Holding on...
There is no holding on to time. It runs right through like water, like air, like thoughts... Moments are elusive and we can try to hold on to their memory, but once the moment is gone, it's gone forever... Esperanza, the matriarch in "Charity: Part III of A Mexican Trilogy" has lived in three centuries and has learned to live in the moment. Of course, she remembers her children, all of whom are dead for many years now. She remembers when each one was born and the sweet scent of their breath the first time she held them in her arms. She remembers the pain of losing them, one by one. But, she doesn't dwell. What good would that do? If she's alive, it's for a reason and she is trying to figure out what that reason is. In "Faith: Part I of A Mexican Trilogy" the play begins with a rite of passage where the words of the "Huehuetlatolli" (The Ancient Word or The Sayings of the Old) are recited to her when she is a young girl. These words come from the Florentine Codex Book #6; one of the codices that are the only sources of pre-columbian Aztec life, culture and thought left. Book #6 deals with moral philosophy among other things. There are words for many occasions: birth, death and words for when a girl becomes a woman which are the words that Esperanza hears from her grandmother in Part I. These are not my words, they are a very small part of some of the words written by my ancestors centuries ago originally in nahuatl. Below and in the play they are translated into Spanish and English:
OLD WOMAN
Has llegado, collar precioso, pluma preciosa. Llegaste a la vida,
naciste; nuestro Creador y nuestra Madre te mandaron a la tierra. Aqui es un
lugar de sed, un lugar de hambre. Asi son las cosas.
(You have arrived, precious necklace, precious feather. You came to life, you were born; our Creator and our Mother sent you to earth. This is a place of thirst, a place of hunger. This is how things are.)
Escucha y aprende como se vive en la tierra. De que manera debes vivir? Recuerda que no se vive facilmente en esta tierra. Pero no olvides, que primeramente tu provienes de alguien, que tu desciendes de alguien, que tu naciste por la gracia de alguien;
(Listen my daughter, and learn how to live upon the earth. How should you live? Remember that one does not live easily upon this earth. But do not forget, that above all you have come from someone, that you are descended from someone, that you were born by the grace of someone)
que tu a la vez eres la
espina y el retoño de nuestros antepasados, de aquellos que vinieron antes que nosotros, y de aquellas y aquellos que se han ido a vivir al mas allá.
(that you are both the spine and the offspring of our ancestors, of those who came before us, and of those women and men who have gone on to live in the beyond.)
In Part III, Esperanza (Old Woman) has long forgotten the words. But when Valentina asks about the Old Woman's grandmother, she remembers that they were important and that it is her obligation to pass them on to Valentina, her great granddaughter, who is so far removed from "the root."
I am fascinated by the ancient writings of my ancestors and I have used them before in "La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin" where we use words from the Nican Mopohua, the telling of the four apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego in the hills of Tepeyac. On a personal note, my husband and I imparted words from the Huehuetlatolli to our daughter for her quinceanera ceremony.
The Process...
We have cast the role of "Rudy" and will have final callbacks for the other roles on Monday. Rudy will be played by Rudy Ramos, who blew us all away at his audition. It's interesting how different actors approach an audition and it's revealing to us on this side of the table because we are actors too and we go out on auditions all the time. Preparation is key. It's all about making a choice and approaching that choice with confidence and conviction. There is nothing worse than being "general," I think. At least not in the theater. We have seen wonderful candidates for the roles and will decide on Monday! Yikes, opening is night around the corner - May 11th! Tickets are available now: www.thelatc.org
