SF Intl. Arts Festival: Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo starring Ric Salinas

SFIAF, the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) and the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) present the world premiere of PLACAS, written by Paul S. Flores, developed with and directed by Michael John Garcés of Cornerstone Theater and starring Ricardo Salinas of Culture Clash.

PLACAS (barrio slang: a code word for graffiti tags, a nickname or body tattoos) is a stage drama about family, transformation and redemption that focuses on a Salvadoran former gang member in the barrio… Show more of San Francisco trying to reclaim his family while letting go of his past. The play explores the benefits and risks of tattoo removal for gang members through one man's determination to reunite his family after surviving civil war in El Salvador, immigration, deportation, prison and street violence.

PLACAS focuses on inter-generational relationships between young men and their fathers and uses the metaphor of tattoo removal as a way of moving forward and as a path to a possible solution.

Ric Salinas features as Salvadoran immigrant Fausto Carbajal, a now middle-aged ex-gang member recently released after nine years in prison. As a requirement of his parole Fausto must remove the tattoos that mark him as a member of his gang. Wearied by what has been a lifetime of violence, he accepts the terms. He returns to San Francisco to live with his mother, a war refugee, and hopes to re-unite with his ex-partner, Claudia and their now teenaged son, Edgar. Fausto visits Claudia and Edgar. But Edgar, who has not seen his father for most of his life, resents Fausto and displays disturbing character traits that remind Fausto of himself in his youth. It is clear that the reunion will be difficult.

Ric Salinas was born in El Salvador and grew up in San Francisco's Mission District where he was once the innocent victim in a near-fatal gang shooting. For that and several other reasons, his involvement in the play is a personal one, “Living in San Francisco in the eighties, the time when the war sent many refugees to the United States in general, and to places like San Francisco's Mission District in particular, I saw first hand how this wave of immigrants impacted the neighborhoods; and how the realities of trying to adapt to living in the U.S. impacted Salvadorans. I was almost killed trying to prevent gang violence in front of my home in the Mission, so it is something I have first hand experience with. I agreed to play Fausto because I'm hoping that by telling his story it will allow audiences, old and young, to experience and learn about the consequences when loved ones become caught up in gang activity.”

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