According to Carlos Morton, local playwrights must probe their community’s mindset, its politics and aspirations. Norbert Bugeja meets the prominent Chicano playwright

“What would I be doing right now if I were a Maltese playwright? I think I would be writing a play about a married couple that wants a divorce and is not able to obtain it. This is my suggestion for upcoming playwrights in Malta – write about issues that strike at the heart of Maltese society. Look for Maltese themes, that is, write about issues that are affecting the community’s soul.”

Carlos Morton spells out his views with a captivating smile, as he eagerly awaits my reaction. Currently a professor of Theatre Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara, Morton has many an intriguing story to tell.

As a prominent Chicano playwright, he was one of the foremost artists within the Chicano Movement of the 1960s, the civil rights movement that worked for the social, political, cultural and economic empowerment of Mexican Americans.

Morton discusses his experience as a playwright within the Chicano Movement: “The act of playwriting, of being a creator, is a wonderful experience. But it also brings with it a tremendous responsibility. I was part of a wave of people who wanted to better their condition and I realised that writing plays would be a direct way of contributing to the movement. It’s always a risky step – you don’t know if you’ll survive.

“But issues, such as police brutality and the subjection of a race to draconian treatment, needed to be addressed. Part of my responsibility is to write about issues that concern the community in a very direct way and issues that must necessarily be at the forefront of our concerns.

“I have written, among other things, about Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, the martyr who tried to lead his people out of the terrible conditions of their repression.”

During his visit, Morton, author of The Many Deaths of Danny Rosales and Other Plays and Johnny Tenorio and Other Plays among other books, spoke to students from the Faculty of Arts at the University and discussed bilingual writing, culture and language, playwriting, theatre and politics. An illustrated reading of one of Morton’s plays, El Jardin, was also staged by a troupe of theatre students.

Speaking on the subject of the Chicano social experience in the US over the past century, the playwright does not mince his words. “Chicanos have historically had problems in the US. Up till 60 years ago – before the Second World War – there used to be signs on the fronts of restaurants saying ‘No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed’. They did not want us to speak Spanish in public, not even in schools, and we were discouraged from voting. The situation in Texas back then was like apartheid in South Africa. For a Mexican to just finish grammar school was expected to be enough of an achievement by society at large. You worked for the white man and when you died you were buried in a cemetery for Mexicans. That was turn-of-the-century Texas.

“Nowadays you have more Mexican professionals, doctors, politicians and so on. You can even have a Mexican sheriff now. One still feels that racial tension is there, though, and it is still experienced by people from Latin America who live in the US. Latin Americans are a larger minority than the black population and we’re now moving into places where we’ve never traditionally lived, like North Carolina, and this is causing its problems. There is now, for instance, a significant increase in the Latino population in Arkansas – people go to work there for such corporations as Walmart and Tyson Chicken. No whites or blacks want to do that kind of job, so Latinos are going for it.

“But then there is also a rising Latino Republican middle class – the new Governor of New Mexico comes to mind, as well as a Republican senator from Nevada who is actually in favour of the deportation of illegal migrants. Within our own people also, there are those who say ‘Those are not part of us, those are Mexicans – keep them out.’ Well, things are changing in the US, but sometimes Latin Americans are still treated like second-class citizens.”

The subject veers back to the thrills and trials of playwriting. It is different to other forms of writing, Morton argues, not least because as a playwright, one cannot stand alone or simply work on his own.

“Theatre is a collective experience. You have to work with actors, directors and producers. It is a wonderful experience because at one point, your work stops being yours. You have to work with others and to trust in the abilities of others. Whenever a work of mine is being prepared for the stage, I do sit down with the actors, even do a few rehearsals perhaps, but then I let go.”

Lecturer Clare Vassallo points out the importance of this visit for local writers and theatre practitioners alike: “Morton’s plays are written and performed in two languages – English and Spanish. The characters move between these two forms of expression in much the same way as the Maltese movebetween Maltese and English.

“This use of two languages did not feel in any way artificial - on the contrary it felt authentic and it gave the impression that certain ideas are best expressed in Spanish, whereas other forms of discourse seemed more appropriate in English. It occurred to me that this might be a productive model for local playwrights.

“We hear a lot about the crises in Maltese writing for the theatre and that large audiences don’t seem to be drawn to the theatre. We also hear a lot of talk about either Maltese or English, when it seems that the people’s choice manner of communication and expression seems to be largely ‘and’ – Maltese and English, rather than Maltese or English in informal situations.”

Morton draws another parallel between his own experience and that of the Maltese. “In Malta’s situation on the border between two continents I find echoes of my own – we also live on a border, between Spanish America and Anglo-America, he observes.

“We both live and share the intensity, above all, of the cultural border. Chicanos today speak Spanish as their private or family language. We also have a lot of native American words that we borrow from Mexican. To be Chicano is to be Mexican, and to be Mexican is to be native American. After all, we are the descendants of Meso-America, of Africa, of Europe. Today you find Mexicans who are white, brown, black. To be Mexican today is to partake precisely of this, of a long history and culture of hybridity.”

Morton was recently in Malta for two weeks as a visiting scholar, on the initiative of Clare Vassallo of the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Malta.