Scenic Design by Leigh Henderson
Teatro Visión (San José, CA), March 2003
By Oliver Mayer
Directed by Karen Amano
Set in “Burbank, California, 1942-44, and the land of movie idols,” Conjunto centers on California farm workers of Japanese, Mexican, and Filipino descent during the disgraceful time of Japanese internment camps.
Inspired by aerial photographs of California farmland, the rural scenes suggest the vastness of the agricultural landscape in contrast to the oppressive claustrophobia of the urban scenes, created through a vast textured backdrop covered in propaganda posters. Huge posters of Mexican movie stars hover like deities over the scene.