Director's First Impressions

After reading this fantastic text, in order to design a mise en scène for Portland's MIRACLE THEATRE GROUP, I was wondering about its title... Who's the one between Pancho Villa and a naked woman...? The obvious answer is Adrián, our protagonist, but why not Gina...? Because I don’t had an immediate answer in front, then my next question was: where would we locate our point of view...? In Gina, in Adrián, in both...? Who's going to tell the story...? After reading the text by second time, I realize that "the couple" tells the story... But which couple...?

This play is a constant debate between the same couple of ideas: "what we have to do", "what we most feel no matter what", "what we have to follow, we have to obey, we have to care" (very well represented by Villa), and our cravings, our wishes, our longings, our fantasies (very well represented by this beautifull and desirable naked woman we all have in our minds...)

So, we have Adrián, that debates between the machist idea of a submissive woman with her legs well willing around his hips (Villa), and his deep wish of a sweet female companion without fearing neither the future nor the compromise (mujer desnuda)… We have Gina, that debates between her idea of having in bed a strong and dominant man who will protect her and so she cannot faces her marked solitude (Villa), and her fantasy for recovering past times with a younger, willing, promising and desirable Ismael (mujer desnuda, remember his earring? what a coincidence)... We have Andrea, that debates between her fraternal loyalty towards her “girl-friendship” with Gina (Villa), and the seductive power that involves taking the inalcansable Adrián, or the alluring Ismael (or both) for her own (mujer desnuda)… We have Ismael, that debates between his subtextual labour to be the clarity and the awareness toward his two women (Villa), or the eternal third one of a relationship that is emerging as the “non-compromise triangle” (mujer desnuda)… We have the mujer, that debates between being a good girl obeying the whims of the macho (Villa), or being a good girl obeying her whims (mujer desnuda)… We have also Doña Micaela Arango, the mother, the indisputable center of every machism discussion, that debates between what is good for her son (Villa), and what she knows her son will do above her strict orders (mujer desnuda)… And we have Pancho Villa, that debates between what his thinks (Villa), and what he wants: a naked woman (una mujer desnuda)… Well, in every debate between two moral issues, between every battle without winner we have the same result: conflict, drama, and of course, comedy…

ENTRE VILLA Y UNA MUJER DESNUDA was written in 1993, and it happen basically in Gina's apartment (located at the Colonia Condesa in Mexico City, and permeated with her wishes and desires), and in Adrian's head (full of ideas of superiority and very basic fears)... So I propose to start talking about this three locations to make me understand what I think it's hidden in the bottom of this text...

It was mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) who gets all my country into a world of lies and false ilusions during his administration. By economic mirages and empty words, we were sure that crisis and poverty will stop, richness will cover our homes, and abundance will give us the chance to be "first world". Oh, yes: to lie somebody is requiered somebody that believes in your lies. So everybody invested in Mexico, and everybody lost almost everything in 1994, at the famous "Error of December". Our next president told us: guess what, folks? Everything was just a fantasy, as in Disney's films... I think this is a very important historical fact to understand the world in which this characters live: a world of apariences, of hypocricy and zero commitments...

Trying to make a forced comparison, the Colonia Condesa in Mexico City is a good mix between London's Islington and Greenwich Village in New York. A place where the "artists" with money live, a double-moral area, a zone in which everybody has a dog, everybody is ecological, everybody does pilates (if not, you're out), everybody cares of what everybody says, (if my hair cut is "cool", then I'm a "cool" guy), where everybody feels great going to eat at their expensive thai restaurants because its "nice", everybody's disagreeably tolerant, is large-minded, is permissive, is indulgent, it's a place where everybody wishes to go to India, just to do Yoga because it's "cute", you know what I mean...? The Colonia Condesa is a place full of people that will radically disaprove what I've said... A place of apariences, of hypocricy and zero commitments... A light world that thinks they are a deep world... This is the world of Gina and her friend Andrea... This is the world that a young man as Ismael will love to live in... I don´t mean this is Gina's personality, neither Adrian's nor Andrea. I mean this is the perfect battlefield for a mature man as Adrian to get his perfect catch...

In contrast, we have Pancho Villa's world, placed on Adrian's head: rural, 1910's times, the countryside, the dust, the sun, the weapons, the revolution. A world in which a real man yells "because I said so" and nobody discusses. Machism's ways. Of course, Adrian has been atracted by this character, by this rude way of being, by the "Centauro del Norte" (Villa's nickname), because it's completely alien to him. Adrian's behaviour is the same as a teenager. Sex, sex, sex, just sex. It obeys to a "second adolescence" in which he will win the "lost time" of his failed marriage... Yes, we are talking about a play marked by a moral decision: Between Villa and a Naked Woman. Between what everybody says and I don't really fill, and what I deeply fill no matters what people say. A battle between the head and the heart...

