I like the theater world in all its facets: stage directing, production, being involved in everything, funding, to be present, not being only a faraway playwright. Now I’m fascinated by the opera and music world, too. The fusion of those arts. Therefore, the encounter is different among the composer, the musicians, the singers, but I always work for drama. verónica musalem.

The New Alexandria. 2008.

Synopsis.

Six characters from Greek mythology bump into each other on a cruise. Caronte, the owner of the boat, announces in a newspaper advertisement a call to forgotten female characters of Greek mythology. Five women answered the call: Penelope, Clytemnestra, Circe, Medusa, and Eurydice. There’s a strange atmosphere on the cruise. Caronte wants there to be conflicts among them, but it doesn’t happen, they’re tired. Caronte calls them to perform for him ‘the greatest human passions’. In the second act there’s a plot twist, Caronte builds a puppet theater, and in the show night, they take the place of a nowadays woman, reciting short testimonial monologues to introduce themselves and tell their stories.

Notes:

  • The New Alexandria is a play I wrote for a Theater Company, it’s really playful within the scene.

Other data: 

  • Characters: 6 (5 females, 1 male).
  • Length: 1:30.

New York vs. El Zapotito. 2010.

Synopsis.

Three characters gather around in a lost place in the mountains. Everything happens in one night where reality is disrupted. The play is about a loving story between a mother and her daughter, and their reencounter after many years. The daughter comes back from the United States when she has finally obtained the famous residence permit. The main themes are the returning of a daughter who left looking for the American dream, and the staying of a mother who remained in an abandoned place. The daughter arrives at a ghost town where everybody has disappeared. The mother used to have a circus. From the very beginning, we are situated in a magical, lost place, in which Nicanor, an ancient magician who accompanies the mother, receives us. The play is divided into three parts: the first is the encounter of these two women; in the second, we watch some sort of flashback where we can see the circus and the town; and lastly, the third is the reality, a raw and tragic truth.

Notes:

  • New York versus El Zapotito is a chant of life, a play with an inner magical universe, a text which has all the themes that concern and move me. I wrote it as an homage to all my siblings who have died in the desert looking for the american dream.

Other data:

  • Characters: 3 (2 females, 1 male)
  • Length: 1:30.

REBANADAS DE VIDA. 2010. Slices of life

Synopsis.

This is a play that takes place nowadays, in our time, and different places. It’s a play for two women, actresses. They establish what the slices of life would be for us. The slices of life are a part of a big cake in the oven. Each one of the actresses will play different roles. It’s a scenic game of small stories that belong to the great banquet of life. These chosen scenes are just the small dishes for us to taste, but they belong to a delicious meal, they’re the small life spaces.

Notes:

Slices of life is a play that takes place on a television set. A farce about food and women’s relationships.

Other data:

  • Characters: 12 (2 females).
  • Length: 1h

UN DOMINGO COLOR DE ROSA. 2012. A pink Sunday

Synopsis.

This play is a cry of despair. It’s about two young people lost in a big city, a place that devours them, two rootless people from society, the ones without a name who will end in a dead-end spiral of violence. Esmeralda and Roberto are two young people without any future; she’s a maid, he’s a builder. They met on a Sunday at the park. They stay together due to a seduction game involving a vanilla ice cream and a gun, a power play: they get together and remain together. They start to commit crimes until they end up in a dead-end spiral. The play has a comic or manga aesthetic. Let’s not be scared by Esmeralda and Roberto because the play is a mirror’s game: we’re all responsible for them, we’re all guilty, we’re part of the madness and the violence of these kids.

Notes:

  • Un domingo color de rosa is a play that I wrote due to a news in a newspaper, a cruel and violent story. It was made by the urge of telling this real story and putting it on paper.

Other data:

  • Characters: 2 (1 female, 1 male).
  • Length: 1h

Latitud. 2012. Latitude

Synopsis.

Inside the mountains far away from everything, two folk doctors have to make a human sacrifice, but they fall asleep due to the intoxicating effect of mescal. Of course, there are no human sacrifices nowadays. Goyo and Manuel are convinced of the rage of the Gods to them, so they go on lots of geographical journeys deep inside Mexico. Latitud is a journey that makes us think about violence and the loss of our sacred sense. They are a metaphor of the real world, there are no beliefs, no sacred sense, no religious sense, no connection with a magical world.

Notes:

  • Latitud is a play about the loss of the sacred sense. They’re two characters and voices.

Other data:

  • Characters: 2 (males), and voices.
  • Length: 1:20

PORQUE ASÍ SON LAS COSAS DEL MAR. 2013. Because that’s the way sea things are

Synopsis.

‘Hades’ is a sleazy bar located in an old building of the historical downtown of any city near to the sea. You can hear the sounds of the boats arriving and leaving, interrupting the peace of Paulina (Eurydice), who’s thinking why The Ladies of Juquila and Guadalupe are mad with her. The bar has become as old as Paulina has, she’s been isolated in ‘Hades’, hopeless and tired of her lifestyle; a failed love episode has driven her to avoid knowing anything from the world anymore, to avoid commitment so she can’t be hurt, resigned to act kabbalisticly, guided by the instinct of a person who has lived a thousand years. Then she meets Pedro (Orpheus), and she realizes that they have something to do with the past, and now the present gives them a new chance to be happy.

