Women in Confinement by María Morrett
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THE TWB INTERNATIONAL PLAY CATALOGUE Women in Confinement by María Morrett Women in Confinement (Mujeres en el encierro) by María Morett, explores the notion of female confinement as a labyrinth formed by social, cultural, and archetypal structures of repression. The play focuses on the particular social contract that exists in the microcosm set off from the society-at-large by prison walls, comprised solely of women living “on the edge.” Inspired by Morett’s work as an acting teacher in the women’s prisons of Mexico City, Women in Confinement reflects its author’s six years of research inside and outside the penal systems of Mexico and Colombia. While speaking to and for all “women in confinement,” Morett’s play directly addresses the ongoing struggle of women living in societies with a strong sexist ethos–societies which, although beginning to grant “space” to women, continue to keep them confined–and illuminates the condition of the Latin American woman who, in the family and workplace, confronts a complex web of social archetypes which shape her personal and professional relationships. María Morret is a playwright and theater director, fFounder and Artistic Director from Me xihc co teatro and Proyecto Ariadna. She studied with Julio Castillo, Juan José Gurrola, Luis de Tavira, Alejandro Luna, Ludwik Margules, Oswaldo Dragún, Hugo Arguelles and Maria Irene Fornés. She has the Bachelor of Communications by the UNUM and a Certificate in Theater Direction and production by the National School of Theater in México . She has been a member of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab from New York since 2000. She has written and produced more than twelve theater pieces including La Llorona, Mozart y los Duendes, Muerte, la Caja Mágica, Alarconeando, Quijotes: Visiones Itinerantes, Cruces , Mujeres en el Encierro and Ninfa. She also did the translation and adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s “Spring Awakenings” in co production with la MAMA E.T.C., and Me Xihc Co teatro, also she adapted the play “Primero Sueño” and “Amor es más laberinto”from the Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de 1 la Cruz, and created the outdoor production of “Mas Laberintos” that was opened in the Festival Internacional Cervantino in 2003 in Guanajuato. She did the translation from the Jules Laforgue text “Moralidades legendarias” and from the Italian text of the contemporary opera “Lohengrin” composed and written by Salvatore Sciarrino. She has been recognized and honored with grants and awards from the National Fund for Culture and National Council for the Arts from México, Arts International from New York, Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia, and Contacto Cultural/Fideicomiso para la Cultura México/EUA and the Rockefeller foundation; She is a resident artist from Voice & Vision’s Envision 2000 retreat, La MAMA Experimental Theater Club and the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts. She has conducted research for the National Institute of Fine Arts in México and for EITALC on the work of the theater artists: Jean Marie Binoche from France; Santiago Garcia from Colombia; and Yoshi Oida from Japan. Her play Cruces was awarded with the Excellence Award for Innovation & Originality in the New York Fringe Festival in 2000. Her play “Mujeres en el Encierro” is translated to English, by Deborah Saivetz and German by Cordelier Dvorak. In 2003 she wrote “Ninfa” for the divan project directed by French artist Michel Didym and opened in the XXXI FIC/INBA. Her most recent work as a director is the Mexican opening of the contemporary opera “Lohengrin” written and composed by Salvatore Sciarrino, presented with success in the VI Festival Música y Escena at the National University of Mexico. In November 2004 she presented her play “Mujeres en el Encierro” at CINARS PLATFORM 2004, in Montreal, Canada and in December she was in an artistic residency in Berlin invited by the Goethe Institute from Germany. In July 2005 she will be in a four months artistic residency in Montreal invited by “Le Centre des Auteurs Dramatiques” FONCA and Canadian government. Her play “Mujeres en el encierro “ is now a part of the season from February to April 2005 at the “Teatro Helénico” at the “Centro Cultural Helénico”. Asphalt Kiss 2 by Nelson Rodrigues As a pedestrian hit by a bus lies dying on a Rio street, a passerby stops to cradle him in his arms and kisses him on the lips as a parting gesture of human solidarity. But the scene is witnessed by an unscrupulous reporter, who proves so successful in convincing a public hungry for scandal that the men were lovers that even the wife of the Good Samaritan comes to doubt his masculinity. Nelson Rodrigues was born in Recife, Brazil in 1912, the fifth child in a family