.png)
Las Animas Native and Playwright Tencha Avila Celebrated in Santa Fe Staged Reading
Description: Playwright Tencha Avila-Friedenberg, an 86-year-old Latina raised near Las Animas, was celebrated during a Santa Fe staged reading of her play “Kiss Bessemer Goodbye,” a family drama exploring Mexican-American culture, generational change, love, prejudice, and resilience.
Playwright Tencha Avila is an 86-year-old Latina who was raised in a colony of agricultural workers near Las Animas. She and her 11 siblings grew up in a home with no electricity and no running water. When she was seven, she cared for her five younger siblings during the day while their parents worked in the field. Though they had very little materially, their family was rich in Mexican traditions, music, and theater.
She and her father enjoyed the films of Cantinflas, a Mexican comedian, actor and filmmaker. “Cantinflas’ influence has a lot to do with how I write,” she explains. “Even if it’s a serious subject, everything comes out funny.”
Despite her responsibilities at home, Tencha became an excellent student, a cheerleader and a student leader in Bent County Public Schools. She earned scholarships and graduated with honors from Palomar Community College in California and Colorado University in Boulder. Then she moved to Washington D.C. and began her career with the State Department. During the war she was sent to Vietnam where she managed a language school. In Vietnam she met the man who would become her husband, journalist Walter Friedenberg. She is now a widow and lives in Santa Fe.
Avila’s play "Kiss Bessemer Goodbye," tells the story of Lupita, a young Mexican-American woman who struggles against her uncle's entrenched machismo and seeks to forge her own destiny. It’s April, 1970 in Bessemer, a steel mill suburban neighborhood of Pueblo. Lupita, the first family member to attend university, is about to graduate, a cause for celebration. Uncle Chuy, a boisterous, self-made man who regards himself as the unchallengeable head of the family, arranges for her to teach in a local school, but she has more distant plans with a Japanese American boyfriend who arouses old family ethnic antipathies and prejudice. Uncle Joe, out of work for months because of a strike at the steel mill, is severely depressed. Lupita’s aunt and mother add their problems to the mix.
This is a play with the universal themes of love and conflict in a family undergoing generational and social change. While it is a drama with serious themes, the cast of distinctive, complex characters with their own personalities, foibles and contradictions bring humor to their serious predicaments. In the end, all works out for the best, but the issues raised resonate with the audience. The play was chosen for a university production and later went off-Broadway.
From the agricultural camps of Colorado to the diplomatic circles of Washington and wartime Vietnam, Tencha Avila-Friedenberg always carried with her the lessons of a humble Mexican-American home that taught her to defend her culture and dignity.
Trip to Santa Fe
Four local women recently enjoyed a trip to Santa Fe to see a staged reading of “Kiss Bessemer Goodbye” by Tencha Avila. Judy Thomeczek of Las Animas and Bette McFarren, Phyllis Kelley and Judy Hensley of La Junta, all friends of playwright Tencha Avila, took Amtrak from La Junta to Lamy, New Mexico, to see the production. They enjoyed the train ride, the farmers’ market, the Railyard, the Plaza, several restaurants, some old Santa Fe friends, and especially the play, “Kiss Bessemer Goodbye,” about a young woman growing up and loving her family while she violates their prejudices and authoritarian plans for her. The play was read, scripts in hand, with minimal sets and props. The actors’ movements had been blocked/planned, and they portrayed their characters with acting as professional as on Broadway.
The Colorado foursome thoroughly enjoyed the play, and congratulated playwright Avila with applause and red roses. They had seen another of her plays performed in the past, and hope to see more in the future. Avila told them that she was just informed that “Kiss Bessemer Goodbye” will have a full dramatic presentation next January in Santa Fe, and they should plan to return for it.
A P.S. from Tencha:
“This has brought back memories. Little ol' Palomar college was very proud when I won for them the 12 Southwestern States' Oratory contest at the University of California Santa Barbara and knocked out Stanford University. Stanford had to take second place. I graduated number one from Palomar in 1960. Oh, and when I was working at the Frito Restaurant, Disneyland, cleaning tables, the Frito Company nominated me ‘Miss Frito of 1959.’”
