Eva Tessler and Barclay Goldsmith had the conversation so many times that Tessler had to finally sit the Borderlands Theater founder down and set him straight.
No one cared that he was a white man running a Latino theater company.
βThey all recognize the importance of your work. It doesnβt matter what ethnicity you are,β she told him on the eve years ago of the Tucson theater company participating in a prestigious Latino festival hosted by the Los Angeles Theater Center.
βHe was giving Latino artists opportunities; it didnβt matter what race he was,β she said Thursday, April 4, a day after Goldsmith died at the age of 87. Tessler said Goldsmith, who had Parkinsonβs disease and a history of skin cancer, had been admitted to a local hospital last weekend and died Wednesday morning.
Goldsmith, whose career included pitstops at Mexico Cityβs Circulo Teatral, LARK Play Development Center in New York and the Kennedy Centerβs National MFA program in Washington, D.C., got his Tucson theater start with Teatro Libertad, the 1970s street theater collective active in the civil rights movement.
But he likely got his passion for the Latino arts community from his wife, Chicano scholar and civil rights activist Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, whom he married in 1960.
Tessler says Rubio-Goldsmith was the bridge to Mexico and Latin America in general for Goldsmith, who became an ally and champion for Latinos in the theater world.
βWe wouldnβt have the artists we have in this town today if he hadnβt dedicated himself to the Latinx artists he developed,β said Tucson playwright and University of Arizona associate theater professor Elaine Romero, whose first-ever play production was with Borderlands. βHe was devoted to making sure that the people we wanted to see on stage were trained. We all benefited from that commitment. He was doing that work before anyone.β
Tucson actor Roberto Guajardo, a former student of Goldsmithβs at Pima Community College, said Goldsmith was in search of Latin American voices to help him shine a light on cross-cultural barriers and discrimination.
βIt was a search for equality and justice and dignity,β Guajardo said. βHe persevered with many astonishing shows that never would have been done in Tucson. He was the voice that sort of kept a whole idea of the borderlands with its roots in this idea of cross-culturalism.β
Guajardo recalls how he and Goldsmith butted heads back in the Pima classroom, where Goldsmith taught him and generations of Tucson actors, and on Borderlands stage in the 10 or so productions he did for the company.
βBarclay went generally to this place of finding the core of pain in your character,β Guajardo recalled. βIt was a difficult thing, especially the first couple of times you worked with him, to kind of grasp why the hell he was so hellbent on getting to the deep pain of your character. But I came to appreciate that as time went by.β
βHereβs the thing that Barclay did; he wasnβt always successful,β said longtime Tucson theater critic Kathleen Allen, who covered Borderlands for the Arizona Daily Star from 1999 until she retired in 2019. βSome of his plays were pretty didactic, but he was very courageous in putting them on stage. And the message was an important one, about social justice and diversity and always about theater.β
Back in 1986 when Goldsmith founded Borderlands, hardly anyone in the country or even his hometown of Tucson was producing plays by Latinx playwrights. Opportunities for Hispanic actors also were hit-and-miss. Tucson actors who left town thinking they would find more opportunities in Los Angeles, Chicago or New York often came back and βBarclay would give them opportunities,β Romero said.
One of the cornerstones of Borderlands was bringing new works by undiscovered playwrights to the stage, including several from Romero that went on to be produced at theater companies around the country.
βHe was always just interested in plays and new plays that challenged the status quo,β said Robert Encila, who was among the cast in Borderlands inaugural performance and stuck with the company for the better part of its first two decades.
Encila, who called Goldsmith a mentor, said the longtime theater director wasnβt afraid to rattle cages with his social justice advocacy and penchant for challenging the βconservative status quo.β
βSome people called him a socialist and he didnβt care about that,β said Encila, who learned to direct from Goldsmith and now teaches theater at Desert View High School.
Goldsmith left Borderlands in 2014, turning over leadership to Marc David Pinate and Milta Ortiz, who have carried on the companyβs mission especially when it comes to developing raw talent.
Pinate remembers first meeting Goldsmith in 2010 and being βvery intrigued with this man who kind of looked like Santa Claus and was working with Chicano theater.β Three years later, Pinate and his wife Ortiz collaborated with Borderlands on βMΓ‘s,β a play Ortiz wrote about the controversial Tucson Magnet High School Mexican American Studies classes.
βWhat Barclay really championed, as a theater leader and arts leader, was to tell those stories about the underdog and the marginalized,β Pinate said. βHe had a particular soft spot for the plight of migrants and refugees.β
One of Borderlands Theaterβs projects explored Tucsonβs culturally-rich barrios, including βBarrio Anitaβ in 2018.
Tessler left Borderlands and joined Teatro Dignidad, the seven-year-old theater company founded by and run by women of color. She said the company represents the next generation to Borderlands, following Goldsmithβs path to amplify underserved voices, this time the voices of women of color.
Her departure was around the time Goldsmith left, but the two never lost touch. Once a month, she, Barclay and a few other friends got together for tea and cookies and conversations.
At the last gathering two weeks ago, she read Goldsmith the new play Dignidad will open on May 9. The play brings the connection to Borderlands and Goldsmith full circle; all of the women involved are connected to him, either through Borderlands or his classroom at Pima.
In addition to his wife, Goldsmith is survived by sons Christopher and Patrick; and two grandchildren. Services have not been set, but Pinate said Borderlands will plan some sort of memorial at a later date.
