ARTS

An interview with Canadian playwright Steven Bush

The theatre of life

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U.S. Marines reading The Washington Post to Nicaraguan children during the U.S. inter-

vention of 1928. Decades of American cultural dominance.

Since the Sandinista revolution
in 1979 thousands of international
volunteers have gone to Nica-
ragua to lend support in the build-
ing of a revolution. It has been a
world-wide gesture of solidarity
unseen since the days of the Span-
ish civil war. The Internationals
have not gone with comforts or
without danger. Some have been
kidnapped by the U.S.-sponsored
contras while six have been mur-
dered — the latest being Ameri-
can volunteer Ben Linder.

One of those who has just re-
- Ggurned from a trip to-Nicaragua is
Canadian playwnght and actor
Steven Bush. It was Bush’s sec-
ond trip, the first being in 1983, to
witness and work with the cul-
tural life of Nicaragua, with a par-
ticular focus on theatre. The revo-
lution has ushered in a flowering
of Nicaraguan culture —a culture
suppressed by decades of Somo-
za rule and American cultural

dominance. What Bush encount-
ered in his Nicaraguan trips was a
new theatre.

‘**Most of the theatre we see in
Nicaragua has developed during
the struggle against Somoza or
since the Sandinistas took over.
During 1980-81 well over a hun-
dred companies were formed.
Union groups, student groups,
women’s groups,”’ Bush told the
Tribune.

Bush, who toured Nicaragua at
the invitation of Alan Bolt, direc-

tor of the Nicaraguan Nixtayolero
theatre company, noticed the

changes that have occurred in the
country over the past few years,
particularly the tremendous
strains put on the Nicaraguan
people by the contra war.
“There is a decrease -in the
number of theatre companies
from when I was there in
83. The major cause of the de-
crease is the war. Two of the three

n Nicaragua

ge Se

ving | AE

Managua, July 19, 1979. The revolution ushered in a flowering of Nicaraguan culture:

EB

Theatre became both a tool of mobilization and of education.

professional theatre companies
are almost all women — the men
having been mobilized for the
war.

‘*But what struck me most,,’
Bush emphasized, ‘‘was how the
Nicaraguan people are deter-
mined not to get stuck into a war
mentality. They do not want to
make the war the prime focus of
their art. They do not want to let
the war impede the development
of Nicaraguan culture.”

Contrary to what many people
may assume, theatre in Nicaragua
is not overtly political in the agit-
prop sense we associate with the
revolutionary cultures of the early
decades of this century. Theatre
has come to provide a source of
light entertainment for the Nica-
raguan people as well as a form of
social commentary and criticism.

‘*You can see how the Nicara-
guan people need the theatre
when the stress of the war is so

great. The theatre provides a bit
of relief. This is not to say that
Nicaraguan theatre has become
an air-head theatre. They put a
high value on comedy, on satire.”’

But, as Bush explains, a lot of
that comedy is in fact critical.
Pinpointing problems within the
country and with social attitudes.
In this way theatre becomes not
only a reflection of Nicaraguan
reality but a way of posing prob-
lems and raising possible solu-
tions.

Theatre has had the support of
the FSLN, both as a propaganda
vehicle and as an educational
tool. But the war has placed se-
rious limitations on the theatre
companies’ abilities to travel
around the country. The military
and production have, of course,
taken priority. But with the coun-
try mobilized against the contras
and a possible U.S. intervention,
theatre is being brought to the

people defending the country.

“There is a group of circus
women from the United States
who were performing, almost eX-
clusively, for detachments of
Sandinista troops. Other theatre
companies are touring with the
defence forces.

‘In every region of the cout
try, in every battalion there is af
allotment, as of March of this
year, of 12 actors. This will meat
that not only will profession
actors continue working while
doing military service but they
will also be able to -co-ordinaté
activities within the army, 4
spectators and as performers.”

(Coming next week . . . part two @
the Steven Bush interview: Dealing
with sexism and machismo in Nic&
raguan society and the upcoming
Canadian performances of the Tey?
coyani theatre collective from Nic&
ragua.) ,

— Paul Ogresk0

‘Beginning of Things’ sets out on Canada tour

They were factory workers, students
and peasants. They have no degrees or
formal training in their craft.