of 14 siblings. His father struggled as a newspaper reporter for years, and when Nelson was four his family moved to Rio de Janeiro hoping for better times. There the family's fortunes changed as Mario Rodrigues worked his way up Rio's cutthroat newspaper industry until he was able to found his own newspaper. At 13, Nelson began working at his father's newspaper, and by 14 he was writing his own column. After experiencing a brief period of wealth and stability, the Rodrigues family suffered a series of crushing setbacks. First, older brother Roberto, a brilliant graphic artist, was murdered by a socialite angry over the newspapers coverage of her affair with a well- known Rio doctor. Then, a few months later, Rodrigues' father, despondent over his son's death, dies of a massive stroke. And, shortly after that, the family newspaper is closed by the government after a coup d'etat. These tragedies, plus several others, are to be reflected in Rodrigues' writings and plays. From his very first play, Woman Without Sin in 1941 (about a society lady who runs away with her black chauffer), Rodrigues shocked and divided Brazilian audiences. He steadfastly refused to veer from his focus on the personal even when it became fashionable to write Brechtian social theater in Brazil, “You have to go down into the depths of man. He has two faces, one beautiful and the other heinous. He will only find salvation if he passes his hand over his face and acknowledges his own heinousness.’” His second play, The Wedding Gown, is considered a watershed in Brazilian theater as Rodrigues revealed his mastery of his craft by overlapping moments in time and place in order to create a more dynamic vision of reality. The play has been described 3 as a jigsaw puzzle — we are left to interpret the truth from the disjointed hallucinations of a woman lying on an operating table after suffering a serious accident. From 1941 until 1965 Rodrigues wrote 15 full-length plays (he would write two more later in life). His plays are frequently divided in 3 groups: Psychological plays, Mythical plays and Carioca tragedies. In his Carioca tragedies Rodrigues explored the lives of Rio’s lower-middleclass, a population never deemed worthy of the stage before Rodrigues. The supreme example of this genre is The Asphalt Kiss, a play in which we see a man’s life unravel because of one noble act. “[The play] confronts current-day questions of homophobia and tabloid sensationalism in prophetic fashion,” according to The New York Times. Nelson Rodrigues also wrote nine novels and thousands of newspaper columns. A collection of his newspaper columns based on his crime reporting recently became a bestseller. He is also considered one of Brazil’s finest sports writers. Rodrigues died in Rio de Janeiro on December 21, 1980. MacGregor’s Hard Ice Cream and Gas by Daniel MacDonald A dying prairie town. A frigid winter night. In a land where the ground’s too frozen to bury a body, Jack hijacks his dead father up to the attic and stuffs his coffin with ice cream to chill. His brother Fred tries to host a wake without a body and fix a sign advertising gas they have never sold, while their mother paces in the basement counting every step, and their estranged sister shows up 10 and a half months pregnant. MacGregor’s Hard Ice Cream and Gas is a play of whimsy, humour, and remarkable humanity about a family figuring out how to melt the ice and move on. Daniel MacDonald is a teacher, playwright, and actor. MacDonald teaches both university and high school where he has collaborated with students on several plays. MacDonald has taught, coached and performed improvization throughout his career and one of his high school teams won the Canadian National Improv Championship in 4 Ottawa. MacDonald's play, Pageant premiered at Alberta Theatre Projects’ National PlayRites Festival and recently had its American premiere in Austin, Texas. Another play, MacGregor’s Hard Ice Cream and Gas recently premiered at Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon. His new play, Velocity recently won the New Works of Merit playwriting contest in New York and received a reading there in April. MacDonald is currently collaborating on two projects: an original Saskatchewan film entitled, Redemption which will air in January, 2006 and a musical enititled Johnny Zed about the legendary Rock and Roll star who got his power from the uranium mines of Northern Saskatchewan. Daniel has acted in several films and TV series and is current president of the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre. The Guide to the Good Life by Yael Ronen Oil Town by Hillel Mittelpunkt In an outpost of sorts in the Sinai Desert, a survivor of Hitler’s death camps runs a pension together with her married and but un-benounced widowed daughter. She is indebted to every bank, and so takes on a wanna-be Madam and two whores.