In the autobiographical confession, “I Don’t Speak Spanish,” local playwright David Ramón Zayas offers audiences a generational extrospection of his Mexican culture, exploring the distance he feels from his ancestral roots, leading him to feel unmoored in his contemporary sense of self.
While this is the story that only Zayas can tell, many elements may feel familiar to Americanized descendants of immigrants. It’s an American story of our melting pot–one that seems to boil over every time another cook adds a spicy ingredient. In this case, it’s a bottle of tabasco sauce.
For those who are sometimes “othered,” cultural discussions arise more frequently if your skin looks a few shades darker than the Caucasian default, if you have been accused of “passing” after someone meets one of your brown parents, if you’re saddled with an impossibly ethnic name, or if you have an accent. Othered people straddle two worlds, with simultaneous pride and shame often driving the inner conflict. You can pride yourself on making your mother’s restaurant-quality enchilada recipe, but feel shame that the other kids laugh when you bring your mother’s enchiladas for lunch.
The imperfect people who nurtured us, fed us, and formed us are the same people who both shared their hopes and dreams for us and instilled their generational traumas within us. And they were formed by their own ancestral collective, complete with all their humanity. And so on. It’s with this ambivalent recognition that Zayas writes his own story within the context of his family story, fraught with all the stigma and societal issues that come from having a Mexican heritage in the United States over the centuries.
The above prologue is long because this play is long, just as our ancestry is long.
The play is structured as six vignettes that span from the first ancestor in 1528 to present day Tony (Zayas), the hero of this story. Although Tony is married to Michael (Thomas Weaver), who studies and lectures on Latin American culture for a living, and they both seem immersed in the Hispanic culture, Tony feels shame that he cannot speak Spanish. His acquaintance, Gustavo (Aldo Longoria), confronts him, and this leads Tony to confront his mother, Samantha (Nelly Torres). This sets the prequel on its journey back through the generations, making historically significant stops in South Texas during the Mexican Border War, in Los Angeles during World War II, and in New Mexico during 2011. We’re along for that ride, and all the mixed messages that come with it.
Although those cultural messages and themes grow to become bigger than the characters themselves, that in no way diminishes the actors’ performances.
Zayas is adorable as Tony, and we watch his character struggle as he searches and grows, finding his way through all the people and events who came before him, as well as navigate his marriage. Weaver plays Tony’s husband, Michael, as doting, with just a touch of self-recognized pomposity. The interplay and dynamics between the husbands feels genuine.
Kiryat Jearim Castillo infuses her character, Raquel, with a bratty flair. As her story develops, we feel her shame, her need to distance herself from the pervasive violence commonly inflicted on her culture within her time and place. Her dance moves with Cleo (Longoria) flowed nicely, too. Longoria delivers to the audience proud men in Cleo, Gustavo and Manuel, all of whom are not looking for a fight, but aren’t backing down from one, either.
Showcasing her range with playing strong female roles, Nelly Torres brings grit to a treasured family aunt, Maria Refugio, an independent woman full of resolve. Torres is daunting as Adela, an intimidating mother who gets about three inches from her daughter’s face and wags her finger well before her daughter has had a chance to do anything wrong. And she is hilarious as Samantha, who could be any of our own overly Americanized mothers.
Diego Sandino brings an intensity to all of his character portrayals, playing Robert, the table-side philosopher, Silverio, the brutish father, and Tomás, the border refugee with equal amounts of passion.
For many reasons, I like this play. I saw the table read in January 2022, so I have a second-row seat while watching the play evolve, improve. Although I’m a writer first, the editor in me sees places where the author can further tighten this script, should he choose to continue developing it.
For example, while it is important for the audience to understand the respective current events as the timeline hops around, I think planting context clues, character dialogue, or even the family overhearing news on the radio would have more impact than turning local officials into characters to deliver monologues. If part of the reason for the monologues was to show the disjointedness the playwright feels, then I get that, and I’ll shush about what I think. But I feel as if they interfere with the playwright’s personal relationship with the story, snipping the generational thread tying the vignettes together, in much the same way his ancestral heritage was interrupted along the way.
I can sense the author getting closer to his subject matter between last year and in this rendition. And I feel honored to have met Zayas’ family. May this play inspire you to think about your own ancestors, as well as your successors.
“I Don’t Speak Spanish” runs until Oct. 22 at Gamut Theatre, 15 N. 4th St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit https://www.gamuttheatre.org/i-dont-speak-spanish.
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