At Padua Hills Theatre, my friend and I watched in awe as dancers’ colorfully intricate dresses flowed with every movement, their male accompanists dancing alongside them. They moved across the stage with undeniable grace. Sitting among the bustling audience, I wondered how much the theater had changed since Mexican artist Francisco Sánchez Flores first saw it after arriving in Claremont in 1935.
The performance was part of a Sept. 24 Hispanic Heritage Month celebration and award ceremony hosted by Claremont Heritage and Nosotros at the theater, which has historically been a hub for artists and performers of Mexican heritage.
Shortly after the performance, David Shearer — the director of Claremont Heritage — came on stage to kick off the award ceremony. He noted that celebrations like this would have made the Garners, the founders of the theater, proud as its legacy continues to live on. At the same time, Shearer joked that Herman Garner would not have liked the new floor renovations.
Although the floors might be different, the legacy of artists like Sánchez Flores endures at today’s Padua Hills Theatre.
Earlier this summer, I visited Padua Hills Theatre as part of a research project on both the theater and Sánchez Flores. I wanted to get an in-person glimpse of what life at the theater might have been like in 1935. Standing in front of the building, astonished by the scenic backdrop of the Claremont hills, I viscerally understood how it had transformed into a popular event venue decades ago. Although it no longer functions as a theater but rather as an events venue, I was surprised to see remnants of its origins everywhere I looked.
For Sánchez Flores, “Idolos Muertos?” represented the various textures of everyday life set against a backdrop of colonization and conquest.
In one hallway, I came across display cases filled with signs and props from various past plays. Another room, which led to both the dressing rooms and kitchen, was covered from the ceiling to the floor with a mural that captured rural life in Mexico. In the mural, campesinos and campesinas (agrarian workers) sat in front of hills decorated with trees below a colorful sky. As I took a closer look, I noticed small signatures that looked like they were signed by the Mexican Players themselves, a troupe of performers who were integral to the theater from the 1930s to the 1970s.
While I was certainly enamored by the artifacts and decorations inside the theater, I felt most connected to its history and legacy while standing on the stage itself. This past summer, I gazed at the empty chairs I would find myself sitting in months later as part of the audience. I couldn’t help but imagine a lively audience decades earlier eagerly waiting to watch one of Sánchez Flores’ plays, like “Idolos Muertos?” (“Are the Idols Dead?”)
“Idolos Muertos?” was well received at the time of its release in 1935. I had stumbled upon the play while sifting through digital archives of scrapbooks full of photographs, news releases and playbills. In one news article, Bess Garner herself described the play as a “one-man show,” as Sánchez Flores designed the sets, costumes, choreography and storyline all by himself. What couldn’t he do?
Looking through photographs, it became clear that religion was a focal point of the play, as a representation of the changes that conquest brought to Mexico. The play begins in pre-Columbian times, showing Aztecs celebrating their idols. Then, immediately in the next scenes, the Spanish Empire arrives and replaces the Aztec idols with their own Roman Catholic crosses.
Yet, even after conquest, the play depicts Indigenous people celebrating their own idols and continuing their cultural practices, even in front of the colonizer’s cross. I was especially drawn to this aspect of the play: it outwardly critiqued conquest in Mexico while celebrating the perseverance of Indigenous people.
Looking through photographs and press releases about the play, I realized that elements of it had inevitably been lost over time. Nevertheless, what is left of its history remains present, and the artifacts still preserve Sánchez Flores’ legacy — just as “Idolos Muertos?” preserves the vibrancy of Indigenous cultures and how their idols have survived to today.
“Idolos Muertos?” brought new life to Padua Hills Theatre. Because the theater’s audiences were mostly white at the time, the majority of its productions were geared toward lighthearted themes of romance and comedy. Sánchez Flores broke that pattern, emphasizing the complicated nature of conquest that contextualizes the moment of “Old Mexico” that the theater was seemingly stuck in.
For Sánchez Flores, “Idolos Muertos?” represented the various textures of everyday life set against a backdrop of colonization and conquest. His work should not just exist in the past; its championing of the idea of perseverance is a legacy that we should carry with us. Padua Hills Theatre, and its performers and artists like Sánchez Flores, have survived through time; it is up to us to continue preserving this legacy.
Meiya Rollins PO ’29 believes, like Michelangelo, that art takes time — most of that time spent on Trader Joe’s snack breaks and watching “Slushynoobz.”