Trial by Fire

Survival is up for grabs along Solid Rock Alley, where each day exacts an emotional and psychological toll, with violence and anger eating away at the soul.

It is a meaner than mean place where Baby Rat, a gang member, brutally assaults his pregnant teenage girlfriend, Alma. And Adolfo, a hard-drinking loser of a father, even more brutally beats his wife, Rosa, in front of their children and neighbors.

For all of its bleakness, though, the alley has also produced Fred, a police officer; College Boy, a law student despite the odds; Carlos, a hard-working mechanic, and Carmen, a saucy county nurse in search of a husband.

Drama students at Fremont High School take their audiences to the alley in their performances of “Hung by the Tongue,� a play by Fremont drama teacher Sidney Butler, who uses the O.J. Simpson trial as a vehicle for looking at violence--and love--in the characters’ lives.

“I try to deal with the social issues--to feel the pulse of the community and the people and see what is moving them,� Butler said. “This O.J. thing is still broiling in this community and all communities.�

So is domestic violence, just as it was an undercurrent throughout the Simpson trial. It is this dimension of the play that has most deeply touched some audiences.

As students filed into the South-Central Los Angeles school auditorium one afternoon last week, each one was given a “guilty� and “not guilty� ballot. As part of the play, they would witness a “street trial� of Simpson “in the court of public opinion.� During an intermission, they would render their verdict.

In the raw give-and-take along the alley, Simpson’s guilt and innocence are passionately argued:

“If a man beats his woman, he will kill her.�

“A black man is still guilty until proven innocent.�

“If you think O.J. is innocent, then you must be from another planet called Stupid.�

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College Boy, played by 16-year-old junior Claudio De Santiago, does the closing argument for the prosecution, going over blood evidence, opportunity and motive--elements familiar from the Simpson trial.

Miss Lucy, senior Qiana Griffin, 18, summarizes for the defense: “Any time a black man kill a white woman, he ain’t going to stand around chopping her up. That includes O.J. . . . A football ain’t never made a black man white. O.J. didn’t kill that white girl and that white boy. They killed O.J. He just never knew it.�

For 8-year-old Chepito, played by McKinley Elementary School student Osman Amador, the anger and bitterness that surfaced during the trial is too reminiscent of the anger present every day along Solid Rock Alley.

“I don’t know if O.J. killed anybody, but all of you are mad at each other,� he tells his neighbors. “If somebody does a sin, we should pray for him. I don’t know if O.J. killed anybody, but I don’t think God likes what we’re doing.�

On this afternoon, a count of the audience’s ballots results in a guilty verdict, but the desperate residents of the alley are still left with their rage toward one another.

They eventually heal their anger with love after Adolfo, the wife batterer, is revealed as a murderer who is later sentenced to life in prison. Even Adolfo, in an epilogue, realizes that “the day I raised my hand to hit a woman was the day my manhood fell to the ground.�

And Baby Rat, the gang member, comes to the realization that “manhood does not come from the barrel of a gun,� and that there is no such thing as “drive-by love.�

The play closed its run at Fremont last week, but Butler is trying to raise funds to take it to other schools, as he has done with earlier productions.

During one of the performances, two very distinct faces of Fremont were on display. Most of the audience appreciated the talented, hard-working youngsters onstage who put on a first-rate student performance. But large pockets of students throughout the audience talked and laughed nonstop and frequently shouted at the performers.

One group of four female students in the front row only interrupted their talking to shout, applaud and exchange high-fives as Baby Rat beat his girlfriend onstage.

“It’s difficult to perform live for an audience,� Butler told the students during the intermission to collect the ballots. “They can hear you and it interferes. Don’t make comments or talk to the actors, because it is distracting.�

His appeal fell on deaf ears, for the most part.

After the performance, the cast said they could hear the talking and shouting, but they overcame the disruptions by staying in character.

And they also saw behind the masks they said many “performers� in the audience were wearing.

Estrella Echavarria, 16, who played Rosa, the battered wife, said many students may have been laughing during the performance, “but right now they could be at home crying. The more they laugh, the more you know it’s hurting them. They just don’t know how to express their emotions.�

“A lot of people don’t realize how much domestic violence is in the home,� she said. “It’s scary for everybody. It hurts you inside, mentally and physically. You see it but you can’t do anything about it.