Teatro Campesino put on two different shows within an hour of each other. How did they do?

Last weekend, on Sunday, El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista presented visitors with a fine nearby getaway that conflated a three-day weekend with sunny weather, theater and the prospect of a stroll through the historic town. (And if you were coming up from Monterey County, you breezed by against the flow of a monstrously long and depressing-looking Highways 1/156/101 traffic jam.)

The theater company put on two different plays, nearly back to back, within walking distance from each other, both returning productions and both of the "heart." Both were also characteristic of El Teatro's methodology: inventive use of mediums, Mexican themed, musical.

The second work one was Luis Valdez's new (one year old) play, Valley of the Heart, which was staged at 5pm at El Teatro Campesino. (See the Sept. 4 print issue of the Weekly, coming this Thursday, for the Valley of the Heart review.)

Earlier in the afternoon they put on Popul Vuh: Heart of Heaven. Directed by Kinan Valdez and Chas Croslin, it's one of three plays adapted from the Mayan sacred creation book of the Quiche Maya. The theater company, which turns 50 next year, staged it at 3pm on the green lawn of San Juan School, just a couple blocks away from the Old Mission San Juan Bautista where in winter they will stage their Aztec sacred musical La Virgen del Tepeyac.

Popul Vuh's backdrop was constructed of scaffolding lined with earthy tapestries. Actors were dressed in colorful garb, wearing creative masks, or wielding giant paper mache puppetry heads and appendages. A full rock band, complete with a cellist and a secret weapon in a talented polymath percussionist/sound foley man/guitar player, churned out musical interludes and passages as prog-rock as Yes and Genesis, primal as indigenous beats, electric like a musical from the '70s, and harmonious as folk music honed over generations. Two narrators traded storytelling in English, Spanish and Quiche.

Electricity came from wind turbine and solar vehicles parked behind the production. The sound was mixed just right. The cast was multi-generation, with plenty of kids having a rollicking time pantomiming as jaguars, monkeys and snakes.

There are three parts to Popul Vuh, and this one recounts the tale of the creation of the universe, Earth, animals and people—at least the first attempt to make people by a being called "The Creator." A little fore-knowledge goes a long way, but the expressive dancing, music and narration speak volumes. The costuming is folksy, evocative of Mayan art and indigenous storytelling, but infused with elements of street theater and technology, all augmenting each other instead of canceling each other out.

Each character—a grandmother and grandfather, animals, proto-people, spirits—came out of the wings and entertained with a ritual or dance flourish, then left. The play moved fast, buoyed by the narration and the delightful music, which switched gears often but stayed melodic and harmonious. It was like storytime come alive. It was folk myth made fun, instead of the disposable confectionary plots upon which many entertainment seems to rely. The crowd, sitting on lawn chairs, on blankets, on butts on the grass, were a multicultural and multigenerational patchwork of people, grateful for the show they had received, happy to donate to the upturned masks the actors carried among us after the performance. Like church, outside, under the sun, and entertaining instead of preachy. It was a joyous and free welcome into San Juan Bautista. 

Popul Vuh: Heart of Heaven plays two more times, for free, Sept. 6 and 7 at 3pm, this time in Hollister at Dunne Park.