The Musical Drama Zoot Suit
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In his musical drama Zoot Suit, playwright Luis Valdez fashions a theatrical experience around two dramatic elements: the historical event of the "Zoot Suit Riots" of 1943 and the commanding image of an icon-like narrator called "El Pachuco." The first is a largely-overlooked historical occurrence of blatant anti-Chicano racism that happened in Los Angeles during World War II. The second, El Pachuco, is a dramatic creation designed to combat the image of the stereotypical Chicano by overstereotyping. Valdez utilizes the Bertolt Brecht-influenced formula of the 1930s' "Living Newspaper" to recreate Zoot Suit's historical events in a presentational, agit-prop style (Huerta 15). In such a style, according to Mordecai Gorelik in New Theatres for Old, "Theatre is a tribunal" (378). That is, it is a deliberate "trial" wherein the playwright is the prosecutor, judge and jury, righting a social wrong through the power of dramatic indictment. Accordingly, as a tribunal, Zoot Suit is very successful in its endeavor. The facts of the racial injustice in this era are tersely summarized, humanized and condemned in a thoroughly theatrical manner. But Valdez intends more for his play than simple condemnation of a past injustice. Via the narrator El Pachuco - and the "pachuco" gang characters presented in Zoot Suit - the author attempts to paint a portrait of the complex forces shaping the Mexican-American - i.e. Chicano - immigrant culture. He is less successful in achieving this
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-Americans.
PACHUCO: [to Sgt. Smith] So who are you, puto? Pat O'Brien? (I, Sc. 4, 31)
HENRY: There's not a single paddy we can trust. ... (to Tommy Roberts) ... you respect my family. The rest of them paddies are after our ass. (I, 6, 40)
PACHUCO: (about the defense team) ... These paddies are leading you by the nose. (I, Sc. 8, 51)
TOMMY: (about society in general) Most paddies would probably like to see us locked up for good. (II, Sc. 2, 68)
Because Zoot Suit is about historical events, Luis Valdez takes great care in the play to recreate the specifics of the era. The music, clothes and slang are reproduced meticulously. Consequently, one has to assume that the pachucos' "Irish" references to all aspects of the dominant white society presented in Zoot Suit are probably an accurate portrayal of the speech employed. It is probably an outgrowth of the predominant role Irish-Americans played in joining police organizations (Considine 110-111). This, too, is an assumption, though: while the Irish-Americans' role in police enforcement is an historical fact, it is not accounted for in the dramaturgy of Zoot Suit one way or another. All whites are referred to with the accusatory term "paddy" - and this
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2763
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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