El Teatro Campesino brings “La Carpa de Los Rasquachis” aka Tent of the Underdogs) to CET San Jose for 2 DAYS ONLY. El Teatro Campesino has been long known for its relationship with Center for Employment Training (ETC and CET) for its dedication to the worker particularly the farmworker. Join us celebrating this amazing Chicano Theatre as they come to San Jose – The community originally known as the Valley of the Hearts Delight!
2 Day Ticket Sale Options:
Friday 5/25/2018 8PM-9:30PM
- $20 Advance – Students
- $25 Door
- $25 General Public
- $35 Door
Friday 5/25/2018
- $75 VIP Option – preferred seating, cocktail hour and meet and greet with cast following show Sponsored by CHACHOS
Sunday 5/27/2018 3PM-4:30PM
- $20 Advance – Students
- $25 Door
- $25 General Public
- $35 Door
Click here to get tickets.
“La Carpa de los Rasquachis” was originally produced in 1974, and underwent several revisions until 1976, when it was locked into the definitive version seen in this revival performed by a new generation of ETC actors more than forty years after its premiere. The carpa (itinerant tent show) presents the epic life story of the farmworker in America. Told through the struggles, frustrations and ultimate victory of a single Chicano, the Rasquachi saga (working-class, underdog) comes alive in corridos (Mexica ballads) that tell of life’s tragedies with an ironic, rollicking earthy good humor. The story follows Jesus Pelado Rasquachi, leaving his own mother and brother in Mexico as he heads for the United States, in hopes of getting rich as a bracero. Misfortune and fate, however, stalks his every footstep, in the guise of El Diablo and La Calavera. Tricked and betrayed at every turn, Jesus Pelado becomes a pathetic comic figure in the hands of the growers, contractors, bar owners, and social workers, and ultimately, the undertaker.
Founded in 1965 by Luis Valdez, El Teatro Campesino was initially the cultural wing of the United Farm Workers union in California’s central valley. With a pointed political mission, ETC performed their actos in the fields, agitprop improvisations communicated eloquently with the workers, who could neither read nor write, but recognized themselves and their values in the actors. By 1970 ETC had gained an international reputation, with major contributions to Chicano culture in the U.S. and to the development and expansion of the boundaries of theater everywhere. Theirs is a popular theater rooted in the American streets, early California history, Mayan/Aztec mythology and Mexican folklore and spiritualism, all geared toward expression of social, political and cultural perceptions.