New play uses comedy and satire to subvert assumptions on political thinking of Latinos

“The Latino vote” is something political analysts strive to understand and capture every election year.

We often hear pollsters and talking heads on the news going on about it, right? But despite what pundits might wish, it is neither as simple to understand nor as monolithic as the label might suggest.

For many voters in Texas, the whole framing can seem exhausting. But it served as the inspiration for playwright Bernardo Cubría, who wrote a new comedy satire premiering in Houston today called “The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine Vote” – directed by César Jáquez. 

Cubría and Jáquez spoke with the Standard on never identifying a specific party in the play and the challenges of bringing words from the page to stage. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: How about one of you give us a quick rundown of this play and who the characters are. This sounds like solid gold for the right stand-up comic. Bernardo, could you tell us a little bit more about what this is about? 

Bernardo Cubría: Sure. So the play is a satire about this sort of notion that the Latino vote would be monolithic, that everyone – from Tijuana to Buenos Aires – would somehow agree with each other.

And the simple plot of this story is that this professor of Latin studies, Paola, is hired by, “the political party” to help them reach the Latino/Latinx/Latine vote just in time for the election that’s about a month away.

And the question is, can she do it? Will she be able to help them? And the main reason she accepts it is because she’s been going through some IVF treatments and she’s trying to get pregnant. And so because the money is too good to pass up, she says yes and hopefully hilarity ensues.

Now, Bernardo, I don’t want to let you off the hook personally, because I understand last election cycle you got a little bit of election anxiety over some of this. You sort of channeled that anxiety into this play. 

Bernardo Cubría: Yes. So I’m sad to admit that in the last two election cycles, I spent most of my free time arguing with strangers on Twitter, to which my wife would say, “What are you doing? Please stop doing this. This helps me no one.”

And I learned my lesson and I thought “this time, why not write a comedy?” Because that’s the best way to deal with this kind of anxiety and try to, instead of preach it to people, create a space where we can all talk to each other and actually listen to people who disagree with us.

Because I think the huge mistake I made for eight years was preaching at people, yelling at people, not treating them as human beings and three dimensional people. And so I wanted to make a play about that and hopefully get us all to listen to each other a little bit more.

César, I understand this is your first time directing. How do you go about taking these words on a page and delivering them to an audience? There must be special challenges here, especially given the nature of what you’re talking about. 

César Jáquez: Absolutely. Yeah, it is my first time. It’s my directing debut here in Houston.

So it’s been a whirlwind of a bunch of emotions, but I, luckily, have been sitting on this play for about eight months. So I got to do a workshop with Bernardo actually up in San Diego and the Old Globe Theater and, you know, I’ve been really able to digest it and really think about what I wanted and how to make these themes come to life.

So I’ve been really fortunate to have so much time to really think about it. And I also have a great, great production team. I have a great cast and a great theater who’s supporting me and supporting this play and the overall message of this show.

It’s been a little challenging because it does deal with some serious topics, but in a comedic way. So making sure that we find a balance of both and making sure that Bernardo’s words are upheld to its highest standards…

But it’s been fun. It’s been a dream come true. Honestly, I couldn’t have dreamed for a better show to be my first show to direct.

Bernardo, let’s talk about the character who sort of seems to be a fulcrum in this play, the professor. What’s really interesting, as I understand it, the audience is never told what specific party hired the professor. Could you walk us through that decision? What was on your mind there? 

Bernardo Cubría: Yeah, the truth is I don’t really like plays or movies that preach at you and tell you that they have the answers to life. I don’t think that I have answers. I think I have a lot of questions, right?

And so I thought it’s better to make it just “the political party,” because the thing I’m really trying to talk about is sort of demanding that people see everybody who they interact with as fully formed, three dimensional people way more than just labels or categories that political parties try to put us in.

And so, to me, it was like I don’t want to make a play that tells people what political party I agree with. I mean, I’m a theater person. I think people could probably guess. But, you know, I wanted to make a play that welcomed everyone into the theater, you know?

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Yeah, but that’s just it, César, because I think that there are these stereotypes which are often presented. I know here in Texas you watch a lot of the news and what you’ll hear is this narrative about how the GOP, for example, is making big inroads into the Latino vote. A lot packed into a statement like that. But how do you use these ideas? How do you eliminate these ideas onstage?

César Jáquez: That’s a great question. I think it’s just like leaning into these characters who are being presented as fully human.

You know, they have opinions that range that you would be surprised, depending on where they come from – their nationality and their lived experiences that Bernardo wrote. And they say certain things that, not to give too much away, that make you be like you can’t just assume that someone is going to vote for someone just because you’re from a certain area or because they all look the same.

So it’s been really interesting just to dive into the full humanity of these people, real people. And it really does show the diaspora of the Latin community because not everybody thinks the same, not all of us. Just because we’re all brown doesn’t mean that we all think the same or have the same morals.

So just deep diving into that and like just taking a lens and just going in a little slowly into them and thinking about where they’re from, how immigration reform affects people from different parts of the country and how it affects their communities or just like really leaning into seeing these characters as fully human and not just like stereotypes or caricatures.

These issues affect people in different ways, and I think that’s a big part of the message that’s being communicated here. Am I wrong there, César?

César Jáquez: No, you’re absolutely right. All of these issues that are on the news that we are constantly talking about do affect everybody differently.

You know, just immigration reform, for example, is going to be different for people who live in Texas than it is up in New York or in California. It’s very different.

So just thinking about those things and just making sure we keep the nuances of the lived experiences has been very vital and very important in order to tell this story.

Bernardo, especially these days, it seems like politics can be so touchy. I mean, hard to do, I would I would imagine. What sort of feedback have you been getting? By the way, this is the debut of the play – the world premiere – is that right?

Bernardo Cubría: So this is part of a rolling world premiere. The play is going to be presented in eight cities around the country.

And this is the second production, but very meaningful for me because I grew up in Houston, Texas. And so my parents are coming. My brothers are coming. My mom and dad invited like 70 of their closest friend to the opening. So that means a great deal to me.

And what’s been really cool, to be honest, is we’ve done workshops all over the country and I think most people are tired of yelling at one another, at being judged, at being labeled. And I think when you get in this space and you get to treat people at their humanity and meet them at their nuance, I think in all these cities around the country that we’ve gotten to do the play, people seem to be excited to be given the opportunity to talk to people who may disagree with them without people yelling or labeling each other. And so it’s been really moving, and I hope that continues.

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