“We brought the best we had”: Lina de Guevara and her Theatre Work with Immigrants now living in Victoria BC

In 1988, Lina De Guevara founded Puente (“Bridge”) Theatre in Victoria, B.C., following an interrupted theatre career in her homeland, Chile.  A primary goal of her company has been to share playbuilt stories of  immigrants’ experiences, and I have been aware of Lina’s work since I settled in Victoria in 1991.  In addition to her Puente productions, Lina enhances the local theatre scene with her international playreading festival, held annually at The Belfry Theatre, and she teaches courses at the University of Victoria on Latin American playwrights and a course entitled “Theatre for Transformation”.  Her work in recent years has been inspired by the work of Boal, who writes that  ‘playing’ is one of the most powerful languages that you can have.  To play is to use part of reality, to create and rehearse forms of transformation.  Lina is certainly a theatre artist who explores avenues for transformation and creative expression, and my paper will be based on a recent interview with her, including photographs of some of Puente's productions over the past twenty years.  She discusses many aspects of her work, some of which will be included in my paper: gender differences in modes of research and performance, her methodology for playbuilding research with immigrants (predominantly non-actors), language learning, building of skills and employability opportunities, silence, intercultural sharing, cultural appropriation, diversity, tolerance and self-expression.  Lina impassionately describes how the specific stories that we all bring with us, difficult as they may at times be,  can become universal stories, through the dramatic shaping by a committed collection of individuals who are united in a common aim.