Nowadays, Filiberto Rodriguez figures
that “with all our experience, we know we
have a degree in theatre. Life has been our
teacher.”

Rodriguez is one of seven members of
Teyocoyani, a renowned Nicaraguan
theatre group that will bring the plays per-
formed for workers and peasants to Can-
adian audiences in May and June.

The group has become known to Can-
adians supporting Nicaragua because of
the efforts of journalist Chris Brookes,
who wrote a book on travels to the Central
American nation.

In Vancouver briefly en route to per-
formances in Cape Breton and Montreal,
three members of Teyocoyani talked
through a translator to the Tribune about
their art and performing for co-operatives
and in factories and farm fields in Nicara-
gua.

During their tour they'll be treating
audiences to one of two plays. One, The
Lie, deals with problems of male chauvi-
nism and “false values inculcated in peo-
ple”’ while Obscure Moon, Clear Moon, is
a symbolic journey through the country’s
past which enables its hero to deal with the

present. Vancouver audiences will see the
latter play on June 20 and 21, at the Van-
couver East Cultural Centre.

In Cape Breton, the group — whose
trip there has been financed by a group of
Cape Breton fishermen — will perform at
the Standing the Gaff festival. In Mont-
real, they will be at the Festival of the
Americas.

In Vancouver,

Teyocoyani, whose

name means “the beginning of things,”

we

RODRIGUEZ PUPIRO

performs under the sponsorship of the
national aid for Nicaragua project, Tools
for Peace.

Teyocoyani began with the successful
revolution in 1979 that made the country’s
Sandinista movement the popular govern-
ment and ended decades of U.S. domina-
tion.

“Our experience began with the literacy
campaign and the movement for agrarian
reform,” says Teyocoyani member Pablo

Pupiro of the processes that have trans-
formed Nicaraguan society in the past
eight years.

The group uses traditional folklore and
innovation to get across its message that to
maintain the gains in Nicaragua, one has
to struggle.

A case in point is Obscure Moon, Clear
Moon. It tells of a protagonist who travels
back in time to “a past when people
decided things collectively,” explains
group member Francisco Baldelomar.

During his stay in the past “Miguel”
becomes embroiled in a struggle to defeat
a character who arrives and imposes “false
values and culture” on the collective. His
involvement in that fight convinces Miguel
he has to act in defence of his society, and
when he is transported back to the present
he confronts the invading soldiers.

Analogies between the past, when
Spain invaded the Native societies in the
Americas, and the present, where Nicara-
gua must confront U.S.-financed counter-
revolutionaries while facing the threat of
direct U.S. invasion, are key to the mes-
sage Teyocoyani and related theatre
groups in Nicaragua bring to its citizens.

Rodriguez says the group’s mission “‘is
to develop a theatre immersed in the aims
of the revolution and a vehicle for express-

ing people’s criticisms of how those aims
are developing. And it’s to rediscover our
myths, legends and traditions.”

Like many of its revolutionary prede-
cessors, Teyocoyani has no performance
hall, and frequently performs in fields or
any place else that is convenient.

The group is financed by the Sandinista
Association of Culture, but modestly so.
Each member earns the equivalent of
about $15-$20 (Canadian) weekly.

Nicaragua also has an English-speaking
culture on its Atlantic coast, and the Mos-
quito Indian people who speak either Eng-
lish or their Native tongue. Pupiro said
three theatre groups for the Mosquitos
have existed, but ‘“‘due to the war and the
lack of technical aid those groups have not
been granted enough aid and encourage-
ment.

“Now with the autonomy granted to
that region, Nicaragua will be engaging in
research projects and encouraging devel-
opment on the Atlantic coast,” he says.

But how will Teyocoyani, whose
members perform only in Spanish, com-
municate with Canadian audiences?

“We believe that we’ll be understood
because the image and the music we use
will be more powerful than words,” says

Rodriguez. — Dan Keeton

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 20, 1987