Review: The Play EL CHE Begs The Question, Porque Che?

In the wake of an otherwise amateurish production of Marcelino Quiñonez's homage to Che Guevara, two questions beg for answers: Why Che? And, to what end? If the play is a work in progress, with aspirations for a larger stage, it might be helpful to ponder the riddles.

EL CHE's August 26th weekend run at the Phoenix Center for the Arts was preceded by promotional promises that the play would demystify the iconic figure and present the human to the world, focusing on the friend, the husband, the revolutionary, and the father. That audience members would better understand how a medical doctor (though, by the way, there is no evidence that he graduated) became "the ultimate symbol of rebellion."

From this reviewer's perspective, the work falls short on both counts. The distance between the hovering portrait of the hirsute guerilla fighter and the on-stage character (portrayed by the playwright) was as wide as its lapses between fact and fiction.

As the play opens, Che is in the custody of two U.S. soldiers, one of whom (cast, for apparent political effect, as a buffoon) has a strong itch to dispose of his prisoner asap. It's during the wait for his ultimate fate, sitting in silent and brooding defiance, that flashbacks to the days of his encounters with Castro and his marriage are conveyed.

Focusing unsteadily on his equally unsteady second marriage to Aleida ~ more like scenes from The Honeymooners ~ scant mention is made of the years that may truly have turned him to insurrection, of the frail asthmatic from Argentina who motorcycled through the hemisphere as witness to persecution and ultimately became Castro's agent to combat American imperialism, overthrow oppressive regimes, and export Communism. His interactions with Castro are unconvincing, particularly when he's portrayed as more a pawn than a knight. His death by the redneck's bullet to the back of the head does not comport with his execution by a hail of CIA-sanctioned bullets in Bolivia.

At one moment, Quinonez's Che crows like a poster boy for the revolution, fist in the air, evoking the call for a new world order ~ like a scene from one of the old Soviet recruitment flicks. In another moment, his glad-handing with Fidel seems curiously comical. At each turn, the opportunity to probe the nuances of this character gets lost in a cloud of parody. Che ends up as a caricature.

In the end, history is not as kind as the playwright. In the '60's and '70's the champions of the oppressed and national liberation movements bundled the likes of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Malcolm X, and Che into a fraternity of saviors ~ albeit their philosophies and tactics were substantially and qualitatively different. Today, the philosophy of educators like Paulo Freire perpetuate the mythology.

Yet, in the case of Guevara, facts win out. For all his initial idealism, Che was complicit in exchanging one form of tyranny and oppression for another. He was Castro's chief executioner, the mastermind behind Cuba's slave labor camps, and ironically a failed "freedom fighter" in the Congo and Bolivia.

In an introduction to the anthology that included EL CHE, Dr. Jorge Huerta proffered that the compilation of works would introduce the reader to stories of Latinas and Latinos in the Américas ~ heroic figures and contemporary villains ~ and "reveal the struggles and triumphs of all peoples in search of a meaningful life."

We cannot be certain if the playwright considers Che the hero or the villain. What does seem certain, however, is that EL CHE only skims the surface of what forces drove the man to his extremes. But then, the riddle remains: Why should we care? Indeed, if there are role models to be offered to a young audience, there may be better options than Che Guevara.

For a deeper understanding of Che ~ and perhaps a more fulfilling way to realize the playwright's intentions ~ it might be far better to turn to Che, Steven Soderbergh's epic two-part film.

Photo credit to Kary Franco

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