Mexico City's Spring 2017 Theatre Season

Abstract

Mexico City's Spring 2017 Theatre Season Timothy G. Compton Mexico City churned out yet another extraordinary theatre season in spring of 2017. With well over 100 plays performed each week, no single theatregoer's bucket list could have been even remotely satisfied in terms of seeing all desirable plays. Because I showed up to multiple plays that were sold out, I was simultaneously encouraged (I want plays to sell out!) and disappointed (I hate to miss plays). Three such plays were at the end of their runs, and for the first time I felt tempted to start buying tickets through Ticketmaster rather than just show up early. Despite challenges, theatregoers had abundant reasons to feel satisfied because so many plays had so very much to offer, and some were simply extraordinary. For me, Cosas pequeñas y extraordinarias topped the list of the season's finest plays. Daniela Arroio and Micaela Gramajo wrote the text together, co-directed the play, and acted in it as well. Although not autobiographical, it reflected the family backgrounds of both Arroio and Gramajo, both of whose parents had to flee their native countries (Brazil and Argentina) and took refuge in Mexico. Although ostensibly a children's play, performed early afternoons on weekends, and advertised as appropriate for children at least five years old, adults found it powerful as well. The story focused on eight-year-old Emma. The program listed three women actors, but only two performed. The three took turns from performance to performance in the various roles to allow Arroio and Gramajo to see the play from outside at times and make adjustments as directors. In a nutshell, the play showed how Emma's reporter parents found their lives in danger and suddenly had to take leave of their homeland with her. Emma then had to go through the painful process of adapting to a new language, a new climate, a new culture, and new friends. The title of the play refers to a small museum Emma created in her homeland, which featured small, extraordinary things she discovered, [End Page 265] catalogued, and placed in a small cardboard "museum"—things like match-books, keyrings, stamps, and photos. In her new country, she felt so angry and alienated that she refused to try to find anything positive, while bullying, troubles with a new language, and lack of friends exacerbated her situation. With the help of a talking cat (played marvelously by Sergio Solís), the overtures of another child (played charmingly by Arroio), and letters from her grandmother back home (read movingly by an audience member picked and recruited by Gramajo maybe 15 minutes before show time), she started to come out of her depression. In a magically beautiful scene, she became entranced upon seeing a mother whale and her offspring in the ocean and entered into the water (gorgeous blue fabric made to undulate like water). She had discovered that her new country also had extraordinary things. She emerged from the water with a starfish and founded a new "museum," which she filled with new treasures, each catalogued as they had been in her previous country. It was a feel-good, moving story for sure, showing how welcoming kindness and family support helped a child in need, but the play offered so much more. I've alluded to the outstanding acting and magical ocean scene, but it had other magical elements, starting with a pair of screens (perhaps six by ten feet each) onto which most of the "set" was projected from a document camera stage left. Mario Eduardo D'León did all the technical work for the screens, acted as the story's narrator, and sometimes entered into the action with the other characters. He would announce to the audience, "This is Emma's room," holding up a poster perhaps two feet by four. Then he would slide it under the camera and suddenly the theatrical space transformed. The screens created a variety of "sets," showed the letters written by Emma's grandmother, asked audience members to silence their cell phones, and in one scene served as a sort of shadow theatre onto which actors' shadows cast from behind...