Watsonville (play)

Watsonville: Some Place Not Here is a three-act 1996 play by Cherríe Moraga. It depicts a cannery strike in Watsonville, California. Watsonville and the 1995 play Circle in the Dirt were published together in a single book by the West End Press. It is the sequel to the 1994 play Heroes and Saints.^[1] The play was a project of Stanford University.^[2]

Pareles wrote that Watsonville criticizes anti-immigration policies in California and Mexican-Americans perceived to have sold out to Anglo culture, or vendidos, who believe such policies should be compromised with.^[1] Ruben Mendoza of Confluencia: Revista Hispanica de Cultura y Literatura wrote that the play uses a communal third place (also known as a third space) to criticize "capitalist spatial practice".^[3] In addition the play also discusses the labor movement's gender and immigrant rights situation.^[1]

Moraga stated that the play is based "loosely on three actual events that took place in a central California coastal farmworker town by the same name."^[4] These events were a 1985–1987 cannery strike, a 1989 7.1 Richter scale earthquake, and a vision of the Lady of Guadalupe in the Pinto Lake County park.^[2] Lisa B. Thompson of the Theatre Journal wrote that there is "drama with vibrant dialogue and compelling, diverse characters" because Moraga did not use the words of those she interviewed for research purposes verbatim and instead "the voices Moraga listened to while researching the plays merge with her own."^[4]

Watsonville has select phrases and sentences in the dialog in the Spanish language instead of English.^[4] The play, along with Circle in the Dirt, uses dialog that is a mixture of English and Spanish to paraphrase the content of the interviews conducted by Moraga; most of the actual interviews were done entirely in Spanish.^[5] The music in the play includes bolero, cumbia, and rap. Some of the music includes original compositions.^[4]