I think it's important to keep the 90s as our time and our esthetics. Let's imagine a world with no cellphones and with typewriters. Let's imagine a world in which every world fits. We need to transform Gina's apartment in "the transformer apartment" that hapen in everybody's mind. We need to make fit everybody's mind in Gina's apartment...

Talking about the music, talking about what I think we should listen while our performance is running, the first obvious reference that comes to my head (rather to my ears) is of course the Corrido: that popular musical style of the Mexican Revolutionary times in 1910. That kind of music served not only to strengthen the injured national identity of those years, but also served as a "messenger": to tell what was happened during the revolutionary struggle... The second reference that comes to me was a 100% townsman environment, urban, polluted by the hustle and bustle typical of any metropolis... Interesting contrasts, certainly...

Now let's talk about what I think would be fine to keep in mind for choosing a good cast of ENTRE VILLA Y UNA MUJER DESNUDA... Gina, Adrian, Andrea, Ismael, Doña Micaela and Pancho Villa are characters that must be supported by actors who can handle comedy. They must have agile mind in their hearts and fast answers in their mouths, as well as a trained body to move quickly on stage. All of them must have the ability to say the same text with different intentions and modes, depending on the circumstances in which they are placed. They must be not only graceful and sympathetic. It's important that they know how to use irony and sarcasm: the highest grade in comedy...

GINA Let's search a very good, pretty, and experienced 40 years-old actrees. Not "attractive", not a model, (this is not 9 1/2 weeks), but with a very beautiful sensual charm. This text has plenty of sensuality and sexuality. She has to have an excellent comunication with the actor that will play Adrian. They most get speedily into confidence. They'll have a lot of scenes very very very close to each other...

ADRIÁN This actor most have to have an excellent comunication with the actress that will play Gina. A very secure and relaxed 40 or 45 years-old actor. we most believe him he's crossing a kind of "second youth". Again: not "attractive", but interesting. That moment in every male's life when grey hair is not a shame. Not virile. Not metrosexual. He seduces with talking: he's a writter...

ANDREA (and la MUJER) She most be prettier than Gina (or at least she fills that way). Younger than our protagonist, not so much, let's say 36, maybe. She's most not be a fashion girl, neither glamorous. But I'm sure Andrea should reflect that she get what she wants by the correct use of her glance. She don't have to be a conceited pedantic. We most search a very good actrees that can play two completely diferent roles.

ISMAEL He has to be the handsomest of all this cast. Not a perfect body builded at the nearest gym, but we most have a beautifully proportionate presence in him. He most perspiring sensuality through his pores. He should never be foolish or empty. A pretty face, but with a brain...

DOÑA MICAELA ARANGO An aged actrees: it most be credible that she's Pancho Villa's mother. Ethnical face, perhaps. "A woman with skin tanned by the sun and the earth". A hardened woman with the voice of the years and the experience, capable to shut up Pancho Villa...

PANCHO VILLA He don't have necessarily to look like the orignal one. Would be fine, but is not so important. What is very important is that he don't act as the "Cartoon of Pancho Villa". We need a real one. Full of meaning and complexity in the words he says and in the actions he do. An actor with a strong and powerful image. An actor that - with his revolutionary appearance - moves masses (including Adrián). We most believe that Villa is the idealized creation of Adrián's mind. An imposing tower, that will have an imposing collapse too...

Is it Villa, la Mujer, or the Man in between?

Welcome to the discussion between the artists, the technical and administrative team and the friends of Miracle Theatre Group's upcoming production of ENTRE VILLA Y UNA MUJER DESNUDA by Sabina Berman.

As our director Juan Carlos Vives will be out of town until just before first rehearsal on Monday, Dec 28th ~ this blog will serve as a great tool to share ideas, and in particular designers' drawings, over the next month and a half. Please do post your thoughts, images and questions here.

About the play itself, one dramaturgical question has been foremost in my mind. As I read the play, I find myself following Gina mostly, and her journey as she learns to stand up for what she wants from her relationship with Adrian. However, because of the title, I wonder if I am missing something. It is Adrian who is, literally, between Villa and Gina (the naked woman). Should he be our focus?

I find it fascinating that Gina is the revolutionary one in the play. The argument is really between Gina and Villa.

Your thoughts most welcome!