Photo: Mica García de Benavidez, Courtesy of Su Teatro
Actors Jose Aguila and Carlo Rincon as the older and younger Antonio in the stage adapted Rudolfo Anaya work Bless Me, Ultima, now playing at Su Teatro.
By John Kuebler
Beginning February 12, Su Teatro will be bringing to life the landmark work of Chicano literature, Bless Me, Ultima, while paying homage to the story’s creator, Rudolfo Anaya.
The theater company will present Anaya’s own adaptation of his novel in a workshop production directed by master theater instructor Jennifer McCray Rincon and featuring an ensemble cast led by Su Teatro veteranos Angel Mendez-Soto as the villainous Tenorio and the indomitable Yolanda Ortega as Ultima.
The play kicks off a spring-long company celebration of Anaya’s great coming-of-age novel. Through a partnership with The Big Read, a major initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Su Teatro will present dramatic readings, community reading circles, a special panel and film about Rudolfo Anaya at the XicanIndie FilmFest, and a creative response to Anaya’s work featured in the Tacos and Words Literary Salon at the Neruda Poetry Festival.
Su Teatro Artistic Director Anthony J. García once called Rudolfo Anaya “the Dean of Chicano literature,” and the designation fits. Bless Me, Ultima earned Anaya the Premio Quinto Sol Literary Award, and the author has gone on to receive such honors as the American Book Award, the PEN-West Fiction Award, and the NEA National Medal of Arts.
In Bless Me, Ultima, his pioneering work, Anaya taps into the magic of childhood with poetic elegance. Torn between his mother’s earthy farming family and his father’s wild vaquero brothers, young Antonio finds a wondrous middle ground in his relationship with the wise old curandera, Ultima.
“I have often been asked to adapt some of my novels for the stage,” Anaya said. “The favorite is Bless Me, Ultima. This summer I had time. The first draft was just an outline, but as I worked on fleshing it
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