By SHARON EBERSON
A magazine article that cast James Bond in a new light changed Christopher Rivas’ life.
Vanity Fair wasn’t the first to write that Ian Fleming’s enduring 007 character was inspired by the life of Porfirio Rubirosa, a Dominican Republic diplomat, race car driver and playboy. But it was where Rivas discovered him and was inspired to create The Real James Bond Was … Dominican!, a DNAWORKS production presented by City Theatre January 18 – February 16, 2025.
The show is written and performed by Rivas, developed with and directed by DNAWORKS’ Daniel Banks and featuring live music by percussionist Jonathan Gomez.
a DNAWORKS production at City Theatre. (Image: Daniel Brooks)
In a recent phone conversation, Rivas recalled how reading about Rubirosa “changed my life, to not put it lightly, for many reasons. He’s Dominican. I’m Dominican, but I never heard about him. He had done so many cool, incredible things. And I thought to myself, ‘Where are my heroes? Why don’t I know about cool people that come from where I come from, where my father comes from?’ And so I went and deep-dived into a rabbit hole about this person who was wildly problematic but also wildly incredible and inspirational.”
To illustrate how deeply he had fallen under the spell of “the real James Bond,” Rivas’ college friends began calling him “Ruby,” and when he won a teddy bear at a fair, the bear, too, was named Ruby.
“At first, I really wanted to embody the parts of him that are what he’s known as, sort of the Latin lover, the machismo,” Rivas said. “And then I started to fall out of love with those parts, and I saw the sadness in him and I saw the warning that he really was to me of what I could become if I didn’t watch myself, especially as a man of color moving through Hollywood.”
That led to personal reckoning about Rivas’ need to be “accepted and desired and loved, and what that had to teach me about my own Latino-ness, my own brownness.”
Rivas explored those feelings and his knack for storytelling in articles in the New York Times’ Modern Love opinion column, which led to a book deal for Brown Enough: Brown Enough: True Stories About Love, Violence, the Student Loan Crisis, Hollywood, Race, Familia, and Making It in America.
While he is perhaps best known for 19 episodes of the Fox series Call Me Kat, with The Real James Bond … Was Dominican!, Rivas aspires to open doors to conversations about cultural appropriation, and “to reclaim a narrative and tell a story that celebrates identity, resilience, and the power of representation.”
His relationship with DNAWORKS goes back to his college days, when he first met co-founder and co-curator Banks. The production company was founded in New York City in 2006 to foster “dialogue and healing through the arts,” fostering global majority and LGBTQ representation in the arts.
DNAWORKS moved to Pittsburgh in 2023, when Banks’ husband, Adam McKinney, became artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.
In their initial meeting, Rivas asked about working with the company during the summer, and Banks replied, “We’re going to Hungary. Come with us to do hip-hop theater workshops.”
Rivas was welcomed into an ensemble of artists, and Banks helped him craft the show.
“I came to him with hundreds of pages. and we turned it into way less than hundreds of pages, and we’ve taken it around the country,” Rivas said.
“And then Daniel became a citizen of Pittsburgh.”
As Rivas described it, director Banks was eager to do a play here and had built a relationship with City Theatre. He offered, “ ‘I have this really cool piece from this cool artist.’ And so that the rest is history, as they say.”
Rivas has only recently been introduced to Pittsburgh, City Theatre, and co-artistic directors Claire Drobot and Monteze Freeland.
“I love them and love their philosophy and their ethics and their beliefs. Yeah, so there is definitely beautiful synergy there,” he said.
With The Real James Bond …, Rivas knows it might ruffle a few feathers to say the iconic character was based on a suave Dominican rather than a Brit, although he was portrayed as such in 12 Ian Fleming novels and more than two dozen movies.
You can learn more about Rubirosa in Rivas’ 10-episode documentary-style investigation of the man. Or you can see him through the eyes of Rivas, whose work was described in the Boston Globe as “pumped full of the most amazing stories, rich with intimate details of Rivas’ life,” and as a powerful exploration of identity, heritage and self-acceptance.
Rivas doesn’t like to call what he does a “solo show,” because percussionist Gomez “really brings that world and that vibrancy to life,” he said.
“Show” doesn’t quite cut it, either.
“It’s storytelling,” Rivas said. “It’s me and you, and I like to say, ‘I don’t make theater, I make church.’ It’s really an experience. I’m not asking you to come and be quiet. I’m asking you to come and engage with me. And it’s really fun, and there are a lot of surprises that I will not give away.”
Having just arrived in town as he spoke, Rivas was excited to get to know Pittsburgh, and for Pittsburghers to get to know him.
At select performances, audiences are invited to participate in a post-performance story circle – a facilitated communal conversation about connections and personal stories that the production evokes.
Also, after each performance, Rivas will hold a book signing, which to him is “just another way to really have these deep relationships.”
He added, “I will say the show gets to the heart of humans. I’ve done it in other cities, and I’ve been invited back to all of these cities to do other things. It just kind of speaks to people in a very honest way.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
City Theatre presents the DNAWORKS production The Real James Bond Was … Dominican!, January 18 – February 16, 2025, in the Lillie Theatre,1300 Bingham Street, South Side. Tickets: https://citytheatre.culturaldistrict.org/production/94448/the-real-james-bond-dot-dot-dot-was-dominican or 412.431.CITY (2489). Note: Collaborators in community-building partnerships, in conjunction with the production and with the support of Duolingo, include City of Asylum, 1Hood Media, Vibrant Pittsburgh, and a free talk hosted by The World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh at the Latin American Cultural Center on Wednesday, February 12.
Categories: Company, Our Posts, Show Previews, Venue
I found it fascinating how Christopher Rivas’ discovery of Porfirio Rubirosa, the Dominican diplomat and playboy who inspired Ian Fleming’s James Bond, led him to create The Real James Bond Was … Dominican! and explore his own Latino identity. As someone who’s also navigated cultural representation in media, I appreciate Rivas’ goal to reclaim narratives and celebrate resilience through his work with DNAWORKS. His story reminds me of the importance of diverse storytelling, and I’m looking forward to learning more about his production and the impact of DNAWORKS in fostering dialogue and healing through the arts.