As the lights go down and the playhouse falls dark except for
the spotlight in the front of the stage, the audience is invited
to
”
Enjoy a trip through the mind of Luis Valdez.
”
And what a trip that is.
As the lights go down and the playhouse falls dark except for the spotlight in the front of the stage, the audience is invited to “Enjoy a trip through the mind of Luis Valdez.”
And what a trip that is.
Valdez’s comedy drama “I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges” is a sit-com weaved in a play of a play. And while it’s a lot of fun along the way, the show leaves the audience with a message of hope – that we are all in control of our own lives and destinies, especially when we are the farthest from feeling that way.
Set in the mid-1980s in a suburb of Los Angeles, the “Badges” opens with Buddy Villa asleep on the couch while his television set blares the 1948 film starring Humphrey Bogart that was a best-picture nominee, “The Treasure of Sierra Madre.”
In one of the most famous lines ever spoken on the silver screen, a Mexican man who is chasing Bogart down in the film claims to be a Fedarale and tells Bogart to hand over his gun. Bogart asks to see his badge, and the man responds, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”
Soon we find Buddy and his wife Connie have made a good living for themselves as the self-proclaimed “King and Queen of the Hollywood Extras.” By playing myriad parts in films with limited or non-speaking roles – much like the Mexican man in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” – the couple was able to put a daughter through medical school and send their son to Harvard law school.
However, whether they choose to admit it or not, they know they will never be given a lead role – not based on their talent but on the color of their skin. Minorities are relegated to token roles that reinforce basic stereotypes, playing roles like maids or gardeners.
Soon the action in the play picks up when the couple’s son, Sonny, returns home from school and announces that he has quit Harvard to write his own films and television shows that will give his family and other minorities an opportunity to play lead roles.
But somewhere between his goals, his urge to fit in a school where he was one of very few minorities and the desire to make up for what he thinks is a waste of his parents’ talents, Sonny loses his mind, robs a Jack in the Box and has a gun to his head, so confused that he is on the verge of taking his life.
And while Valdez’s comedy drama has its share of laughs, it also has more than its share of life lessons.
“I hope that the audience can see that they can control their own lives,” said Marilynn Abad-Cardinalli, the director of “Badges” and member of the board of directors for El Teatro Campesino. “In life, it’s all full of situations, and we wish we can control them. Since it’s (Sonny’s) own life, he can control his own ending. … And on a very superficial level, I hope they can see how TV has marginalized people to a certain stereotype.”
Abad-Cardinalli, who assisted Valdez in directing the play 13 years ago, lives in Gilroy, teaches at Gavilan College, is the founder and producer of STAR and executive producer of the Gavilan television station.
“I was called in to substitute teach, and I never left,” said Abad-Cardinalli, who originally is from San Jose. “I’ve seen the trees full grown – which were just little trees – on the Gavilan campus.”
Abad-Cardinalli said she offered to direct the play after being asked by Valdez to do the show.
“It was time to give everyone a break, but we wanted to keep the momentum from ‘Zoot Suit,’ ” she said.
The cast of “Badges” includes Noe Montoya as Buddy, Vivis as Connie, Vanieck Ecchaverria as Sonny, Andres Gutierrez as Chico Chingon and Kerry Lee as Anita – a cast that also has learned from the lessons that Valdez offers in his play.
Lee, who plays Sonny’s love interest in the play, said she has seen many of the Valdez’s lessons first-hand. As an Asian-American, Lee said she finds herself playing roles of “token characters” who never have so much as a romantic life on stage.
“It’s very much me,” Lee said about her role in the play. “I’m Japanese-American and a dancer and had a family in (internment) camps.”
