SHORT EYES
It’s an odd fit, this style with this play. Written in the early 70s–while Pinero himself was serving time in prison for armed robbery–Short Eyes is a clunky, self-conscious slice of life (larded with the occasional clunky, self-conscious slice of poetry) that draws its power not so much from its inherent worth as from certain elements of its being: Pinero’s obvious if unformed talent; his lumpen Latino voice; his nasty language; his criminal glamour; his racial, economic, and sexual preoccupations. When it first appeared, all this, plus events like the 1971 Attica prison riot, gave Short Eyes a political currency, a radical chicness, that more than compensated for its aesthetic faults.
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Why are two prison guards depicted as sexy women from the waist down? What does it mean that Juan, the one prisoner who actively insists on his humanity, gets saddled with outsized ears and a cakewalk strut? How come Omar wears the dickhead helmet when it’s Ice who speaks a long monologue about masturbating to a photo of Jane Fonda? Where do the exaggerated movement styles established by each prisoner in act one disappear to in act two? I can think of answers to some of these questions if I try–but they’re stopgap, shallow answers that say less about Pinero’s intentions than about a crucial lack of rigor in the directing: A failure to translate the concept into a consistent vision. A failure to deal with subtleties and implications. A short-sightedness, as it were. Latino Chicago has compromised a bold design with sloppy thinking.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Rock Fraire.
