Concepción León Mora
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A text which questions the relevance of ritual in a society as confused and selfish as our present one. Many people have been making their own strange interpretations of the Mayan calendar’s supposed “end of the world.” As a Yucatecan myself, I think now is a good moment to address this this on stage. I’m writing the story of an old wise man who is supposed to prepare a sacred drink in order to save his town. This drink contains alcohol, but the old man had been an alcoholic before and, possessed by alcohol, had beaten his son to death. Now he must choose between rejecting his own knowledge or having to drink again.
Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.
A: My relationship with my grandmother is my fuel as a writer. She was a born storyteller, full of wisdom and love. I write as part of that ritual of ours that kept out mouths mouth full of stories and our spirits amazed.
Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?
A: Forms of production and publicity strategies.
Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?
A: I don’t believe in heroes; in any case, those are useful to movie theater box offices. What’s useful to theater is human beings without fantastic or omnipotent abilities but with finite human qualities. In that sense, I admire everyone who makes theater without chasing or grabbing for this or that grant.
Q: What kind of theater excites you?
A: That which doesn’t have overwhelming production values and which believes in the ability of the actors to fill the empty space.
Q: Plugs, please:
A: My most recent collaborations with “Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes” and “Carretera 45” are works which recover memory, drawing on certain childhood fears and highlighting the identitites of those of us who are onstage.
Sunday 7pm at the Lark, reading of Mestiza Power, translated by Virginia Grise and directed by Daniel Jáquez
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