Événement

Bilingual Theatrefest San Miguel : Concepcion staged reading

(The Miracle of) Concepción is a comedy. It's a dark comedy to be sure, but human behavior is funny that way. It places a special focus on the women I observed and how they reacted to changing circumstances. It's about a way of life and how people resist change. It's about roles that history and tradition assign to us and how we identify with them. At its core, it's my memory of how I was formed.

I spent many summers from childhood to my early twenties in El Salvador. It was my home away from home, and I thought that once I finished my education, I'd live there. And then, (along with a variety of other factors) the civil war started, my summers ended, and my life moved forward. Reflecting upon my experience as I began to write Concepción, I realized that the war had started long before any of us there realized there was a war. It started with small changes -- not walking as much, highway stops to check papers, talk of assaults in areas near by -- but by the time my parents and I stopped going, violence had touched everyone.

My family was comfortable -- not the wealthiest, but not lacking. We owned productive coffee farms and summer homes, sons and daughters studied internationally, we had household help -- comfortable. I don't think that the adults at the time saw what was coming -- not that they should have. In my youth, I certainly didn't. And years later, I still don't know how they recall those years.

All of the people in the play are composites of people I knew -- an aunt blended with a neighbor blended with something I made up. It's a work of fiction, but the story is based in truth. At the very least, it's a story that seems true to me -- a memory of my time in that very beautiful, very complicated country.

-Playwright Mary Ann Rodgers

This play is performed as a rehearsed staged reading. In English, with some Spanish spoken.