In 431 BC, the ancient Greek playwright Euripides wrote Medea, a theatrical production regaling tragic adventures of love and betrayal. It has been adapted countless times, most recently by Luis Alfaro, who has brought the storyline into the present day, as Mojada, using Hispanic cultural influences to create characters that modern viewers can connect with.
Vancouver-based Carmen Aguirre has directed more than 15 plays in her career; after seeing a previous production of Mojada, Aguirre was inspired to direct it herself, and successfully pitched UVic to host the play.
“I saw a production of Mojada at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival a few years ago, which was mind-blowing to me, so when I got the opportunity to direct something here at UVic, I thought this was the play that I would bring forward,” she says. “Luckily, the university agreed to it, and it’s the first time that this play has been done in Canada, and it’s very exciting.”
Aguirre says that Alfaro has stayed quite faithful to the original storyline presented in Medea, but has adapted the story to modern day, focusing on Hispanic immigrants as the protagonists.
“I’m a huge fan of Luis, the playwright, and what he’s been doing in the last 10 or 20 years, is adapting Greek classics and setting them in East LA, with Chicanos, Mexican-American characters,” says Aguirre. “[Mojada] is set in East LA, in present day, and the characters are all undocumented Mexicans, so that’s the biggest difference.”
In this adaptation, a young Mexican couple have braved the terrifying task of illegally crossing the border into America. Now in the land of opportunity, they must face the uphill battle of accelerating their lives despite having no documentation, which creates countless barriers. However, there are still similarities to the original story.
“Luis, the playwright, has remained quite faithful to the actual story,” says Aguirre. “The structure and the basic bones of the story are still there.”
Through his rewriting of the text, Alfaro explores the problematic immigration system in America and the tragedies that millions of undocumented immigrants face. Aguirre believes that the themes of cultural assimilation, violence, and exile are universally relevant.
“The themes of the play are exile, and the violence of assimilation, and I think that everybody can relate to those themes, because they are universal,” says Aguirre. “The story is extremely specific, but in specificity lies the universal, in specificity lies truth. I think everybody in their lives has felt exiled at some point, and has felt the violence of assimilation, whatever that may mean for each individual based on their story.”
Aguirre says her guiding principle with directing in general is to be faithful to the playwright and to the text.
“I do a lot of work with the actors, and certainly that’s the case here,” she says. “We’re working the text very closely, making sure that the actors know exactly what they’re doing with the text every step of the way, and just really, really focusing on telling the story, and making the story as clear as possible to the audience.”
Mojada
Various times,
Thursday, March 16
to Saturday, March 25
Various prices,
Phoenix Theatre, UVic
finearts.uvic.ca/theatre/mainstage