Manifest Destiny: American Mythology Confronts Chilean History in Manuel Ortiz’s Work

Manuel Ortiz’s new play Manifest Destiny isn’t a true story. It isn’t an American myth. And it isn’t Hamlet , either — no, it’s a surreal and suspenseful blend of all three.

Ortiz, a Chilean playwright and director, wrote Manifest Destiny as the second entry in his ongoing trilogy of plays inspired by American mythology. Manifest Destiny , now playing at Teatro LATEA in Manhattan , tells the very real story of Michael Townley, an operative for Chile’s secret police and an alleged CIA agent, who worked with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s.

But in Manifest Destiny , Townley is never mentioned by name — not directly, at least. Instead, his story is mapped onto a plot resembling William Shakespeare’s Hamlet , as an unnamed protagonist is faced with that centuries-old play’s central question: If your dead father came to you demanding revenge against his killer, how far would you go to deliver justice?

The News Pulsesat down with Ortiz to learn all about Manifest Destiny , from its roots in Chilean history to its portrayal of queer characters and its relevance to America’s modern day politics.

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Hi Manuel! Tell me about Manifest Destiny . What was your initial inspiration?

This show works both with real facts and fiction. The real fact is the story about this alleged CIA agent that also worked for Pinochet’s secret police during the dictatorship in Chile, and he was in charge of pretty much hunting people who escaped Pinochet’s dictatorship.

One of the main things that he did, and the reason why he got caught, is that he set up — and did it successfully — a car bomb in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC in 1976. Of course, that was kind of not allowed, so he was put on trial, and he was like, “Do you want me to tell you what America is doing in Latin America during the ‘70s?” And they were like, “Well, actually, maybe you shouldn’t say that, so we’re going to put you in the witness protection program.” And this guy disappeared.

He also had a house in Santiago that was given by Pinochet to him and his wife, who was a Chilean writer. And in this house, which is called Quepulillán, Mariana, the wife, hosted literary workshops on the second floor while Michael Townley was torturing people in the basement.

So that’s the story that is very real, and the fiction kind of was inspired by Hamlet in a way, in the sense of like, what would you do if your father’s ghost shows up and asks for revenge? I was thinking, what would happen to someone whose father was a victim of Michael Townley in this house, to run The News Pulsethis person in the streets of New York City today? That’s how this whole thing starts, and I don’t want to spoil, but like, sh*t happens.

The protagonist of Manifest Destiny is a Chilean immigrant and a playwright — just like you. Obviously, you haven’t been through all the same situations as the character, but did your own life play The News Pulsethe inspiration for the show?

I mean, it’s funny. This is a spoiler that we can give: we actually have a note from the playwright that says, “This play is not autobiographical,” in the play.

I mean, there’s a lot of things that are close to what my life was. I was born in Chile in 1980 in the middle of the dictatorship, and an important part of my family was a victim of that dictatorship. So that informs, for sure, all of this world and the feeling and the urgency as well to do this play.

Also in the sense that, for me, Manifest Destiny — which is part of a trilogy. We had American Dream first, Manifest Destiny , and the third one is going to be called Founding Fathers . What I’m trying to do with these three plays is to interrogate this kind of axiom of American culture through an immigrant, Latin perspective. What does the American dream mean to an immigrant? What does manifest destiny mean to an immigrant? That’s kind of the thing that I want to tease out.

One idea in the play that feels especially really relevant to our current political climate is the idea of doing the politically right thing versus the actual right thing. What messages are you hoping audiences take away from Manifest Destiny ?

It’s a really good question, because do I want to give answers, or do I want to pose questions? Who am I to say, like, “This is what we have to do!”

I am full of contradictions. I lived in Chile during the dictatorship that was supported by America in a way, and then I moved to here and I’m going to try to fulfill my American dream. I think that it’s full of contradictions in there, and I want to invite everyone to observe those things.

For sure, we are in a very, very complex and tough moment historically. So I think that the question that you’re posting, like, what is the right thing or what is the political right thing to do, I want to put it in front — but something that was very interesting is that I’ve been writing this play for a year, and the way that the political landscape has changed this last year in this country has also informed the way I’m writing the play. I’m actually playing with the idea of censorship in within the play: we’re not saying, actually, the name of this character.

I wanted to ask about that too, about those metatheatrical moments in the show. Your actors intentionally break character, there are those moments of censorship you mentioned — what influenced those choices?

I’ve been working with what I call documentary theater for a minute already. Short story, I was doing the final showcase for drama school in Chile 15 years ago, and I came with Shakespeare and Chekhov under the arm, and they were like, “What do you want to do?” And in that year, there was this huge student movement in Chile, so there were marches and protests every day on the street. So the students were like, “We don’t want to do Shakespeare; we want to talk about what’s happening outside.” And that kind of changed my way of working.

