Mexico City's Summer 2022 Theatre Season

Abstract

Reviewed by: Mexico City's Summer 2022 Theatre Season Timothy G. Compton Happily, Mexican theatre has returned with vibrance after Covid-19 shut it down. In 2020 I reported that I had found quality theatre online and expressed hope that live online events would continue even after theaters opened. Not so—online offerings have diminished to a near halt as theaters focus on live performances. At first, theaters limited audience sizes to less than 50% of capacity, but all such restrictions have now been lifted. As of July 2022, theaters in Mexico City required masks of audiences (and weekly negative Covid tests for actors). In some venues, employees screened spectators for fevers, allowed them in only minutes prior to the start, and rushed them out row by row, with instructions to socially distance and refrain from socializing until outside. Several unfortunate changes due to the pandemic had to do with printed material. The weekly publication Tiempo libre, which used to have the best listing of plays, shut down when theaters closed and has not appeared since—a big loss. I depended on internet listings (mostly https://carteleradeteatro.mx/, but also carteleras from major theater complexes), but who knows what I missed? In addition, Covid-19 caused "programas de mano" to disappear, with just one exception among the plays I saw. Most had online programs, but often I did not learn of them until after the performance, so information that would have enriched my experience came late. On the bright side, some online programs included extra information. A few theaters apparently closed forever due to the pandemic (all three venues featuring micro-theatre, for example), but theatre lives again in Mexico City's major theaters. Although I was disappointed with this season's selection of plays for young audiences, I found abundant excellent plays for adults, with a wide [End Page 105] variety of genres and budgets, spanning from world classics to contemporary plays by Mexicans. For me, the most compelling plays of the season engaged with Mexico's past. Before seeing Insomnes, I learned that it included autobiographical elements and that part of its story came from Mexico's "Guerra Sucia" of the 1970s. I loved the play when I saw it, but I kept thinking about it and then gathered information from its creators, which has increased my admiration. Although the advertising and program listed its two actors—Ricardo Hech Rivas Oliva and Ulises Martínez Martínez—as the playwrights and Yupanqui Aguilar Martínez as the director, those specifications don't tell the full story. The three started to meet nearly ten years ago to prepare and stage a play. After months of rehearsals, Martínez suggested switching to something they would write themselves, based on their own experiences, starting with an experience he had at the age of ten when his father, Felipe Martínez Soriano, president of a university in Oaxaca and a leader of the Left, was targeted as an enemy of the Mexican government. The pair of actors improvised and experimented and referenced many experiences, all under the direction of Aguilar. After roughly two years of these sessions and countless hours of discussion, Aguilar suggested a structure and a focus that the group accepted as the play's foundation. It premiered in 2018 and has been performed over 100 times, according to Rivas, in theaters, plazas, markets, and schools in various of Mexico's states, as well as in Bogotá and Madrid. A radio program, Radio Insomnes, transmitted at 4:00 AM, served as the premise of the play. No, the play was not performed at 4:00 AM, but it did start later than most Saturday evening plays. I saw it in the new Foro 4 Espacio Alternativo space of the Helénico Cultural Complex, an intimate space that almost seemed clandestine. The audience experienced two segments of the "radio show." In the first, Martínez acted as the radio announcer and Rivas told the story of identifying his parents' bodies, followed by flashback scenes from his troubled relationship with his father. Those scenes included Rivas confronting his father over his alcoholism and having physical confrontations with him. The two also did...