The staging A-line mirages –which is presented on Mondays in August at 8 pm at the Foro Off Spring (Francisco Pimentel 14, colonia San Rafael)– transcends the boundaries of the show to try to contribute to restoring the identity of its participants
through theatrical art.
Herein The chiaroscuros of theatre are addressed as a form of emancipation, but also as a space where abuses are recorded and structural violence is reproduced.
says Carlos Virgen, responsible for dramaturgy and stage direction.
The work collects testimonies from young actors from Nezahualcóyotl, Chimalhuacán and Los Reyes, in the state of Mexico, and tells what it means to do theater in those places, what adversities, challenges and prejudices they face.
“It is a form of verbatim theatre, which means ‘literal, literal’, and in this case it has consisted of collecting extracts from these interviews and giving them a dramatic structure so that they can work on stage.”
According to the writer and researcher, four of the six actors in the production were part of a community theatre group in the east of the country’s capital, in which the chiaroscuros that occur in theatrical activity were very evident.
They are three women and one man. On the one hand, doing theatre represented a broadening of their horizons, a discovery of what their passion in life is; but, at the same time, they faced abuse of power, psychological, physical and even sexual violence by a teacher, she says in an interview.
Two of them have been very brave because they were victims of these practices and, in addition to sharing their testimonies, they decided that this staging is very important as a social denunciation to bring the issue and raise awareness to as many audiences as possible.
Carlos Virgen clarifies that this type of abuse and violence is not exclusive to community theatre or the performing arts, and highlights that one of the objectives of the production is to show that this is a problem in various areas of society, from academia to the public service.
One of the aspects that has emerged in the preparation of this work, he says, is how certain contexts facilitate this type of anomalous practices: Sometimes, children are very isolated, families are not aware and do not give them the necessary attention, and this type of situation makes it easier for undesirable people to come and take advantage of that vulnerability.
.
A-line mirages It is the result of a research project that Carlos Virgen has been working on for two years as a researcher at the Mora Institute, leading a multidisciplinary team of historians, sociologists and specialists from UNAM and the Cuajimalpa and Iztapalapa units of the UAM, as well as the Rodolfo Usigli National Center for Theatrical Research, Documentation and Information.
Funded by Conahcyt, the project is entitled Recent memory of community theatre in Mexico: Development, resignification and identity processes. The case of the central region.
Among its objectives, it seeks to contribute to preserving and disseminating the memory of community theatre in the country based on the oral testimony of stage creators, cultural managers, family members, teachers and other members of the groups involved, the stage creator explains.
Likewise, to identify ways in which this artistic expression can impact the areas of development, participation of society and the construction of collective identities.
In addition to the aforementioned production, at least three other productions, books and a documentary will be made with the collected material.