By Ben Gunter
Kids of all ages got to travel back in time to Spanish La Florida during the Loco for Love Festival in Tallahassee’s Railroad Square this past September 13-15. Headlining the Festival’s 3-day schedule of activities were unique, hands-on opportunities to explore Florida’s Hispanic Heritage through puppets, plays, and a 200thbirthday party.
People got to meet puppets from Florida’s Spanish past during performances by the Dragoncillo Puppet Troupe, during guided workshops, and during an illustrated talk by puppetry scholar Esther Fernández from Rice University in Dallas. Dragoncillo used shadow puppets to perform two plays by Francisco de Quevedo – comedies so funny they’ve kept people laughing since 1645. To introduce Quevedo’sSecond Hands(which takes you into a second-hand store where people come to buy better-looking hands), the Dragoncillos chose two volunteers from the audience, showed them how to handle shadow-puppets, and starred them in a 5-minute farce called The Explosion Café. Guided workshops taught dozens of folks to make hand-puppets by clipping a set of eyes onto their own hands, then invited kids to participate in a Punch & Judy show, and introduced muppet-sized Don Quixote and Sancho Panza puppets (the central characters in the great Spanish story of Don Quixote) as the preview to a 30-minute puppet version of Don Quixote called Quixóteres. The illustrated talk by puppetry expert Esther Fernández was called “Holy Puppets,” and featured life-sized puppets that were used in church processions, reenactments of the Crucifixion, and saints’ plays at Spanish missions in Florida – breathtaking works of art, that inspire what Professor Fernández calls “religious wonder.”
People attending this free Festival got to see lots of plays, in lots of flavors. Theater with a Mission presented Lope de Vega’s Capulets and Montagues– a sweet Spanish version of Romeo & Juliet from 1609, where no lovers die because Juliet figures out a way to solve the family feud. Translated by Shakespeare star Dakin Matthews and performed like an episode from Family Feud, this 45-minute performance divided the audience into Capulets and Montagues and in between scenes, challenged each family to win prizes by answering questions about Romeo and Juliet. In El muerto, or Better Wed than Dead, folks got a chance to laugh at another kind of family feud. This sparkling farce from 1658 stars a Capitán from Spanish La Florida who tells his sister that she will marry her Astrólogo boyfriend “over his dead body” … inspiring her and all her friends to convince the Capitán that he has died, and only the Astrólogo can bring him back to life again. To add yet another flavor to the drama at the Festival, Tallahassee Hispanic Theater performed Caprichoby Nilo Cruz. This bittersweet script takes you backstage to meet an actor who has been waiting to make his entrance in a play by Lope de Vega for 400 years; it is a meditation on what it means to wait centuries for recognition, by the first Latino playwright ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (and who started his career in Florida).
Since 2019 marks 200 years since Florida started becoming part of the United States, Festival-goers got lots of chances to say “Happy Birthday to Florida!” There was a lively Birthday Ball, where Nena Couch from Ohio State University and Idy Codington from FSU taught partiers to dance using steps from Spanish La Florida and from George Washington’s time, with a live band playing tunes from 1819. A huge trunk full of free costumes helped folks dress as their favorite character from Florida history during the Festival’s Costume Parade, led by Maria Ortiz from Cultura Latina Magazine dressed as the Queen of Spain. Theater with a Mission premiered a new play called Florida for Sale, which brings you face to face with the ambassadors who negotiated the Florida Treaty, and lets you hear in their own words what they hoped to accomplish as Florida changed hands. And there were three enormous birthday cakes to eat, emblazoned with “Happy 200thBirthday, Florida!”
Families at the Loco for Love Festival 2019 are calling it “lively” and “remarkable” and “very entertaining, very educational” with “good cake.” Plans are under way for an even bigger celebration of Florida’s Hispanic Heritage during the Loco for Love Festival next year. Mark your calendars for September 18-20, 2020, follow TWAMFlorida, and keep your eye peeled for more information at www.theaterwithamission.com.