December 2007
The Richness of the Pastorela Play
by Marjorie Lilly
In 1973 a handwritten script brought two people together. Filomena Baca was seeking a Pastorela play. Meanwhile, tucked away in the home of Epifanio Chavez, was a script of the Christmas play. It was a birthday present to Chavez from his brother.
Baca’s mother was aware of her daughter’s search, and knew Chavez had a Pastorela play, so she introduced the two. Chavez who lives in the little town of Las Nutrias near Belen, faithfully loaned Filomena his script that year.
Baca was so excited that for a week she stayed up until past midnight typing a copy of the play. The script was handwritten in Spanish, and in cursive writing. Most people in Las Nutrias didn’t have typewriters during the late 1920s, when, Baca believes, it was written.
The Pastorela had not been staged in Belen since Christmas 1929, when Baca’s mother had played the part of the shepherdess Gila in the final production. Baca was involved in a theatre group at church, so she made copies for her co-director and the actors.
Baca’s first production of the play was in December of 1973. She had learned the original tunes of the songs from her mother, uncle, and two aunts who had been in the play. "If they hadn’t been around, we wouldn’t have known the songs," Baca says.
The Belen group has put on La Gran Pastorela every year for 34 consecutive years making it the longest-running Pastorela in the state.
The Pastorela, or Los Pastores (the Shepherds), was the most popular religious play in New Mexico, in both the little towns and larger communities. But by the middle of the twentieth century it had almost vanished with the rapid diffusion of American culture. But the sixties and seventies saw several revivals.
That year, after a 44-year absence, the play was performed at Las Golondrinas, and at the Our Lady of Belen Church. "The place was packed," says Baca. "People were sitting on the steps, and kids were sitting on the floor. Some of the audience members were saying the parts along with the actors."
The Belen group has put on La Gran Pastorela every year for 34 consecutive years making it the longest-running Pastorela in the state. The production in Taos, which began in 1975, runs a close second. Since then the Belen group has performed the play in many places in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. Baca has served as the director the entire time.
The first record of a Pastorela in New Mexico was in 1899 by a scholar named Honora De Busk, in San Rafael, south of Grants. Some believe the state must have had a tradition of liturgical plays before that because of the strong influence of Franciscan friars, who were known for their love of dramatic works and of the Christmas story. But there is scant record of any kind of religious plays. When and where the first Pastorela was put on in New Mexico remains a mystery.
In the early decades of the twentieth century there was a lot of activity by folklorists to record the tradition. Dr. Enrique Lamadrid at The University of New Mexico, a specialist in folklore, says that a wider variety of liturgical plays have been found in New Mexico than anywhere else, even in Mexico. Los Comanches, Los Tejanos, Adam and Eve, Moors y Christians, The Lost Child, and The Miracles of Guadalupe are a few of them. But Las Posadas and Los Pastores were by far the most popular, he says. It’s easy to see why, with their charm, warmth, and humor. The shepherd theme must have resonated with the Nuevo Mexicanos, who kept large herds of sheep.
"My mother told me they used to have so much fun," says Baca. "They would start in Nutrias and Jarales, where they got together and practiced. Then they’d travel to the towns of Tome, Bosque, Sabinal, Valencia, La Joya, and Belen." The actors are mostly retirement age, although none is old enough to remember seeing the play. But several heard their parents mention Bartolo, the shepherd famous for his laziness. "I never knew what they were talking about," says Frank Esquibel, 63, the musical director. He says his parents would say, "Levantaté Bartolo/Basta con tanta flojera (Get up, Bartolo, enough of this laziness)."
The Belen play is unprofessional enough to be folksy. Some of the shepherds have strong voices, some sing off-key. They’re accompanied by the humble, joyful Mexican music of a local group headed by Esquibel.
The Belen version of the play is only 45 minutes, and is full of music. The language is archaic to the Hispanic speakers of Belen. "Some of the words are hard to memorize because I’ve never heard them," says Emilio Torres, 79, who’s played the part of the Diablo for eight years. "That last part has a lot of beautiful words in it," he remarks.
The Diablo’s last words, while dying, are famous lines by Spain’s Golden Age poet Luis de Gongora:
"Ayer maravilla fui
Y hoy sombra de mi no soy."
"Yesterday I was a marvel,
And today I’m not a shadow of myself."
