Ernesto Escalera Martínez strips down to his booty-shorts three nights a week at a gay bar called The Brig. He plays up his Mexicano roots, donning cowboy outfits and the charro suits of mariachis before he takes it all off. It’s good money, but he has to deal with constant propositions.
Several times a night, a patron will ask the muscular, square-jawed exotic dancer if he’d like to do a photo shoot. Some ask him to star in films. Escalera smiles and says no thanks. He draws the line at pornography.
But two months ago a man persuaded him to audition for a small role in a play that requires nudity at Curious Theatre Company, one of the city’s best outfits, which stages five productions each year on Acoma Street in the Golden Triangle. It didn’t matter that he had no acting experience.
Director Chip Walton was desperate.
A four-month search yielded no Latino actors willing to go nude for Curious’ latest, “Take Me Out,” a Tony Award-winning play about a baseball player who comes out of the closet.
Walton had long filled the roles for four Caucasians, two African-Americans and a Japanese ballplayer.
Walton never imagined a search for two Latino actors willing to go full frontal would take all this: daily phone calls to theater companies and other contacts in the arts, fliers posted on college campuses, ads in bilingual newspapers – and a visit to a strip club.
After three months of casually searching for an actor and getting nowhere, Walton said he and his staffers spent another four weeks making the search the “top priority every day.”
Eventually, he found José Enrique Carbajal Sandoval III, a fledgling actor who learned of the part from his brother, who saw a flier at Metro State. A friend of the theater “discovered” Escalera.
Carbajal took the part because he hopes to be an actor. Escalera took it because he lost his day job at Bally’s Total Fitness in Lakewood.
Escalera’s parents, who live in Zacatecas, Mexico, know he’s in a play, but they don’t know about the nude scenes. Neither do the two cousins he lives with in Lakewood.
It says a lot about cultural taboos.
“It wasn’t hard to find white guys willing to go naked,” said Dee Covington, Curious’ community outreach coordinator. And it’s not just because there is a larger number of Caucasian actors in Denver. Walton said there’s a sizable pool of talented Latino actors here. He believes part of the problem was that the roles are minor.
The bigger factor is cultural mores that run deep in most of Latin America – especially in Mexico. Private parts are supposed to remain private.
It’s acceptable for women to flash a little flesh, though when they do, Latino society may label them tramps.
But getting naked is considered sucio, or dirty, especially for men, even if it’s for art.
Escalera is aware of the cultural difference. In his year at Bally’s he noticed Latino men would cover their genitals or face a locker to change; white men “walked around naked as if they were walking on the 16th Street Mall.”
When I met with him Tuesday morning, Escalera said he thought he could cover himself with his hand – just like the men he saw at Bally’s – when he faces the audience to deliver his lines.
I told him I didn’t think Chip Walton would go for that. To capture the authenticity of a baseball team locker room, the players have to be nude.
Escalera has a little time to get used to the idea. The show opens May 7. He said he’ll be fine – just as long as Mom and Dad don’t find out.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com .
