Heading downhill

The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa is a play every bit as goofy as its title suggests. This latest production from the Miracle Theatre Group, a Latino arts and culture organization, is a strange, shallow look into the lives of a Latino family in the 1960s.

Even the premise is pretty silly. A family lives in a dilapidated apartment, the kids are unruly, the mother is large and loud, and the elderly father has bad dreams about the revolution and his part in helping Pancho Villa.

And there is a head. This head is the eldest brother, named Belarmino. He hangs around, constantly demanding frijoles and grinning from ear to ear. He drives everyone crazy with his screaming, making weird noises, singing “La Cucaracha” and eating cockroaches. Mama dotes on him (the only reason they know it’s a “him” is because of his thick hair and mustache) but everyone else finds him annoying. Until one night he gets high with his brother and reveals a long-held secret.

Any semblance of a forward moving, rational plot goes further down the drain when the daughter gives birth to yet another head, the mother declares that she was actually the one involved in the war and Joaquin, the youngest brother, is “rehabilitated” in prison by losing his head.

There is a hodge-podge of acting talent in this production. By far the most taxing and therefore the most rewarding is the performance of Vincente Guzman-Orozco, who plays the head. He is the person to watch (or more accurately, listen to), even if you are only seeing one-fifth of him. His use of vocals and facial expressions to illustrate his emotions are impressive.

Jose E. Gonzalez, who plays the father, Pedro, also gives a decent performance; one can tell he has been in the biz for a while (he played Joaquin, one of the sons, in Miracle Theatre’s 1990 production of the same play) and is completely comfortable in the limelight. Bunnie Rivera, who plays Cruz, the boisterous mother, is also a veteran of the performance, playing the same part as she did in the 1990 production. She does the part justice by applying the stereotypical Latina motherly qualities of fluster and aggression.

While these actors create a world that, amazingly, is believable at times, it is short-changed by some of the other performances. Danny Moreno, who plays Mingo, yet another brother who comes back home after serving in the military, continually stumbles over his lines, making his character one of the least engaging.

Olga Sanchez’s direction makes for a quality production, even if it is punctuated with lots of scene changes in the dark. The set design portrays the despair of poverty of the family well, complete with an increasing number of cockroaches adorning the walls as the play goes on.

There is no depth of commentary about the Latino struggle of poverty or family relationships to be found in this production. But then again, I don’t think that is the point of Pancho Villa. Rather than dwell on the hardship that many Latinos face even today, it has the ability to be a good-hearted spoof on the condition that many Latinos find themselves in, making this play a great addition to Latino theatre.    

Sometimes a little too gimmicky, The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa is still a production worth seeing, if only for its silliness. Sometimes, that’s all that is needed to make something worthwhile.