Zoot Suit and Other Plays by Luis Valdez

The theme is overstated and the portraits of whites are mere posters - though sbmetimes striking ones. Thus, the stripping of one of the characters down to his jockey shorts by a group of white sailors is both agonizingly theatrical and a statement of the play's theme of oppression. The play sees their grotesque and exaggerated style as a protest and a struggling assertion that could only flnd expression in clothes. The characters wear the zoot suits of the period, with their snap brimmed hats, baggy pants, long coats and dangling chains. Set at the time of World War II, it uses the “pachucos', - members of the Chicano street gangs - as its central image. Both elements can be seen in “Zoot Suit,” with its loose form, its music and dancing, its didacticism and its comical and observant irony. Valdez's style, mingling activism with entertainment, has been described as a mixture of Cantinflas, the popular Mexican comic, and Brecht. “Zoot Suit” is written and directed by Luis Valdez, whose own Teatro Campesino has been a focus of Mexican American cultural expression and has won recognition both in this country and abroad. The Chicano culture is peripheral to this city's image and self‐image, and yet by now Chicanos are the largest single group in the city's schools. Unknown in the East, of course, but to a considera‐ble degree unknown in Los Angeles itself.

I use the word “important” advisedly, but “unknown” would also be appropriate. The Taper has a tradition of political and social involvement, and “Zoot Suit” deals with the struggling consciousness of an important subculture, the Chicano or Mexican‐American population of Southern California. It is scaffolded with a good deal of awkward and unformed matter, out individual shapes that are both specific and moving have begun to emerge “Zoot Suit,” the most recent production in the Taper's development series, is an interesting example. Along with its finished major productions, the Mark Taper Forum dedicates a great deal of its efforts to putting on works that are still taking shape. SOME plays are born whole others go through a public gestation. Taper Forum Presents, “Zoot Suit” New York Times, 1978 Where : Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, April 1978 The productions are listed in chronological order, and contain a cast list, one to two published reviews and an analysis of the production's critical reception.

On this page you'll find short production histories compiled on four major productions of Zoot Suit: The original Mark Taper Forum production in 1978, the Broadway production in 1979, the Film which was released in 1981 and finally, the contemporary revival which is currently playing at the Mark Taper Forum.

Zoot Suit and Other Plays by Luis Valdez