying multiple roles. The characters are:

Ed Najera/Chon/Young Ed: a good-looking tall, Mexican man in his forties to play a range of ages from twenties to sixties.

Mary Najera/Josefina/Young Mary: a good-looking Mexican-American woman, late thirties to play a range of ages from early twenties to fifties.

Rick Najera/Sailor/Man: Mexican-American man, age twenty-eight.

Sophie/Doctor/Cherie Grizzeled Worker: a Mexican-American woman who plays a range of ages from early twenties to fifty.

Union Officer/Marlo/White Slaver/Steve/Foreman/Captain: a white man in his late thirties.

Andy/Black Guy/Officer/Sailor #1/Louie Canado: a man in his late thirties.

The staging of the play should be minimal. The furniture simple and functional, with no particular time period attached, i.e. benches, chairs, wood tables in the Shaker style. The staging will rely heavily on the back screen where slides about the family and slides marking the time period will be displayed.

PROLOGUE.

A young man/Rick walks on stage. He holds a cellular phone. On the other side of the stage appears another man/Andy, actor #2, also holding a cellular phone. They both talk with their backs to each other.

ANDY: Hey, how you doing? Uh, listen, they like you at Warner Brothers. But they think you’re not ethnic enough. They wanted you to be more ethnic.

RICK: Would a burro and bandanna have helped? She said I was lucky to have such an interesting background.

ANDY: That’s what she says to you. To me, she said, “They wanted you to be more ethnic.”

RICK: What about CBS?

ANDY: They love you, but you’re a little too ethnic for them. But they still loved you.

RICK: I’d rather have them hire me than love me. Am I up for any other shows?

ANDY: Well, uh. Uh. Well, there’s no show with your special voice. But I’m on top of it.

RICK: My special ethnic voice. Let me tell you a little story. I was on a plane and a stewardess came up to me and said, “Mr. Najera, Mr. Najera, this Mexican man needs your help. Can you speak to him in your best Spanish possible?” I said, “Sure.” So I walked up to him and said, (Accent.) “Chew are going ta die.”

ANDY: Is that a true story?

RICK: No, it’s a joke and so is Hollywood. I just want to work, Andy.

ANDY: You’ll work. There’s just no show that needs your kind of talent at the moment. I got another call. Listen, there’s one more show that’s still hiring. I’m going to get an answer by the end of the day. Where can I reach you?

RICK: In San Diego. See ya.

END OF PROLOGUE.

BLACK OUT.

Scene 1

Sound of a beautiful corrido fills the air. It is called “Un amor callado,” A Quiet Love. The lights reveal a man sitting on a Lazy Boy recliner holding a hot water bottle to his throat. A woman adjusts a pillow and brings him a cup of water. On stage stands a lone figure.

RICK: Sight is deceptive. We are surrounded by optical illusions. When you see the moon low on the horizon, it appears much larger, but if it’s high on the horizon, it seems much smaller. The moon hasn’t changed its size. It’s our senses that are wrong. Our own sight cannot be trusted. His is failing. (Ed reaches for his glasses and picks up a book.)

I see a sick old man. I see an old man in quiet agony, but I know he’s really a giant. My mother brings him a cool drink. She’s a giant, too. We cannot always trust our sight or our memories. Most things I forget. I blame it on my generation’s lack of strong genes. I think the lack of the ozone layer, the constant bombardment of gamma rays and TV rays and consumption of twinkies, have made us a weaker generation. Of course, this is just my perception and perceptions can be wrong.

I’m telling this story because if I don’t write it down, if I don’t record it, I’ll forget it. And I don’t want to forget. He’ll remember because he has an incredible memory. That’s one of the reasons he’s a giant and I’m his son—he’ll remember. (Lights change and Ed speaks.)

ED: Mary, would you bring me one of my shakes?

MARY: Eddie, you need to eat some solid food, not just shakes. Now, come on.

RICK: It’s what we remember. It’s important. It’s our own stories that are the true history. We must listen to learn. (He turns to his father.) Dad, I want to record you.

ED: I lost my butt this morning. I looked in the mirror and I swear to God I had no butt. This book on World War II is very good.

RICK: Dad, I want to record you.

MARY: You don’t want to write about us—we’re not interesting. You’ve got a good imagination. Why don’t you write about interesting people? Did you see the Elizabeth Taylor Story? She’s interesting. She just keeps getting more and more interesting.

ED: And bigger.

MARY: Don’t mention that “chicken feet in the soup” thing. I’ll hear about it from Sophie for days.

RICK: All I said was that I remember chicken feet in my grandfather’s soup. The reporter wrote down what he heard.

ED: Why’d he say you grew up in a barrio?

RICK: I guess that’s what he heard. I told him I grew up in Barrio La Mesa.

MARY: Oh, God, Sophie was so mad. She said, “It made us sound poor. Chicken feet in our soup.”

ED: There was chicken feet in the caldo. It made the soup taste better. But they were clean chickens, free range.

MARY: Why talk about us? We’re not interesting. And don’t say you were in the barrio. I took you out of the barrio. Your dad would have stayed in the barrio.

ED: I liked the barrio. My family and friends were there. Barrio just meant neighborhood. Beverly Hills is a barrio and they don’t call ’em gangs. They call ’em fraternities.

MARY: How’s things going in L.A?

RICK: Great.

MARY: I got “Call Waiting.” I got “Call Waiting.” I know how nervous you get if you don’t hear from your agent. How’s L.A.? Are you safe there?

RICK: I feel safer in San Diego. Surrounded by the military. You have battleships and jets all over the place. Just driving here, I saw a tank on the side of the road. This place is armed to the teeth. Who are we fighting?

ED: No one, that’s why your brother is unemployed.

MARY: “Call Waiting” is such a pain.

RICK: I just don’t like it when someone’s on the phone while I’m expecting a call.

MARY: I been reading Variety.

RICK: Do you subscribe to Variety?

MARY: You’ve got to keep up with the industry. And Buzz Magazine. I like Buzz.

STEVE: (Steve enters. He is a mysterious quiet man, reading a book and eating a sandwich. The role of Steve is also actor #1.) The military has kept this town alive. The Berlin Wall falling was not a good thing. I know things, Rick.

RICK: Well you don’t know how to get a job.

STEVE: After my retraining, I’ll be able to get a job in the private sector.

RICK: Sure, you can give them fries or espionage.

STEVE: You don’t know what I did.

RICK: Tell me while my recorder is on.

STEVE: I’m going out. (Steve exits.)

RICK: (To Ed.) All right, the recorder’s on. What is your earliest memory?

ED: I remember the Virgin de Guadalupe Church. We lived across the street from it. (We see a slide of the church in the back wall.)

RICK: There’s a freeway across from the church.

ED: I was there, and there used to be a house. It was my father’s house. The first Mexicans in Logan Heights. He created a barrio.

RICK: Oh, yeah, that’s going to make Anglos real happy. The first Mexicans in Logan Heights. There’s some guy saying, “If only we could go back in time and stop that lone Mexican man… Logan Heights would be the country club it was meant to be.”

ED: But he didn’t look Mexican. He was tall with blue eyes. Look at this picture. That’s him as a young man. He came to this country when he was just a baby. That was around 1898. (On a ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Criticizing the Macho
• Dedication
• Pain of the Macho
• Latinologues: Monologues of the Latin Experience
• A Quiet Love