Joe Vithaythil:
-Welcome
to
Tortilla Heaven! That's the name of a one-
man play
starring San Antonio native
Jade Esteban Estrada.
It's a bilingual play that began off-Broadway in New
York and he's taken it all over the country. Well,
recently
Jade finally brought it to San Antonio for a
free performance in his
old Westside neighborhood.
There's a lot of crazy characters and the languages jump
all over the place but for the Alamo City no translation
is necessary.
(CLIP OF THE SHOW)
..not for that performance.
You should have been there mom..."
In English
(CLIP OF THE
SHOW)
"'Tan
mas viejos que la luna!"
or Espanol, one thing is
universal...
Jade Esteban Estrada:
Anything that's the truth...is funny.
Joe:
Jade Esteban
Estrada stars in "Tortilla Heaven" a show with seven
characters, two languages
(CLIP OF THE
SHOW)
"Hijo,
el sabe todo que esta pasando!"
and one actor all with a
South Texas feel.
Jade: We did a Cinco
de Mayo tour recently we went from New York to
Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, St. Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma
City to Abilene and we noticed that the further south we
got the more people really got the jokes.
Joe: The show is set
in San Antonio and deals with three generations of one
family. The oldest speak mostly Spanish the
youngest--only English. And that's the theme of the
show; finding a balance between assimilation and knowing
where you came from.
Jade: Second and
third generation Mexican-Americans come to this country
and they lose little by little their culture, they lose
where they come from...
(CLIP OF THE
SHOW)
"I would
be grateful if all of you would do your best to speak
English only during our visit out of respect for those
of us who do not speak Spanish..."
Joe: Pretty heady
stuff especially for a comedy! But
Jade keeps the laughs
coming by playing everybody from a professional mother,
to her mother, to her aunt her son and her brother who
still lives at home.
(CLIP OF THE
SHOW)
"...the
fact that we don't have an air-conditioner!"
Jade: Parents can
have their children stay in their house well into their
children's 40s and 50s...and there is one character like
that which is completely acceptable in the Latino
culture and a lot of Americans don't really understand
that.
Joe: Of course the
audience in his hometown gets it. There's a whole lot of
San Antonio in this show including
Jade's own family.
Jade: There's
snippets of all my family in this show, if you know my
family it's pretty obvious...
(CLIP OF THE
SHOW) "
...y 'ta
bien guapo es bosdriver!"
Joe: But what started
in the Alamo City is now a story that
Jade's sharing
with the entire country one city at a time even when
they don't speak the language.
Jade: It's different
version of what their story might be but I think
everyone can understand it.
Joe: And while it's a
one-person show it's a truly a family affair. The show
was written by his sister Celeste Angela Estrada and
directed by his brother David Miguel Estrada. And if
Jade looks familiar to you he's actually on
"The Graham
Norton Effect" on Comedy Central so you might have seen
him there.
We'll see you tomorrow night
on The NightShift.
©2005 KABB-TV
