Celestial Jade
by Dorothy Oeste
The best any playwright can ever hope for is to have their plays produced and presented to a larger audience. Most writers toil long and hard at the computer in hopes that their stories, jokes and points of view will somehow, someday reach an audience outside their own room.
Then, there are those who are fortunate enough to have the unique experience of having Comedy Central's Jade Esteban Estrada, one of the more notable national touring solo artists in the United States, as an older brother. This is the case of Texas-born playwright Celeste Angela Estrada whose first play "Tortilla Heaven" reaches St. Louis audiences for the very first time to May 4, 2005 at the Tin Ceiling as part of a short Cinco de Mayo week tour across the country.
"Tortilla Heaven" is comedic yet real story of first, second and third generation Mexican-Americans trying to relate to one another. First generations living a humble life and making home feel more like home, second generations abandoning their roots in order to assimilate to the big city life and the third generations trying to understand it all without knowing the language of his people.
When these generations finally meet, speaking the same language seems to be the easy part of a difficult journey of understanding why your family is so different.
The prolific writer, but reluctant playwright, was first approached in 1999 about the idea of writing a play.
" I had this idea for a play and I knew that Celeste was the only one who could write it, Jade said. "She's a genius when it comes to documenting the Tex-Mex culture."
"Jade and I talked about the possibility of me writing a play for a Hispanic festival in Houston. It was the first time I had ever considered it. Jade was convinced that I could do it. We've gone through several different versions over the past couple of years," Celeste, who is a first-grade school teacher by trade, said. "The play that you will see in St. Louis this May is just one of the many incarnations of the piece."
Celeste had the pleasure of being in attendance at the world premiere of the play in New York.
"It was very exciting for me," she said about seeing her play performed by a full cast of New York actors. "Hearing your words come out of other people's mouths, seeing your characters portrayed in a way you never imagined--that's a thrilling experience. It's encouraging when the audience reacts to your creation in real time."
The production has even performed for the Committee for Latino Concerns at DePauw University in 2004 in addition to three New York productions.
For her first play, Celeste wanted to stick with what she knew, so she decided to write about "conflicts encountered by a typical Latino family." She said she visualized the main character, Carlos, right away.
"I knew what problems Carlos would face even before I knew where the story would take place," she said. "Carlos is an amalgam of my two brothers and myself," she said referring also to her youngest brother David Miguel Estrada, New York-based actor playwright. "He has a bit of all of us in him, really, and his experiences are eerily similar to some of my own."
Celeste believes that non-Spanish speaking audience members would have no problem following the storyline.
"Jade is a brilliant actor," she says of her brother. "Whatever I feel I left out in words, he fills in the blanks with body movements, voice and character tone and coloring. I'm constantly thinking to myself, 'oh, yeah! That's right! I forgot that!' I love to watch him at work."
Jade's last three solo productions "It's Too Late...It's Already in Me", "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 1" and "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 2" (which took home the 2004 Audience Favorite Award in Solo Performance at the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival) have all been musicals. He's also released three albums and his music is featured on the Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning police drama "The Shield" on the FX Network. But the actor does not feel hindered by performing in a piece that does not use music.
"I was raised in the theatre before I switched to music," he admits. "I love performing this play because I can really get into my characters. My transitions and my characterizations become the melody. It feels like I'm working without a musical net, if you will, but I love the challenge."
During Cinco de Mayo week alone, the show will tour Cincinnati, St. Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Abilene, Texas.
As far as working on future collaborations, it seems like getting these two siblings together to discuss it might be as easy seeing each other at the breakfast table over a pile of fresh, warm tortillas.