So the idea of documentary theater also relates to, I think, that our stories need to be told now. The urgency of talking about these things was critical to creating this kind of meta narrative, in a way, because also me being a Latin immigrant, an artist immigrant, here in this country, in a moment, I was like, “Okay, we need to talk about what it means to do a show with this content in this moment of time.”

You walked The News Pulsedrama school with Shakespeare under your arm, and in Manifest Destiny , you’re taking lots of influence from one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. Why did you blend this real-life story with some of the plot elements of Hamlet ?

It was 2016 or 2017 and I was with my cousin in Chile. My uncle was a victim of the Pinochet dictatorship, and his killer was actually tried and put The News Pulsejail, but five years after that, he was released. So I was with my cousin that night, and we were drinking and having a very, very stressful time. And he was like, “What would happen if I ran The News Pulsethis person in the street?” That actually was very much informed from that real situation, and in that conversation, Hamlet pops up in a way. Like, yeah, what happens if your father shows up and demands revenge?

There is something about historical facts: In Chile, for instance, there’s still more than one thousand people that haven’t been found. Actually, my grandfather, we only found one tooth. So all of that kind of informed that situation.

The way I work is always working with a lot of historical things. But I always mix that with a classic, because in terms of structure, it helps me to interweave those story lines, to create a structure for the audience to recognize not only what’s happening in terms of facts, but also recognize that it’s the story of Hamlet . I had a teacher that told me thousands of years ago, when you’re doing Shakespeare, when you do a show that everyone knows, you already have a bought in with the people, because they know that. So you can start referencing that world, and it’s easier to create a new world with narrative and story that are crossing each other. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. Another thing I appreciate about Manifest Destiny is that though the main characters in this show are queer and it is a queer play, it’s not about queerness. How do you feel about the way that this play specifically tells queer stories?

I love that question. It’s really personal, because when I was in Chile, I was writing and directing and doing things, but I never incorporated any — I am very queer, and I never incorporated that perspective. I don’t know why! We should ask my shrink. I think it’s the process of still coming out of the closet, or in dialogue with an audience, whatever.

But when I moved to New York, one of the things that this city has allowed me to understand is, “Oh, maybe I can express myself in a different way.” And that also, in a good way, infused my writing and my artistic practice to understand, yeah, we need representation. We need to see each other in theater, in movies, in things like that.

I think that sometimes it’s about actually telling a very much queer-centered story, but to understand that queer characters live through conflicts and big things and small things the same way that everyone else does. I think it was important for me to bring that.

Now you’ve made me think: Maybe this coming out process, it’s something that you keep doing through your life. And it’s really beautiful for me to not only be able to express myself in the streets, but also express myself in theater, and connect with people. At the end of the day, I think that theater is to find persons and start having those conversations, and when you find those connecting points, it’s the beauty of art.

As you mentioned, Manifest Destiny is part of a trilogy on American mythology. Why is that theme so fruitful for you as a playwright?

I think that I make art to try to explain to me and have the conversation about how we perceive reality. And as an immigrant, when I moved here, the cultural shock, it’s so big that I needed to try to understand and to grasp the concept, to understand what is the dramaturgy of this show called America. And I think that those concepts — the American dream, manifest destiny, and founding fathers — were like this kind of cement, foundational things of this show called America, that I was like, “Okay, I need to investigate this. What does it mean to have this concept that kind of holds this whole fan fiction?”

I think that those concepts, while they were crucial for the construction of this whole country, they’re still there articulating the way that America and the rest of the countries behave.

They certainly are. This play is coming out in a very fraught political time, particularly when it comes to the American immigrant experience. For you, why does this play feel especially relevant now?

One of the things that I’m trying to do also, exploring the idea of destiny — when I was working some Greek specialist years ago, he said that “destiny” in Greek actually doesn’t mean something that is written and you’re going to do it, but it’s also that you’re forging yourself every day. And I think that in this very, very complicated time, we need to understand that if things are looking bad, we are the one in charge of our destiny, and we need to face that decision that you brought up very early in the interview: this is the time to think about, like, do the right thing or the political right thing? And it’s tough, because in this moment, not everyone has the privilege, in a way, to go in the street and fight, or make their voice heard.

So I feel the responsibility, kind of like my grain of sand, to say, ‘Hey, we need to talk about this. We are resilient. We have allies. It’s about finding our people and resist and fight for what we want.” For me, that’s the conversation that I want to open with this show. What are we doing now? Are we kind of damned by the destiny, or can we actually take our destiny The News Pulseour hands and build a dream together?

Manifest Destiny runs through June 29 at Teatro LATEA. Tickets are available here .

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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