All The World's a Stage

With a little help from bottled oxygen and coca tea, members of the Skid Row theater troupe, LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department), landed at El Alto airport – one of the highest in the world at 13,000+ feet – near Bolivia’s capital, La Paz. Coming from sea level in Los Angeles, Tony Parker found himself dizzy and short of breath. But Cristina Lopez, a Spanish filmmaker who is shooting a documentary about the group’s Bolivian project, got him some coca tea, the local remedy for altitude sickness, and Tony was soon all right again. Cris had never met him before, but Tony, a black man with long dreadlocks, was easy for Cris to spot.

Later, when Kevin Michael Key landed and suffered similar reactions to the drastic altitude change, he ordered up some oxygen, which the airport keeps stocked for afflicted visitors. As a recovering cocaine addict, Kevin refused to drink coca tea, though some medical authorities had assured him that the coca plant does not possess the addictive properties of the finished drug that is made from it.

LAPD director John Malpede and his wife Henriette Brouwers had less trouble adjusting to the thin altiplano atomosphere above La Paz. They had just arrived from Huancayo, Peru, visiting the family of Nilo Berrocal. Nilo grew up in Peru, but emigrated to Holland, where he has lived and worked for the past 20+ years, as a theater director in Utrecht. Nilo and his wife, Babette, who directs special projects for a Dutch university, are both fluent in Spanish. Part of their task is to bring the other cast members up to speed in the language, since the play they are doing – “Agents and Assets” – is being presented for the first time ever in Spanish.

Malpede wrote the play script, based on a 1998 U.S. Congressional hearing, about the complicity of the CIA in the smuggling and dealing of crack cocaine in the United States by agents of the Nicaraguan Contras. Backed by the Reagan administration, the Contras fought against the democratically elected leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Reagan called the Contras “freedom fighters,” but Congress denied them U.S. funding. So the Contras turned to drug smuggling to fund their anti-Sandinista military actions, with the acquiescence of the CIA, who permitted and abetted the Contra drug operation.

The hearing reveals the hypocrisy of lawmakers who decry illegal drugs, even as they refuse to sanction the CIA for enabling millions of Americans to become cocaine addicts, to pay for an illegal war. Malpede edited the hearing transcript for length and clarity, but did not change a word of it. LAPD actors and others who play the twelve committee members and the CIA inspector general called to testify, are men and women who have been personally affected by illegal drugs and the “war” against them. Some have suffered addiction or incarceration. Speaking the words of hypocritical lawmakers who permit systemic abuse is their witness against their false sentiments.

“Agents & Assets” began its long run of performances during the uncertain post-presidential election period of 2000, touring many cities throughout the United States. The “second act” of the show is a discussion, led by a moderator and a couple of speakers, who relate current and/or local issues to the themes of the play. With different drug reform laws up for votes in various states, the show showed its political potency. But “Agents & Assets” also proved relevant in Europe – in England and Holland and Belgium – which suffer their own intransigent problems with drugs and drug laws.

Now, perhaps most explosively, the play, titled “Agentes y Activos” for Bolivian audiences, has come to a place where much cocaine originates. Relations between the United States and Bolivia have worsened in recent years. Bolivian President Evo Morales, the first indigenous leader of any South American country, has been for many years, and remains, the head of the federation of coca growers. The Bush administration accused Morales of failing to stem the tide of cocaine production and distribution. In turn, Morales accused the U.S. of meddling in Bolivian affairs, plotting with his political enemies to overthrow his government.

Both countries expelled each other’s ambassadors. The U.S. ended its preferential trade terms with Bolivia, citing the country’s lack of drug enforcement cooperation. In retaliation, Bolivia threw out U.S. government employees working in its territory: the DEA, AID and Peace Corps. Morales and some U.S. officials have expressed a cautious optimism that relations between the two countries may improve in the Obama era. But the Bolivian president has accused the United States of complicity in the Honduras military coup. Emotions remain raw and official relations, tense.

Into this edgy political environment, the Skid Row L.A. players have come to share the stage with some of their Bolivian counterparts, who have also suffered ill effects from the illegal drug trade and the official combat against it. Government officials and Bolivian media have shown strong interest in a project combining the efforts of Americans and Bolivians. Can ordinary citizens of both countries – using theater – define a common ground and create a more constructive dialog than their governments? After several weeks of rehearsals in Cochabamba, the play will tour the country, from LaPaz to Sucre to Santa Cruz.

John Malpede founded the LAPD (whose initials mock the police force who harassed many of their members) in 1985. A rising theater performer of national reputation, Malpede took a detour from personal stardom to share his theatrical knowledge with the homeless and formerly homeless denizens of Skid Row, the poorest section of Los Angeles. Branded as losers and welfare cheats by the Reagan administration, residents of Skid Row had no voice in their own destinies. Malpede empowered some of them with theatrical skills, enabling them to communicate their dilemmas to the “outside world.” Over decades the group has become increasingly articulate sophisticated, picking up information from other communities in the U.S. and beyond, making connections between poverty, globalization and militarization. They know how the drug war profits a few and victimizes many.

Malpede and the LAPD found congenial Bolivian artistic partners in Wiler Vidaurre and his wife, Zulma. Wiler and Zulma are professional actors on stage and in films. They run a school of “Artes y Talentos” in Cochabamba. Wiler and Zulma came to Malpede’s attention because of a theater program they have run in local prisons for the past eight years. Many of their prisoner performers have “graduated” to parole or to full liberty outside their jails, thanks in part to the rehabilitative aspects of their theater experiences.

The first night the group met, Wiler tried to explain the political reality here. Evo Morales is a polarizing figure, very popular in part of the country, but vilified in other parts. Wiler explained that when talking with the press, the Americans had to stress that their theater project was the product of independent artists, having nothing to do with the government. If “Agentes y Activos” is identified too closely with Evo’s policies, his many enemies – which include many media owners – would denounce the project out of hand, without considering its message or substance. This will be tricky, as the Ministry of Culture has offered some financial and logistical support.

It was important to John Malpede and Wiler Vidaurre to feature Bolivians playing the bureaucrats who – like their fellow players from L.A. – have felt the impact of the drug policies of their country. Wiler had a couple of actors in mind for parts in the play, but one of them was still on restricted parole, only allowed out of prison during the day to work. He had to return to his cell each night. Wiler appealed to a judge he knew from this prison work to let this actor rehearse in the evenings and travel when the group took the show in the road.

The judge, Yolanda, is responsible for supervising about 2000 prisoners in various stages of incarceration or parole. The judge decided to see the group for herself. She came to the first rehearsal, met the visiting gringo artists and talked with them about the play. Then Yolanda told them she had some theatrical training herself and asked if she too might join the cast. When she read the part of one of the more indignant members of the Congressional Committee – Millinder-McDonald of California – she found a sympathetic point of view. So the Bolivian “Agentes y Activos” will feature convicted drug offenders in its cast, as well as a judge who sentences and supervises them. In the many incarnations of the show this is a first.