By Dale Reynolds
What can a 48-year-old gay Latino playwright teach us about successfully living in-and-out of seemingly contradictory cultures in a wacko America? Jonathan Ceniceroz, a product of the San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles, is a forceful playwright of a half-dozen plays, as well as an academic career teaching writing.
This life between racial/ethnic/sexual lines helped form his character which, in turn, contributed to the writing of his latest play, The Cruise, now playing at the respected Los Angeles Theatre Center.
“My past is the metaphor for the drama. Is it looking the part? Or resisting it? How well can one develop and front a persona? Being a Mexican-American, with parents born in East L.A., I was labeled a ‘pocho’ early on, and found myself ironically being rejected by both white and brown folk. So this play begins when reality steps in and meets one’s true identify, giving it a sharper light with its consequences.”
Ceniceroz’ father is a retired professor at East L.A. Community College and the play deals with father/son conflicts. “The father in the play works as an enrichment lecturer on ocean cruiseliners. His son is a product of New York University and there has always been a distance between them, primarily of because their conflicting social values.”
The play is loosely based on his own life. Ceniceroz the Elder is described by his son as charismatic, hailing from a humble beginning in the Maravilla section of “East Los,” known then in the 1940s and’50s, as it still is, as a tough neighborhood”. For Ceniceroz the Younger, the more humble your roots, the starker is any attempt to distance yourself from the given scars. This is why his play is about the consequence of acculturation: the cultural dislocation and the resulting searching for identities. He claims it’s not as heavy as it sounds, but, rather, “is very hot, sleek, topical, comedic – neither a lecture nor a didactic.”
For Jonathan, it’s about trying to add to the few plays out there about Latinos who are professionals, but going beyond preaching to the converted. “Who we are now is what I wanted to explore, plus having some fun with that by writing an entertaining, compelling and complex story.”
He currently teaches composition and critical thinking at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut. “Normally, I keep my two worlds separate [teaching and playwriting], but insist on keeping my curious side alive. I like being a part of the world, but it’s my innocent side that has helped me stay youthful.” It also helps that his life-partner “is a health nut, I benefit from that. Exercise, sleep, live well. We met the first day of high school and have been together since.”
Ceniceroz lived in L.A. until he graduated from UCLA, then moved to NYC for a number of years, and then onto Rhode Island to attend grad school at Brown University. His first play, written in New York, “Lupe, Now!,” was a radical re-imagining of the Virgin of Guadalupe story which launched his career in playwriting, followed by The Blind Woman from Veracruz, Strange Brew, The Blessing of the Animals, The Drowning of Natalie Wood, BIG BRO/lil bro, Burning Palms and Hole in the Boy.” This introduced him to theatre professionals, “wonderful creative artists who became my colleagues, helping me to orient myself to working in theatre, so that I became a beneficiary of so many creative experiences. I’m still a journeyman writer; re-writing a major part of my past works, and strengthening my skill sets. The Cruise is only 90-minutes long, but it took forty drafts to reduce it to that length. Writing, God knows, is not always glamorous – it’s tough – but it has taught me to trust my subconscious, knowing it will give me something I can use.”
Interestingly, the current revival of Luis Valdez’ 1978 “Zoot Suit” (running through April 2nd at the Mark Taper Forum) stoked memories for him, as the iconic play-with-music was his first Latino play, which helped propel him into writing. “While it has taken me a long time to achieve recognition, I have been diligently making work in the margins of the mainstream, which allowed me to grow in a progressive manner. I’ve never given up; have workshopped my plays; invested in, and have benefited from, that process.”
Growing up, Jonathan was considered mentally gifted from elementary school on. “But I feel I’ve been marginalized, primarily for being ‘sensitive’ – particularly for being gay. As I’ve learned, artists have insights that help them in understanding the value in being an outsider. And there is amusing irony in the thought that ‘outsiders’ are the new ‘insiders.’” It took him a long time to find the themes in the plays he wanted to write. But, as he puts it, “good things come to those who wait — and who are prepared.”
An interesting part of his life was when his father, a former track star, came out as a gay man during Jonathan’s later life. “Having a gay father validated my own identity as a gay man, making things easier for me. It allowed me to put my life into perspective, what with my gayness being a genetic inclination.”
So now this sensitive and talented playwright is finding some more attention in his field, with his theater work having been produced and/or developed through the years by the Mark Taper Forum, New York Theatre Workshop, South Coast Rep, the Drama League, Company of Angels, Odyssey Theatre and Chalk Repertory, among others. He’s also an alum of the National Hispanic Media Coalition TV Writers Program, where he wrote a popular episode of Castle as well as an original Latino drama, 7 Mares.
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