Mexico’s holiday season folk plays, called pastorelas, were once so controversial — and popular — that Catholic Church officials banned them twice in the 1700s. Over the last few decades, Mexican cultural observers are lamenting their gradual disappearance.
These pastoral plays, which are still performed regularly in rural areas, provide colorful opportunities to observe the ancient intertwining of Mexico’s Spanish and indigenous cultural roots. Performed throughout the Christmas holidays, primarily by amateur theatrical groups and by local religious organizations, the plays represent a graphic — and entertaining — example of the ethnic blending which has been dominated not by Catholic Church dogma as many believe, but by this nation’s own unique, and often secular, traditions and needs.
The “script” of the pastorela, most frequently composed in loose verse, tends to vary from group to group, from one pueblo to another, depending on the author(s) of the production. A group in the Jalisco town of Lagos de Moreno continues to use those words that have been locally handed down verbally for many generations, although several written copies came into existence once literacy became widespread. Other groups simply write down their own versions of the well-known “religious” intention of the pastorela.
The plot
Nonetheless, the plot, or more accurately, the theme, of all the plays is essentially the same. The pastorela usually opens with four devils — Luzbel, Asmodeo, Sin and Lucifer, played by actors wearing fearsome masks — lamenting the rumor that a Savior is soon to be born. Ever-ready to perform evil deeds, Lucifer calls up greed, lust, deceit and all the other human vices, ordering them to infiltrate a group of shepherds, who, inspired by the prophecies of a Savior’s birth and by the appearance of a great star, are on their way to Bethlehem. By employing a wide array of temptations Lucifer intends to lure these pilgrims into sin, destroying their faith and causing them to abandon their search.
Cast of characters
Two major characters in the pastorela are an elderly, if lively, hermit and Bartolo, the fool, who contributes most of the comedy to the performance.
At the climax of the pastorela, when the old hermit falls into temptation and is in the act of robbing one of the shepherdesses as she sleeps, Saint Michael thearchangel suddenly appears to announce the holy birth, and the diabolical plan fails. Lucifer submits to Saint Michael, and the shepherds proceed to the nativity site and attend the adoration of the Savior.
Beginnings
The pastorela’s beginnings are found in Medieval European religious instruction at a time when allegorical plays were employed to teach the illiterate the “lessons” of the Bible. Such “mystery plays” were commonly performed in Austria, France, the Iberian Peninsula and the Low Countries as early as the 1100s. As the productions began to be presented by traveling troupes rather than by ecclesiastics, they came under growing criticism from theological leaders who argued that the religious meanings were being replaced by blasphemous messages. A ban on all such pageants was issued by the Spanish Crown in 1762. Iberian poet Pedro Calderon de la Barca believed the plays to be a significant part of Spain’s cultural inheritance. His efforts to reinstate the mystery plays resulted in the lifting of the ban and the survival of this religious folk theater.
In the New World
Franciscan missionaries, arriving in the footsteps of the Spanish conquistadores, brought the pageants to the New World. With the intention of winning new converts, these friars organized simple dramatizations of the birth of Christ, along with sermons and catechism. Gradually, these presentations moved from the courtyards of the early churches to corrals, orchards and other improvised locations. And again, actors began to take the place of priests in the performances. The pastorelas were primarily intended to both teach and entertain the Indians and the slaves of the New World. Rather quickly they began losing much of their religious seriousness and took on a more comic nature. Young men and women of less than impeccable reputation were often selected to play the roles of Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary. Outraged Church officials demanded another ban in 1765, which all but ended the performance of pastorelas until well into the next century.
The pastorelas here survived into the 20th Century in good health, having evolved into the uniquely Mexican folk theater. Nonetheless, impact of the modern commercialization of Christmas and the gradual urbanization of Mexican habits today has put the pastorela in retreat. (In this it is similar to other things long associated with Mexican tradition, such as the widespread celebration of Three Kings Day — January 6 — which was once the traditional day to give Christmas presents, the old ways to mark the weeks before Easter — no playing or singing, all instruments of entertainment covered up or locked away, the streets spread with leaves to muffle footfalls — bullfighting, sombreros, huaraches and a rural sense of independence.)
The language used in the pastorelas still being performed tends to be decidedly colloquial, that of the countryside or the barrio, and in many places its continuing ungrammatical usage is carefully preserved. While a religious message remains essential, the comic notes which were added centuries ago are still included in the script. There are constant references to objects, foods and customs that are typically Mexican. Tamales, buñuelos and chiles pop up in dialogue; a charro may suddenly appear center stage trying to rope one or more of the devils. Improvisation by the actors and jokes which may seem to border on the irreverent, and often on the obscene, are an innate part of the Mexican pastorela.
These are the very things that long made these plays the theater of the common man — a grotesque mockery of the established standards, of untouchable authority, a certain kind of liberation from a class structure the lower classes of society couldn’t otherwise escape. This appears to be the key to the pastorela’s long history and remarkable survival in the face of powerful political opposition. These same characteristics also may be what will allow the pastorelas to survive today’s dwindling interest, just as they survived early ecclesiastical bans, to provide Mexican citizens with a method of staying in touch with their roots and of calling into question all those who consider themselves untouchable by and unaccountable to the ordinary individual.