THEATER | Teatro del Pueblo's Political Theatre Festival again asks the tough questions—and waits for your answers

Teatro del Pueblo's ninth annual Political Theatre Festival, which runs from February 25 through March 13, has the theme "Across the Divide." An immigrant displaced in a new land considers a surgical change; would-be immigrants struggle for visa; Latino women face misconceptions about one another; a survivor of sex trafficking seeks justice; a multitude of characters live together on one block.

Jerome and McKnight fellow Dominic Orlando, Teatro's resident playwright, hits theatrical home runs for a fifth year. American Civil Liberties addresses the international trafficking of women into sexual slavery.

"It's easier to to ignore this issue, consider these women numbers," observes Teatro del Pueblo artistic director Al Justiniano. "Dominic puts a face on these women and what they've endured. Women are brought here from all over the world—Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa."

Orlando's other new work, The Free Market, portrays a disturbing confrontation between an undocumented immigrant and a businessman. It's an interactive play that asks the audience to decide who is the criminal and who is the victim. Orlando's 2007 Embassy of the Americas is a reprise. In that play, the viewer is powerfully drawn into a bureaucratic labyrinth of Orwellian proportions that immigrants face when trying to enter the U.S. legally.

Whatever and Delicately by Pia Wilson, an East Coast playwright with two full-length dramas and many short works, revolves around a chance encounter.. Fringe Festival and Teatro actor Yolanda Cotterall and Melanie Wehrmacher, recently seen in Theater Pro Rata's Marisol, play immigrant women confronting misconceptions about each other.

Guillerno Reyes, a Chilean playwright whose Dead Bolivians on a Raft was part of a past Political Theatre Festival, returns with Sarita, The Frowning Immigrant, an ironic look at U.S. culture through immigrant eyes. Another interactive play is Ignacio Solute's The American Is Dreaming, which addresses the process for U.S. citizenship, with audience input that makes each performance different.

Collaborating with Pangea World Theater, Teatro presents a wonderful one-man show, N.E. 2nd Avenue, written and performed by Teo Castellanos. Born in Puerto Rico, Castellanos grew up in Miami and reveals the magnificent diversity of that city in 13 characters who are Cuban, Jewish, African-American, Haitian, Jamaican and Puerto Rican. Castellanos works as an actor, playwright, and director in theater, film and television, having won multiple awards; his work is a perfect capstone to the festival.

Divided into two series of three one-act plays each, Justinano says the festival's plays are picked to "engage the audience to address an issue through improvisation and exchange." But instead of the kind of empty shouting engaged in by cable TV's polarized pundits, Justiano says he aims for real discourse.

"We include all points of view. For example, the perceptions of the federal government and why they do what they do. We're really trying to create a forum after the plays so questions are asked and people feel free to have their own thoughts and feelings. It's a catalyst for thinking."

Lydia Howell

Lydia Howell (email lydia@tcdailyplanet.net), a winner of the 2007 Premack Award for Public Interest Journalism, is a Minneapolis independent journalist writing for various newspapers.