Wednesday, January 30, 2019
“A woman kept alive by the sound of her voice”
HowlRound Theatre Commons: Near the end of La Ruta, Isaac Gómez’s new play that opened in December at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, teenagers Brenda (Cher Álvarez) and Ivonne (Karen Rodriguez) lie on the floor in Brenda’s bedroom discussing their favorite music. While this setup may appear familiar, Gómez has placed these girls in the slums of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where their lives are at risk simply by being young women.
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2 comments:
Isaac Gomez’s play “La Ruta” sounds incredibly interesting, and absolutely sheds light on an issue that is often overlooked: femicide. The way it frames around the testimonies of women who “live, work, and disappear” around a specific bus route is very thought provoking. I learned a lot about femicide from reading this article, and I had no idea the scale of perpetuation that has gone on surrounding it. Gomez’s choice to set “La Ruta” in Juarez takes the play to the center of the issue, given that it the only city in Mexico that has had an increase in crimes against women. I wonder how a city that apparently has had so much cultural and economic growth continues to have so much violence against its female population. The closeness of this play to many audience members’ own experiences and its roots in actual, true stories must create a heavy, yet incredibly telling environment.
I appreciated that this article served both as recognition of an important play and as a history lesson of a story that deserves to be heard in the mainstream. I personally have seen very little theatre representing the stories of the Latinx community, and would be so interested to see how this show is done. I feel simultaneously guilty for not knowing about such a significant historical event and grateful that some wonderful artists are taking the time to educate the public in such an unapologetic and compassionate way. I am also so glad that articles like this are publicizing these works in such a careful and thorough report. I hope that the histories of marginalized communities continue to come through into a more visible theatre scene, but that they are not restricted to stories of the past. It’s important that these communities are able to be represented in a light that is multifaceted and changing, not one that is stagnant in the past.
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