Crime Against Humanity

Nestled between two huge Puerto Rican flags in Humboldt Park, the space known as Paseo Boricua, lies Café Teatro/Batey Urbano, a Puerto Rican/Latino youth-based club and internet coffee-house which strives to showcase the creative talents of neighborhood youth, and to link Puerto Rican/Latino students with the community. The Batey Urbano is located at 2620 West Division Street and is a project of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. On Saturday, Jan. 26 this intimate space showcased a preview of the new play entitled Crime Against Humanity.

It is written by Michael Reyes, a poet, activist, and NEIU student, and by former Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Luis Rosa. The play, also directed by Reyes, hopes to raise consciousness and gain support for the campaign to free the remaining Puerto Rican political prisoners Carlos Alberto Torres and Oscar López Rivera. The play is based on the experiences of fourteen Puerto Rican political prisoners who spent more than two decades in prison for seditious conspiracy.

Reyes spent hours interviewing former Puerto Rican political prisoners and through the play, the audience hears first-person testimonies about what it means to be a political prisoner in the United States. Crime Against Humanity shows prisoners refusing to be victimized and objectified while maintaining their dignity and humanity as they face personal hardships and adversities. Reyes comments, "By using theater as a tool of resistance, we hope to reach out to those sectors that are often ignored by traditional activist outreach. We want our families, our brothers and sisters and our community to come out and see what these prisoners endured..."

Reyes has been involved in a variety of youth-led projects including the founding of Zocalo Urbano, a Chicano-Mexicano/Latino youth space located in the neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village. He brought the National Boricua Human Rights Network aboard to help bring this ambitious project to life. The organization mobilizes around issues of justice, peace, and human rights.

I had the chance to see the first performance of the play, which featured select scenes of what will become a longer production nearing its official premier. The event opened with poems, two of which were written by Reyes and Xavier Burgos, the president of the Union for Puerto Rican Students (UPRS) and the editor of Que Ondee Sola magazine.

The setting of the play is a tiny isolated jail cell with a flat wooden bed and a stainless steel toilet. Highlights of the show include actress Melissa Cintron's depiction of the humanity and joy these prisoners find despite the abuse and trauma they face. Samuel Vega, a Roberto Clemente High School student, offers an outstanding and moving performance. Afterwards, this young talent observes, "It's sad because these people are fighting for peace. And it makes you appreciate the little things, but also, not to settle."    José E. López, one of the founders of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and its Executive Director for more than three decades, offered a closing statement that expressed admiration of Michael Reyes for being able to pull off this powerful and amazing production. He said that the end result of Crime Against Humanity is the fruition of seeds planted from political work done by earlier generations of Puerto Rican activists.

The play will run from March 3rd, 2008 through March 3rd, 2009 as part of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center's "100 x 35" Campaign. It commemorates the centennial of the birth of Puerto Rican national hero and poet Juan Antonio Corretjer, and the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Chicago-based Juan Antonio Corretjer Puerto Rican Cultural Center. A national tour of the play is scheduled in several U.S. cities including New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Hartford, Washington D.C., Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. There are plans to take the production to Puerto Rico in the future.

For further information, please visit www.crimeagainsthumanity.net