EL ODIO DE UN PAIS- THE HATE OF A COUNTRY (Development of the piece supported by Chelsea Factory, NYC, directed by Gineiris Garcia, works in progress staged reading. And funded by the Jermone Foundation, new play commission in the Alternate Vision series by Pangea World Theatre, Minneapolis.)
(Excerpt performance at New Theatre, Miami One-Acts Festival).
EL ODIO DE UN PAIS/ The Hate of a Country, examines the conditions of women through the dramatization of violence contrasted with the actions of healing and solidarity within female communities. Rape culture becomes personal Costa Rican mythology: A missing arm in the sugar cane fields, a mother and daughter climb the mango tree of dangerous memories in the jungle, imprisoned men swear their innocence to the Crimen de Colima. An autobiographical and biographical series of scenes that explore the mainstream history of Costa Rica from the perspective of family lineage. This play challenges the male and colonial gaze by revealing the destructive impact of oppression on the individual, positioned as a metonym for Costa Rica itself.
MADRE (aside) That’s good. (to daughter) Now you know what my childhood was like. Putting your lips round a mango pit sucking as hard as you could for life.
(Daughter lays her body against the tree.)
HIJA – Look and see if the scar on my back is like the mark on the tree.
(Mother approaches her back. )
MADRE- Pues si… It is. It is just like the mark in the tree.
—-
MANY CHILDREN- The sugar gets squeezed out.
Its like a honey, into an oven, a large circular oven.
The paila, in the paila they begin to cook this honey.
The sugar honey.
The sugar gets made into molds, the molds get packaged in dried sugar can leaves.
So that they could be sold.
So that children can be fed.
—-
RONUFLO- We eat standing up with our hands.
MARINO – In the morning we eat dry tortilla, with hot sugar water.
LORENZO – Sugar water to make us forget that we are hungry.
RONUFLO – The blankets and food our mothers bring us, they take from us.
MARINO- Why won’t you let us walk in the patio or wash our clothes?
LORENZO – You can count the slices you’ve made all over our bodies.
RONUFLO, MARINO, LORENZO – Sign a confession?
8 ensemble cast or larger