The plot is based loosely on the Biblical story of Jesus’ birth. Shepherds are walking in the countryside when they hear from the Archangel Michael that Jesus is born. They travel to see him but are met by the Diablo (or Lucifer, or Luzbel), who tries to prevent them from their journey. The angel triumphs over the devil, and the shepherds arrive at the manger with gifts such as a lamb, a pillow and diapers. The character, Bartolo, is lazy and refuses to go, and has a funny, lengthy exchange with the other shepherds:
"Si quiere la Gloria verme
Que venga la Gloria aca."
"If the Glory wants to see me
Let the Glory come here."
The history of the Pastores play is one of a long evolution over centuries. St. Francis of Assisi is believed to have started the tradition of Christmas pageants in Italy, using real animals and a baby. He’s said to have had a special love of the Christmas story.
Liturgical plays grew out of brief fragments of drama within church services in the eleventh century. By the end of the 1400s, the form had developed enough so that the Spanish Kings, including young Princess Isabella, watched a Christmas presentation in 1487. Oddly, in Spain there is only one remaining script of an auto sacramental (liturgical play) from this whole period—the Three Kings play.
The form of the auto sacramental was just taking shape as Spain was on the brink of their conquest of the New World. Missionaries familiar with Spain’s ongoing Golden Age of literature arrived in Mexico eager to spread the Roman Catholic faith. They found an indigenous people with a lively tradition of public religious spectacles that included poetry, music, dance, and acrobatics. The clergy learned Nahuatl and other indigenous languages to teach the natives about Christianity and wrote plays and songs in the native tongues.
Some of the exuberance with which the Aztecs took to Christian theatre is described by Fray Alonso Ponce in 1587: "They gave great leaps and bounds, using their shepherd’s crooks, as of the greatest joy and pleasure."
Another New Mexico town where Los Pastores had a revival was in Las Cruces. But the impetus there came from outside the state.
In 1961 a few Las Cruces families were enjoying what they called a resolana, or religious retreat. A pastor from the Santa Barbara Mission in California, Owen da Silva, introduced the script to them from that mission that he had translated into English.
Rita Jo Sosa-Carver remembers sitting on her mother’s lap at that first performance at the San Albino Church in La Mesilla. Her sister, Roberta, was also there, and Joe Provencio was one of the helpers at about age seven. Roberta much later married Provencio. Their children and even grandchildren have taken part in Los Pastores, making four generations of participants.
The span of years for this production is longer than for the Belen play, but the Mesilla group skipped two years. They call their company Los Pastores del Valle de Mesilla. Joe Provencio searches through the family albums to find photos of the play, and rambles on about family members: "This is my wife’s sister, this was my cousin, these are my kids." The Pastorela is definitely a family affair.
Prize-winning playwright and novelist Denise Chavez grew up in Las Cruces and played the part of Gila when she was in her mid-twenties and a drama student at New Mexico State University.
The group has played in many southern New Mexico towns such as in Truth or Consequences, Hatch, Canutillo, and Carlsbad. They have also performed in Texas and Arizona. No one seems to know about any prior tradition of Los Pastores plays in southern New Mexico, but Chavez believes that question should be left "open-ended," waiting on more research.
According to researcher Tomas Lozano, a nativity play considered a predecessor to Los Pastores was produced in Tlatelolco, Mexico in 1530, only 11 years after the conquest by Cortez. There followed a period of great creativity in the writing of religious plays. There was a Coloquio de Los Pastores produced in Sinaloa in 1595.
The play’s plot was still growing and putting out branches. In the 1600s the characters of Bato and Bras were introduced, and Diablo characters were incorporated. The name Bato, a common Chicano slang word meaning "guy" (often spelled vato), probably comes from these plays, but goes back at least as far as the name of a goatherd in a Greek play by Theocritus, in 285 BC.
The important character of shepherdess Gila appeared the first time in 1750, in Mexico City. It is another common name from the pastoral literature tradition in Europe.
There are many variations on the basic Pastorela plot. Some plays have from one to seven devils, the number of shepherds also varies, and in some Pastorelas, Gila is a seductress or an ingenue.
The Pastorelas produced in New Mexico are some of the most conservative versions around. The native Hispanics are trying to preserve their people’s traditions. It’s hard to say what will happen to the Pastorela revivals in New Mexico in the coming century, but right now they are thriving, on a small scale.
Esquibel says his eight-year-old granddaughter, Gaby, already knows all the parts. "I see her moving her mouth during the play." His talented son, Joe, plays in the musical group.
"We’ve had several members get to where they can’t do it anymore," says Esquibel, "and someone else takes their place every time."
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