Project Description
Several years ago, knowing of my interest in women’s history, a friend passed along some tapes consisting of interviews conducted by Sandra Boston at the Beijing Women’s Conference of 1995. Though I was quite familiar with the history and politics of the feminist movement, the lives I heard on these tapes were stories I knew nothing about. Girl trafficking in Nepal, abortion rights in Ireland, the protests of mothers in Argentina, the list went on and on. How could it be that I, an educated, politically aware person, did not know these events were taking place?
And so it all began. Months of sitting in libraries conducting research, going over first-hand accounts, anthropological studies, poetry, short stories, children stories, fables, anything I could get my hands on that would allow me a better understanding of who these women were and where they came from. I read their stories. I heard their voices. And I was, to put it simply, overwhelmed by the power of the female voice.
Theatre is not a passive art form. It is what separates it from other mediums. I believe in creating stories where the audience must play an active role with their imaginations fully engaged, so very little set and props are used to create the story. There is only one voice and one actor.
The piece derives its name from the ancient muse of history, Clio. Ultimately, the piece Letters will consist of eight to ten stories of women’s voices from all around the world. Part I, Neela, is the story of 14 year old Neela who reveals her archetypal story of being trafficked into a brothel in Bombay, India. Margarita is the second in this series. The third, Solange, the story of a Congolese woman’s transformation from a tenant of a refugee camp in Uganda to a resident of New York City, is currently in development.
For too long the voices of these women have made neither the evening news nor the history text books; I thought it was time they did.
Synopsis of Play
Letters to Clio - Part II tells the story of an Argentine woman named Margarita whose daughter, Rosa, becomes one of the many desparecidos of the Dirty War. The story comes from years of research and a desire to form an archetypal story of these women’s losses, experiences, and ultimate triumphs. The words in this play come from my own imagination and my own interpretation of the research I encountered, the interviews I conducted, and the stories I read.
The piece begins in Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 24, 1976. A military coup has overthrown the existing democratic government, pushing into place a supremacy of terror whose desire it is to crush any perceived “subversives”. One afternoon Margarita, an ordinary housewife in a country ruled by the culture of machismo, waits at home for her 20-year-old daughter, Rosa, to return. But Rosa never comes home. Margarita pursues every avenue she can think of, the police, the church, the politicians, all in the hopes of finding her daughter. The piece then follows Margarita as she finds a group of women who call themselves Las Madres, the Mothers. With no other hopes of locating her daughter, she joins them. Wearing a white kerchief on her head and carrying a photo of her missing daughter in her hands, she marches with Las Madres every Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo, asking again and again “¿Ha visto a mi hija? Have you seen my daughter?”.
What is so remarkable about the story of Las Madres is that it was ultimately their actions that brought about the end of the “Dirty War”. But their story does not stop here. Empowered by the ending of the military coup and spurred on by the dreams of their children Las Madres expand themselves towards international recognition, helping women as far reaching as Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. Margarita’s story tells just this. It is a story of sadness and loss but it is also a story of survival, new life and triumph. As Margarita herself says, “We are the Mothers. And the Mothers will always keep marching.”