Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles
Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles
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Luis Alfaro’s adaptation of the Greek play Medea explores the journey of a landowner’s daughter who has fled her father’s house to pursue the promise of a better life with her true love, Jason. It is a year since the two have migrated from Michoacán, Mexico, with their young son, Acan, and Tita, their family’s beloved, longtime housekeeper. In the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tita cares for the family, keeping a watchful eye on Acan as he grapples with assimilating into a new culture. Medea works as a seamstress, assembling garment pieces in the makeshift factory space of her yard, while Jason quickly rises from day laborer to contractor’s assistant for a wealthy older female boss. Secrets begin to percolate to the surface. Medea’s resilience is tested and then pushed to the breaking point as she struggles to navigate a legacy of trauma.
Warning: Mojada includes depictions of violence, references to rape, and addresses sensitive themes.
Warning: Mojada includes depictions of violence, references to rape, and addresses sensitive themes.
Luis Alfaro, Playwright
Luis Alfaro, Playwright
Luis Alfaro is an award-winning Chicano playwright born and raised in the Pico-Union district of downtown Los Angeles, CA. Alfaro is the associate artistic director of Center Theatre Group, the resident theatre company of the Music Center of Los Angeles County, and the the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, popularly known as a “genius grant." Alfaro spent six seasons as the inaugural playwright-in-residence of the 90-year-old Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2013-2019); a member of the Playwright’s Ensemble at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre (2013-2020); a resident artist at the Mark Taper Forum (1995-2005); an inaugural member of the Latinx Playwrights ‘Circle of Imaginistas’ at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (2021); and has worked with the Ojai Playwrights Conference since 2002.He is an associate professor with tenure at the University of Southern California (USC).
The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro
The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro
Luis Alfaro has written a trio of Greek plays that use ancient drama to platform the concerns of Chicanx and Latinx communities. Alfaro develops these plays by immersing himself in the communities he writes about, a practice which he names being a Citizen-Artist. Speaking of this method, Alfaro says: "For the last fifteen years or so I have been traveling across the United States. I will go to a town - usually a town that's in some sort of crisis or problem - and I live there for up to a year, and when I leave, I write a play about it. As I started to live in these communities, I realized that I have no separation between what I do as a citizen who believes deeply in this country and what I do as an artist."
The Greek Trilogy:
Electricidad, based on Sophocles' Electra
Oedipus El Rey, based on Sophocles' Oedipus
Mojada, based on Euripides' Medea
Mojdaa premiered in 2012 under the name Bruja. It was performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2017 as Mojada, then again Off-Broadway at the Public Theatre in 2019.
Click the link above to learn more about the source material, Euripides' ancient Greek tragedy Medea.
Click the link above to learn more about the subject matter and themes in Luis Alfaro's adaptation, Mojada.
Click the link above to take a look at the artistic team behind this Southwest Shakespeare production.
Mojada in Our Community
Mojada in Our Community
Mojada is a play that does not shy away from the pain and hurt that haunts the Mexican and Mexican-American communities. With tasteful depictions of violence; references to rape, murder, and death; and emotionally difficult themes which may feel all too familiar for members of the community, Mojada can be a challenging show to watch, let alone create. The actors, director, dramaturgs, and several members of the artistic team identify with the Latinx community in some shape or form. In staging this play, the question became: why are we doing this right now? What do we stand to gain from reenacting and watching our tremendous suffering unfold on stage?
To answer this question, we consider the idea of "critical witnessing," coined for performance studies by Dr. Tiffany Ana Lopez, dramaturg and longtime collaborator with Luis Alfaro. Critical witnessing is grounded in trauma studies and theorizes about the experience of witnessing one's own traumas acted out or retold on stage. Witnessing and undertaking emotional work alongside a performer can lead to new revelations about one's self and open new avenues of critical thought. With care and intent, this witnessing can, rather than re-traumatizing an audience member, rehabilitate hurt into healing. At the very least, it can begin a conversation.
There is no one answer for what it means to perform Mojada here, with these people, at this time. It is an open conversation.
Please join us for our post-show talkbacks following several performances (listed to the right) to discuss with us the process and impact of staging Mojada in our Phoenix community.
Join us! Dramaturgs Tiffany Lopez and Maxwell Plata will moderate post-show talk backs on the following days:
Thursday, April 28th
Saturday, April 30th
Sunday, May 1st
Saturday, May 7th
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