[10] SOUNDS LIKE OTRA COSA ME Guerilla street theater director Felix Romero is Mel Brooks on high octane. I tour with him 1977-1979 while holding down my day job with Latin New York and later attending Amherst College. The founder of Teatro Otra Cosa believes in one mantra: "Unexpected is good. Bad is good. Controlled insanity is good. I grew up with a lot of diversification since age five; exposed to so many people. Check it out, I danced to Machito with Charlie Parker sitting in – a bop rumberito. I never thought there were any limits nor did I ever think that what we were doing was Puerto Rican Art or Latino art or Hispanic arts. What I was doing was just art. It was a manifestation of whatever I was about. As we got further away from the old school flow that’s where Teatro Otra Cosa started to emerge. In 1969 a lot of people were still doing traditional theater except me. I was doing street theater. I would go with five cats and we would do crazy sketches in the street just to make money. The stuff that was coming out was a combination of poetry, improv theater with mime and since I was a percussionist we played bombas, plenas, rumbas whatever came out. I got noticed by the people at Teatro Puerto Rico because they saw me doing a street thing. They wanted me to get involved and coordinate their shows. The way the shows use to run in those days was pure insanity. The show had to run in five theaters on the same day in between the films. Movie ... show ... movie ... show ... movie … show. It went from Teatro Puerto Rico to El Tapia in Manhattan, down to the Jefferson Theater in Manhattan, Teatro Yaguez in Brooklyn then out to Queens and back to the Bronx. We would do the number then the car would take them to the next theater to start the show at the other place then as the acts finished they would keep going from one theater to the next. I don’t know how these things ever got done. Of course the weren’t that many cars on the road back then. That whole period of time I was into everything and all that expression became Otra Cosa – Something Else.” Felix blends sophomoric bilingual comedy skits with high energy Afro Cuban Rumbas, Puerto Rican Bombas and Plenas - percussion driven Caribbean dances. Everything in the repertoire is off center. Thus "Otra Cosa/Something else". It is a world of improvisation with Romero running around stage with a big comedic net. But there’s a method to the madness. The rapid fire pieces rarely last over four minutes. In his way, Felix is lovingly burlesquing a dying art form -- Latino Vaudeville. But at the very heart of Teatro Otra Cosa is Puerto Rican "Verso Negro", a Caribbean blend of poetry and spoken (Spanish language) performance that is staged traditionally in Puerto Rico by declamadores - spokesmen. Felix attempts to extend this tradition into a new South Bronx form. The group experiments fusing doo wop, samba, percussion and bilingual call and response patterns. Broadway gypsy Isa Diaz and Felix develop the choreography. A blend of Bob Fosse meets Puerto Rican cultural dance master Don Rafael Cepeda of Loisa Aldea. In 1977 Miguel Algarin asserts Felix is tapped into something else, "He has got a vision of theater that is extraordinary. I really loved the show he did at Lincoln Center. I thought it was a great outdoors piece. It was terrific because it was so essentially outdoors. Here's an interesting moment. Felix came to 36th Street looking to work with Mikey (Pinero) and me. We were having a Conga Mania rehersal and Lucky Cienfuegos had just fired the whole cast. We were due to open in just a couple of weeks and the pressure around us was enormous. This very rich guy was pouring a lot of money into advertising and Lucky fired the whole cast. Felix walked in very controlled and subdued. I looked at him and said I have never seen anything deader than you. It had nothing to do with the poor guy. It was my intense disturbance over Lucky's act and I don't think we ever recuperated from that moment but I saw his work and it was the opposite. Instead of being dead it was alive." Felix takes under his wing besides me, percussionists Bobby Sanabria and Joe Sircus while Poet Sandy Estevez twirls as a Bomba dancer along the craziest crew of performers this side of the Bronx River. Otra Cosa's repertoire includes stream of consciousness improvisation structured in mad scripts by Felix and the crew. We capitalize on the groups unique stateside humor. Toby, Jose, Angie, Isa, Henry, (V1-v2-v3-v4) strong voices but unaffected We come in (v1) Comedy (v2) Adventure (v3) Fantasy (v4) And tragedy (v2-v3-v4) (twilight zone theme) (v1) rod serling voice: Otra cosa The tonic for your cultural emptiness (v2) homeboy voice: Who we got to shoot to get a drink on up in here (v3) trailer trash voice: As god is my witness, i will never go thirsty again but i don't know nothin about birthing no babies and what about the children, (v1) Frankly my dear i don’t give a damn! (v4) super announcer voice: Whooooooooeeeeeeeee its gonna be a sudsuckinbutfuckin bootheadlicking chilidogsniffin scalawaginprofanitorium of f.u.n. (v1-v2-v4) Fun …. Bring your momma bring your pops bring em down down from arkansas, all right - hey, hey tell me what i say - tell me what i say right now -tell me what i say (v3) hysterical And what the hell is this all about? (v3) affected refined voice but still trailer trash: You know, this reminds me of the time i was prime minister in uganda. Shortly before idi ... Yes ... I remember as if it were tomorrow. You know that Idi is a bit backwards in the bush, bushman, nasty. (v1/v2/v4) Don't forget!!!!!! (v3) Give me five On the black hand side (v4) Let there be no doubt in your minds. Cause we going to get cheesy i'm talking like george an weezie maybe throw in some grumpy and sneezy cap it of like james with please please please me. (v1) Enraged (v2) Embittered (v3) Embalmed (v2) an extreme quickness for the rest of piece till noted Creole hattie will work a root on you (v3) Oooooo scary scary time (v1-v4) Root root root root (v3) No nena brujeria (v1) Its scary time children (v4) I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too (v2) raspy old man drunk I need a drink (v3) I know you as a man but when did you become a child (V4) But I don’t nothing about birthing no babies (v2) timid Mother is that you (v3) same Momma is dat u (v1) same (kissing sound) mommy chula esa eres tu (v4) psychotic Help me i'm being held hostage By a velvet picture of elvis A red velvet elvis But not the young one Its the old fat peanut butter bacon banana sandwhich eating Graceland living rhinestone high collar wearing hip hugging I’m so lonesome baby, i been so lonesome baby I could die (v1) I use to have a sense of who i wasn’t (v2) Now i’m clueless (v3) I’m defined senseless (v1-v4) break the pace to original tempo Help me Hep me Hep H (blackout) © Luis Chaluisan August 1977 |
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