Notes:

  • ‘Pedro arrives at Hades bar to face a sorrowful, inconclusive love episode. Through fond monologues and subtle dialogues between Pedro and Paulina, some of their inner demons appear. Would it be her? Is she that woman? Pedro wonders, incapable of recognizing that face unless he travels through the painful past. For them, to find the exit of this bar, of this Hades, entails their liberation’ the stage director (Silvia Ortega Vettoretti) said.

Other data:

  • Characters: 2 (1 female, 1 male).

LOS PERDIDOS DE LA ISLA DE SAN LUIS. 2013. The lost people of San Luis Island

Synopsis.

This is a scenic concert written for three actors, a scenic concert because more than characters, they’re voices, entities, it’s not a play that can be defined in terms of people, or names of characters. It’s a polyphony of voices. It’s a play whose main themes are exile and love. Exile, seen as a physical and inner journey that constantly moves individuals or groups isolated in the journey, in the movement. Exile, seen as a necessity to find the true essence of human beings and love. Love, seen impossibly, not probable. In this play I talk about love without borders of any kind, I talk about fond stories, in which desire and the constant urge to look for others, are what move a group of individuals to jump into the abyss, the ideal of finding someone that will become the object and engine of existence. Who wouldn’t give their kingdom to live a great love? The ancient grandparents’ stories come here as windows, in which we can see through small fragments of existence. In Paris, all this gallery of real characters, voices, and entities tells us their small fragments of stories on the longest day of the year. What other place would it be but Paris? There, Cupid and Eros are arguing about love, desire, and possessiveness.

Notes:

  • This play is about love and familiar exile.

Other data:

  • Characters: 7 (2 female, 2 male).
  • Length: 1:30

DELIRIO 3:45 AM. 2016. Delirium 3:45 AM

Synopsis.

Delirio 3:45 a.m. is a monologue inside the mind of an upset woman, in a deep crisis. It’s a chant, a scenic poem, where a woman shows us her fragmented mind, a journey, moments of her life. She falls in a crisis and tells us in a magical oniric way the journey she went on to find and recognize herself. The play takes place in different spaces, some of them oniric, the others, real. It can be read in many possible ways due to the surreal plot. It’s a journey into the depths of the unconscious of a woman, to the twists and turns of someone who’s trapped in a fragmented life moment and who wants to find their path. It talks about how fragile the human mind is, and so is life.

Notes:

  • A monologue about how fragile the human mind is.

Other data:

  • Characters: 1 (female).
  • Length: 1:15

LOS CAMINANTES. 2018. Wanderers

Synopsis.

In the lost mountains in a world devastated due to violence, where the roads are filled with criminals and Mexico collapses, two indigenous go hunting a deer. One of them, Román, gets stung by a scorpion and enters in a delusional state. He believes a new “conquest” is coming, thus they prepare weapons for the combat. His partner, Ernesto, carries on with his game. Three characters who are fleeing from the law, from everything, but principally from themselves arrive: Anabela, an ex-stripper; Mauricio and Julián, two hitmen. Los Caminantes is a poetic piece filled with images of the end of the world where the characters do not have anything to lose; they have lived on the edge and the world where they inhabit offers nothing but desperation. Finally, there is no more conquest even though they decide to create a “new world”. A violent play filled with magic at the same time. Nature is also a character within the play, the maddening nature that questions all of our characters’ beliefs.

Notes:

  • Western-drama about the end of the world.

Other data:

  • Characters: 5 (1 female, 4 males).
  • Length: 2:00

ADAN Y EVA, TIEMPO DESPUÉS. 2010. Adan & Eve, later

Synopsis.

Adán y Eva, tiempo después is a play with a non-conventional structure, non-realistic, a contemporary theater piece, in which the story is told in a non-linear way, with time lapses, images, and evocations. The space is an isolated place where our two main characters were called, a man and a woman. Throughout the different scenes, we can see the love-hate relationship between these two characters. It’s a fairy tale that has become a hate and bitterness story. A tragicomedy about love, couples, and the notable encounters that have changed our lives.

Notes:

  • A play about a love misencounter narrated in different temporalities.

Other data:

  • Characters: 2 (1 female, 1 male).
  • Length: 1:15

CHILPANCINGO 13. 2006.

Synopsis.

In a building of a big city, six young people are fleeing from their love past. A night where their fantasies become real and break their fragile existences. Chilpancingo 13 is a playful, fun, transgressive play. A play about love and broken hearts in the youth. Each one of the characters is fleeing from something, or maybe is craving for crystallizing their inner desires. The building has a strong role in the plot, since it’s a place for encounters and misencounters, and the action happens in different places in it. A trendy night of the nonchalant youth who hops from bar to bar, form one relationship to another.

Notes:

  • The main character is the building.

Other data:

  • Characters: 6 (3 females, 3 males).
  • Length: 1:20