Director's Notes - "Boleros for the Disenchanted"

My father’s family came from Puerto Rico to New York in 1950. I have heard the stories about the island, and the house in Santurce, and the grocery stores that my grandfather and his brothers owned. My father spoke of goats, and chickens, and nick names like “Imparcial” and “Pungo” and “Ester” and of aunts and uncles and food and rum and heartache and love. I have heard the stories of the family leaving the island and going to live New York, and the cold winters, and walking up five flights of stairs to deliver blocks of ice in the winter to make extra money for food. Stories, of being a PR in New York, racism, learning English, having people make fun of the name Jorge…whore head…or jor gay…inevitably leading to the name change George, after all it was the name of the first president.

In 1984, I went to New York and met many of my relatives of my father’s; lots of second and third cousins, all Puerto Ricans, many who had lived on the Island and moved to New York. The surprising thing to me was that they all looked like me, or some variation of me. They all had stories about my father, and PR and they wanted to tell me all of them…and they did. We ate pork filled pasteles, and aroz con gondules, and tostones, and drank rum and played dominoes and they told stories filled with humor, passion, and love and I listened and laughed. As a young man of 17 I couldn’t have asked for a greater gift. They were a window into a world I knew very little about, and their stories gave me a deeper understanding about what it is to be a Puerto Rican.

When I asked Jose Rivera for some words of wisdom as I was about to go into rehearsal for this play he told me the following, “ be honest, remember the humor is how these people share their love, they live passionately, their anger is full of storytelling, their treasure is their words, and listen to the coquis”. What I realize is that Jose Rivera has not only written a tribute to his parents Eusebio and Flora, but a tribute to their “story”, and to the “stories” of all Puerto Ricans.

I do love a good story. It is the reason I became a storyteller of the stage. So, I dedicate this production to the Puerto Rican storytellers of my life and to their stories: my father George “Jorge/Imparcial”, my uncle Alex “Alejandro/Pungo”, my aunt Ellie “Leanor”, my aunt Maria “Ester”, my uncle Tony “Herminio”, my grandmother “Herminia” and my grandfather “Alejandro”.

—Antonio Sonera