A month-long tribute to the poet, novelist, essayist, dramaturgist, and actor Álamo Oliveira, from Raminho, Terceira-Azores.

“Theater in the California Communities”

By Diniz Borges

Translated by Katharine F. Baker

In April 2005, the Portuguese Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley sponsored the second conference of A vez e a voz da mulher portuguesa em Portugal e na diáspora [The Voice and Choice of the Portuguese Woman in Portugal and the Diaspora]. It was there that I first saw the play Bocas de Mulheres [From the Mouths of Women] by my good friend the playwright Álamo Oliveira, which was graced by the presence of three magnificent actresses from the island of Terceira – Judite Parreira, Maria do Carmo Amaral, and Filomena Ferreira.

The same day, I told Álamo this play deserved to be seen in our Portuguese communities. That’s because these communities don’t have theater – or, more accurately, don’t have Portuguese theater – because if nothing else, even in the remotest rural areas of California, small theater companies exist that put on plays of excellent quality. But not in Portuguese. Our communities rarely get the opportunity to see theater – even more rarely, theater the way it is performed in the Azores and the evolution the latter has undergone. 

That was how this play went to the Azores, and thanks to expenses covered by the Azores’ Direcção Regional das Comunidades [Regional Directorate of Communities] and support from several organizations here in California – namely in Gilroy, Turlock, and Tulare – we had Portuguese theater in northern and central California. Shortness of time prevented the play from traveling to the southern part of our state. The play made its mark in the communities mentioned above, and in these cities, the Portuguese community mustered an excellent turnout. It was wonderful to see that miracles, great and small, can still be performed in our communities where goodwill exists. The presentation of this play exemplified that.

Without great fanfare, but with enthusiasm on the part of several individuals and institutions – notably Deolinda Adão in Berkeley, Al Pinheiro in Gilroy and Elmano Costa in Turlock – the communities of Gilroy (and San Jose, because those who wanted to see the play could go there, just a stone’s throw away), Turlock and Tulare were able to experience an authentic cultural evening. In all these communities, there was extraordinary human warmth. Each community grasped the value of the play, felt the force of its text, and appreciated the talent of its actresses. And it was the only true theater we’ve had in our communities, at two performances preceded by a modest presentation of the English translation of Álamo Oliveira’s novel Já Não Gosto de Chocolates [I No Longer Like Chocolates].

There are two points I wish to reflect upon: first, the value of the play and its interpreters. Álamo Oliveira has once proven to be profoundly aware of our three realities: those of Azorean emigrants, Azorean-Americans, and Americans of Azorean ancestry. The point is that this reality was still not fully understood in the heart of some of our organizations, particularly the so-called cultural ones.

The play carefully fuses multiple generations, whether in conflict or acceptance. Without stereotyping, we are in the presence of a portrait of the metamorphosis that takes place in our Portuguese communities and of the changes that exist in the Azores. The play visits the past (our collective memory on both sides of the Atlantic), incorporates the present, and is a unison cry in women’s struggles, both here and there, for emancipation. This is a play about justice! 

Secondly, these cultural moments are important for the survival of our communities’ existence. It is vital to get away from the increasingly unbearable lunch or dinner with official speeches on the sort of occasions that unfortunately proliferate throughout our communities and are passed off as “cultural events.”

All of us have committed the sin (I confess my own – mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa) of exaggerating the importance of large banquets and their oratory afterwards, almost always obsequious, because it is rare for someone to have the courage to state the truth in these speeches. And when we do, we are condemned to the flames of the most terrible infernos, some of my friends and I, who might speak the truth, and we wind up injecting something cultural that is almost always misunderstood. Culture must have its own space, and with each passing day, I grow more convinced that it cannot be in places of knives and forks. Or, if it is, it will have to be the priority. If only culture came first – and then speechifying!

Still, it is well and good that the Portuguese communities in northern and central California had the opportunity to see and appreciate a piece of theater in the Portuguese language about our multiple realities, which I repeat: Azorean emigrants, Azorean-Americans, and Americans of Azorean ancestry. Incidentally, just like so many other creations of Álamo Oliveira, this play should be seen by the political and official entities on both sides of the Atlantic.

The important thing is for them to understand very much about our communities in the diaspora and the metamorphosis that occurs in them. This play needed to be seen by all our community leaders and pseudo-leaders. Our associative movement, our Portuguese social and cultural organizations, must include cultural education. 

But that’s for another play!

Originally published on April 21, 2006, by Sol Português in Pena & Lápis: “O Teatro e as Comunidades da Califórnia.”