Santa Fe Playhouse is premiering a production titled Pueblo Revolt, but it's probably not what you’d expect. While the backdrop of the two man show is the Indigenous uprising of 1680 in New Mexico, this piece explores the story of two men with a modern twist.
Dillon Chitto is an early career playwright, born in Santa Fe, but now living in Chicago. He belongs to both Laguna and Isleta Pueblos, and has always been fascinated by this piece of history. He spoke with KUNM about his show.
CHITTO: It's a comedy about two brothers living before, during, then after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 they're dealing with the world and how it is to, you know, live through history and feeling like you don't have anything that you can do to influence it. It's just an exploration of like, indigenous identity within, like Spanish colonization, and how it had to kind of morph to continue going. One of the big questions of the play is, as Native people, we always want to return to before, but there's no way that we can. No one is alive that was alive before Europeans came over. So how do we do that? And I think the play wrestles with that question, and does it answer it? I'm not sure. It's not a history play at all. It uses history as a backdrop, and there are some really specific historical facts in it, because I'm a history nerd, but it's definitely not something that you could sit down and watch, and then it'd be like, Oh, I have a full complicated PhD level understanding of the Pueblo Revolt.
KUNM: Tell me a little bit about your two characters.
CHITTO: The oldest brother is Ba'Homa. That means “the water is hitting”, so like rain. He's the brother who really wants to kick out the Spanish, is very gung ho about everything, but also has never experienced anything like this before. So, you know, there's like, the idealized of like, oh, this is what I would do if I was in a battle, versus, like, what would actually happen if you were in a battle. So he's struggling with that, while also being the sole caregiver and the person who raised his younger brother, Feem Whim. And in the play, I joke that his name means, “hey y'all, it's pretty cloudy.” So it's basically, you know, like, rain clouds. He's a queer, I would say boy. He's, like, somewhere between adolescent and adulthood. He doesn't really see a problem with living under the Spanish rule. But he's around, like, 16 or so, so you're 16, and this is all you've known your whole life. There's no like real reason to question it, if you're comfortable. He works at a church for the friar of Isleta, and he's having probably what would be his first crush on the Spanish Baker's son. And so he's like trying to navigate that, navigate what happens if the Spanish all get kicked out, then his crush will also be leaving, so it's difficult for him.
KUNM: What are you wanting people to get out of this show?
CHITTO: I think I want people to take away the idea that these are stories that actually happened. Back then, obviously these two brothers didn't exist, but the thing is, like, you know, the little brother is gay. When we think about history, it's so sanitized and very black and white. So then we have the whole trope of, oh, these two men shared a bed together in a tiny apartment, and like would walk down to the market holding hands, and they were just such good friends, aren't they? You know, and nobody wants to say that they were gay! But you know, like gay people existed back then, we've always existed. I think just seeing that opens the door to, you know, to empathy, being able to sit there, take in the story about Native people, but also queer people. So I'm hoping that people will be able to, you know, see themselves, or see people that they know in these characters, and feel the gravity of what it is to overcome huge odds, humongous odds, and why that's important, why it's a miracle that you know as Native people, we have survived this long and continue to survive.
KUNM: And would you say that your show aims to make this piece of history more palatable to a modern audience?
CHITTO: Oh, definitely. When you talk about things like the Pueblo Revolt, which is battles, battles, battles, people dying, blood everywhere. But let's make it funny. I think that's something that a lot of people today aren't expecting, but will actually be something that people are interested in. Part of the production is called Indigifuturism, where we look at what could be, what should be, through an Indigenous lens. And these boys are living in 1680, but Tara Moses, the director, has done a beautiful thing where they're actually not physically or anything, but kind of like spiritually transported into our present day, and they're seeing what we're seeing right now, like how things have slightly changed, have slightly gotten better, but at the same time, you know, still there's struggle. And I think just those little touches will bring an audience member in to think, Oh, well, this is more about today than I thought it would be.
