When Luis Hernández discovered stand-up comedy, he quickly realized that he could do it too. He started watching comedians like Dave Chapelle, George López, and Carlin on HBO.
But he really gained momentum when he saw people in Costa Rica daring to do it. One day “around 2010,” he went to a contest organized by El Farolito in which comedians who are now national stand-up icons participated: Pablo Montoya, Rubén González, and Waleska Oporta.
“I saw them and said, ‘I would like to do that,'” Luis recalls from his home in Nicoya. On the national scene today, he is known as “El Profe.”
Luis was born in México but grew up in Guanacaste. He is a Spanish teacher at the Liceo de Santa Cruz, and for 15 years he has been taking to the stage with comedy routines inspired by rural Costa Rican life, mainly Guanacaste culture.
Mark open
The sun raises a dense humidity that rises from the ground, but the high ceiling of the cabin where Luis lives with his wife Daniela blocks all the coolness pushed by the approaching black clouds.
It was not until after the pandemic that he returned to live in Nicoya, after years of wandering around the country.
As soon as he began filling vacant positions at the Ministry of Public Education, he chose the same option whenever he could: mark open.
‘Mark open’ means send me anywhere because I’m willing to go no matter what. With the desire to always have a job opportunity, whenever I could, I marked open,” Luis recalls.
He worked in Jacó, Quepos, Cóbano, Piedras Azules, Guácimo, Siquirres, Montezuma, San Francisco de Coyote, Parrita, San Antonio de Tulín… And traveling around Costa Rica’s rural towns helped him develop his own unique sense of humor.
La Voz: How did rural life influence your storytelling?
Luis Hernández: In those places, there aren’t any phone booths, or places to rent, or hotels, [so] I had to ask permission to see if they could rent me a small room in a house. In the evening, after school, I would sit with Don Leonardo and Doña Catarina around a fire in Piedras Azules, surrounded by bats, telling stories and talking about what Guanacaste was like 50 or 60 years ago. All of that filled me with a wealth of knowledge. So I said, “Okay, I’m going to take everything I know and have seen and experienced, and I’m going to tell it my way in stand-up comedy.” If there’s one thing I can say, it’s that my stuff may not appeal to everyone, and that’s clear, but what you can say is, “This guy is original.”
LV: Why do you think there are so many good storytellers in Guanacaste?
LH: Regardless of your social class in the province, you always have access to parties, bombas, retahílas, and bullfights. So all those things shape your personality, and that’s what makes Guanacastecos so authentic and unique. And that’s a fundamental cultural trait; oral tradition in Guanacaste is a common thread. And look, you’re with a friend and you describe your day to them. You’re going to find an exciting description, with emotional peaks, with minute details, with exaggerations, with hyperbole, and with a fantastic sense of magical realism and experience. Because we basically come from stories, myths, legends, the rescue of traditional values, which you can trace back to ancient times. You are immersed in a culture whose axis of communication is completely rich in language because it is very narrative. It is not a society where people are distant from one another.
LV: Who in Guanacaste has inspired you when it comes to humor?
LH: My main references are not other comedians. They are folklorists, musicians, writers. Most of the things I have done in comedy are based on stories that happened here and narrated as if they had been told by someone who grew up here and lived here. One of the monologues that people know me best for is the one about Guanacastean fights . That monologue is an almost direct reference to the music group Contradanza de Santa Cruz. They have a song called Chinon, which is a similar description of those events. I have a lot of monologues about “La mona,” but they come from other stories, from other accounts. I haven’t made anything up, except for the way I tell it.
Theater, television, and film
Luis remembers that since he was a child he liked to tell jokes and be the center of attention at parties. At the age of four, he participated in his first play in kindergarten and knew that he was not afraid to be in front of an audience.
As soon as he took to the stage in 2010, he looked for new places to continue performing, but it was very difficult to do so individually. That’s why he proposed to other stand-up comedians that they form a collective to make it easier to reach the media and promote their events. That’s how “Los Insolentes” was born.
They didn’t stop there. The following year, they convinced the then Minister of Culture, Manuel Obregón, to hold the first Stand-Up Comedy Festival, which continues to this day. It is an annual event that brings together thousands of people and features national and international comedians.
They also gained a foothold on television when Canal 9 produced a stand-up program called “Le llamamos comedia” (We Call It Comedy). All this exposure opened doors for them in other formats. Luis, for example, participated in the film Maikol Yordan de Viaje perdido and also in the series.
Although the growth of this discipline gave other comedians the opportunity to transcend our borders, Luis’s case has been different.
There are other comedians who are more universal, but that’s also because that’s what they’re interested in. I missed out on good opportunities to perform in other places because it was difficult to export the material, as it’s full of local references,” says Luis, with no regrets.
LV: Is there a difference between telling a joke here in Guanacaste and in San José?
LH: Many things that might seem exotic there are commonplace here. So here, the humor is not so much in the novelty, but in how you tell it. You often have to start by explaining what “La mona” is, so the element of surprise begins with explaining the context and making it exciting in a summarized way so that the joke gets across quickly, whereas here you already have a ready-made context. That’s a big advantage; you can get straight to the lines you want to say. Familiarity with the concepts makes it easier to be explosive.
In the midst of the pandemic, he was offered a transfer to a school in Santa Cruz, so he was able to return to his home in Nicoya and the province where he grew up and where he dedicates himself to his latest project once a week.
Three Quixotes of the Pampa
In the high school staff room, Luis and two colleagues, Gustavo Chalín Brenes and Jeison Fonseca, were talking fluently, each with a different point of view on countless topics. At that moment, Luis had an idea.
I said, ‘Man, we have a podcast here. This stuff is marketable on screen, it has everything it needs. We did a pilot and loved it. The three of us are articulate and try not to get into topics we don’t know about, and if we do, we let the others know: we’re going to say something stupid,'” Luis confesses.
Chalín suggested they call themselves Los Quijotes de la Pampa (The Quixotes of the Pampa), they bought what they needed for good image and sound, and they set up Luis’s living room as a home studio.
His wife Daniela records it, a friend edits it, and they write the script for each program on a small acrylic board.
The episodes of Los Quijotes are relaxed, surrounded by bread and coffee. It’s an excuse for Luis to talk to friends where he plays a much less prominent role and shares the stage.
LV: What is Los Quijotes de la Pampa about?
LH: I’ve always said that Guanacaste needs to be put in the spotlight by doing something ingenious and contemporary, but always with a concern for respecting and maintaining traditions. And that’s why Los Quijotes de La Pampa is so important to me, because I feel that we seek to mix humor, documentation, madness, incoherence, and the rescue of traditions and values. I don’t want it to be like other podcasts that don’t contribute anything original to the world because they’re just another copy of something else. I want people who listen to this to get not only what we have to offer, but also a sense of Guanacaste’s unique character. So far, we haven’t done anything that could get us canceled. We have our editorial line: no bad language, no sex, because we’re teachers, so we have to understand that too.
Los Quijotes de la Pampa is available on YouTube (in the last episode, we participated in a conversation about the importance of regional journalism in Guanacaste), but also on TV Santa Cruz every Friday and Sunday at 3 p.m.
Los Quijotes is his third podcast. He had tried one on book reviews and recommendations, another on interviews with musicians. And now this one has fulfilled a purpose in his life.
I’m very happy because it’s on a local channel. I feel like I’m giving back everything that the province has done for me and my family, for everyone since we arrived here in Guana,” he says.
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