A Nicaraguan Dreamscape

Renowned international company comes to New WORLD Theater

La Casa de Rigoberta Mira al Sur, November 19-20.

History and memory, past and present, poetically interweave in an absorbing new production presented by New WORLD Theater. La Casa de Rigoberta Mira al Sur, performed by the internationally acclaimed Nicaraguan company El Grupo de Teatro Justo Rufino Garay, is a moving contemplation of Nicaragua’s recent history and contemporary reality. It will be performed in Spanish, with English-language supertitles translated by UMass Theater Department chair Harley Erdman.

La Casa de Rigoberta Mira al Sur (the title means Rigoberta’s House Faces South) considers the complicated political landscape of Nicaragua, connecting tortured memories of the past with the challenges of an uncertain present. The play recalls the Sandinista revolution of the late 1970s that overthrew the corrupt Somoza regime, the U.S.-backed Contra counterinsurgency of the 1980s, and the tentative postwar détente of the 1990s. The piece is an elusive, dreamlike mosaic of shifting perspectives, as three generations of Nicaraguans struggle to resolve their shattered dreams and move beyond the ghosts of the past.

Two of the play’s characters are, in fact, ghosts, spirits of the dead. They are the Grandmother, who recalls the misery, poverty and oppression of indigenous peoples in the old days, and a child, Rigoberta, haunted by the violence and desolation of war. In counterpoint to these monologues, a father and mother – called simply He and She – strive to make sense of their present-day circumstances while mourning for a dead daughter and their lost revolutionary ideals.

The play was written and directed by the renowned Argentinean-born playwright, director and actor Arístides Vargas. It was commissioned by El Grupo de Teatro Justo Rufino Garay, one of Nicaragua’s most exciting and adventurous theater companies. Founded in 1979 as an actor-training program, it has become the country’s first independent theater space and a hotbed of creativity for new writers, actors and directors. About the Nicaragua of La Casa de Rigoberta, Vargas says, “Rigoberta’s country is a space where ideas about life give rise to the need to speak out, to break the wall of silence that subjugates us. In this sense, Nicaragua is not a country; it is a Latin American idea, a place where a revolution was made. Those of us who at one time dreamed of a just world ask, ‘What happened?’”

Andrea Assaf, New WORLD Theater’s newly appointed Artistic Director, says, “Over the years New WORLD has presented many Latin American and Latino plays. This distinguished production will be an exceptional intercultural experience, as our non-Spanish-speaking audience can follow the dialogue on the supertitles above the stage. We are proud to have specially commissioned this translation, which will be used at all the U.S. performances.”

La Casa de Rigoberta Mira al Sur is being performed in Amherst as part of a nationwide tour. The presentation is part of the Performing Americas Project, a partnership between the National Performance Network (NPN), LA RED and Arts International. That program is designed to enhance creative opportunities for contemporary performing artists and to increase artistic exchange in the Western Hemisphere. Major funding for the project is provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

The play will be performed at 8 p.m. November 19-20 in the Kirby Theater at Amherst College. Tickets are $15; seniors and low income, $8; Five College students with ID and children, $5. For reservations, call 1-800-999-UMASS or 413-545-2511, or reserve online at www.umass.edu/fac/centerwide/tickets.