Zoot Suit and Other Plays by Luis Valdez

It is a play that is closer to the docu-drama form, owing more to Brecht than to Clifford Odets” (xvii). Zoot Suit “exposes social ills in a presentational style. Although New York received the play with less enthusiasm–the production lasted only four weeks–the Los Angeles fervor for the work led to a film adaptation in 1981. When Zoot Suit opened in Los Angeles in 1978, it became a record-breaking success for Los Angeles theatre. Zoot Suit unabashedly defends pachuco pride and the zoot suit, or drapes, as an expression of that pride during a historical moment in which the media “distorted the very meaning of the word ‘zoot suit’” (67) as a racialized symbol of juvenile delinquency. Regardless, the play decisively affirms their innocence in the case of the Sleepy Lagoon murder. However, they are also fathers, beloved sons, lovers, proud Chicanos, American patriots, and, in some cases, practically children. They fight with rival gangs, drink, and commit petty crimes. Zoot Suit offers a complex portrayal of the accused gang members. Throughout the play, a character named El Pachuco serves as a narrator, a crooner, and Henry’s inner voice and alter-ego. In the background of the play, the so-called Zoot Suit Riots rage in Los Angeles as white Americans react to the media’s sensationalized vilification of zoot suiters with violence against Mexican-American youths. Through the efforts of attorney George Shearer, journalist Alice Bloomfield, and a diligent defense team, the gang receives an appeal in the second act that leads to their eventual acquittal. The first act stages their satirically nightmarish first trial, in which the judge allows the Press, a physical manifestation of the sensationalized news media, to act as the prosecuting attorney. Through a series of flashbacks and often bitterlyfarcical reenactments, Zoot Suit focuses on four of the twenty-two unfairlyimprisoned men. The play follows Henry Reyna who, along with twenty-one of his friends and fellow 38th Street gang members, is arrested for the murder of José Williams. Valdez fictionalizes the event, partially altering the names of historical figures. This led to a media frenzy of anti-Chicano sentiment, portraying Mexican-American teens as delinquents and degenerates. On August 1st, 1942, a fight broke out among partygoers at the Sleepy Lagoon reservoir and twenty-one-year-old José Díaz was allegedly bludgeoned to death by a fellow Latino. Set in Los Angeles during the infamous Sleepy Lagoon murder trial and Zoot Suit Riots of 19, Zoot Suit portrays the inequities of a racist justice system fueled by biased media representations of Chicano youth.

Zoot Suit and Other Plays by Luis Valdez