THE SHAME-MAN, EL MEXI-CANT & EL CYBER-VATO COME TO CHICAGO IN SEARCH OF THEIR LOST SELVES (OR THE IDENTITY TOUR)
The cholo is a kind of street tough, a folk cliche whose origins lie in California Latino fashion of the 1950s. But the image is also very current: children at the Pilsen school where I teach draw pictures of cholos as readily as they draw eagles with serpents, Mexican flags, Aztec symbols, crosses, and the mountain ranges of Mexico. Yet almost 100 years ago prints by the Mexican artist Jose Guadalupe Posada, whose art appeared largely in newspapers, showed men sporting goatees and bandannas around their heads, under hats or without them or around the eyes like victims before a firing squad. The look now serves almost the same purpose as hooded shirts among gang members: it effectively veils the identity of the individual, yet with one glance it quickly identifies him as a member of a larger body. But unlike your average gang-banger, the cholo is a tragic and heroic figure. First, he’s a victim of the class system in Mexico and of the uneasy U.S.-Mexican alliance. But he’s also evolved from the mythic Mexican cowboy of the 19th century, the charro, who even if he had nothing else had balls.
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Luna and Gomez-Pena at times interact, at times perform solo, then return to the dressing table and confide in each other or let off steam by sighing, then change costume and move out again onto the stage. Gomez-Pena uses both a lectern and a music stand for his script, and Luna uses a clipboard for his. Neither is “off script,” though there are segments in which scripts are not in hand, nor do they seem necessary. The contrast between reading, apparently improvised asides at the dressing table, and stylized actions, dances, and accents (Gomez-Pena uses a fake Yaqui dialect, also heard during his Field Museum installation with Coco Fusco a year ago) makes the performance as a whole slightly unpredictable, seemingly candid, relaxed, and refreshingly real.
