Every Saturday in November, at the "Perra" theater, the play titled "Mother" is performed. This production gathers the voices and movements of four women in a ritual that intertwines memories of pain and happiness that are part of the experience of being a mother, as well as the confrontation with the loss of what becomes unnameable when death strips away the future, leaving only the past as a support for the present.
On a stage enveloped in darkness that evokes the night, the four women appear seated, unraveling a large knot of cassette tapes. To one side, a hollow tree with a trunk formed by long branches stands as an icon of listening and silence. One of the women begins to speak, and the others follow in a chorus that becomes a chant, a mantra. The words evoke an image that, initially representing a maternal archetype, gradually transforms into an intimate, painful, and personal memory for each of these women.
The protagonists dance, recalling the dance movements of their mothers, the multiple voices bursting into a discourse laden with fury and pain, while wearing dazzling dresses that seem to gather all the colors of spring. The music invites dancing and listening to poetry about sorrow and impossible forgetting, amidst a set design that evokes desolation. Pain and joy intertwine in a ritual where each action and fragmentary memory seeks to heal a wound that cannot be named.
The script of "Mother," written by Cecilia Madanes, immerses us in a performative drama where bodies dance, songs name, and voices carry mandates. The play does not seek direct answers, but manages to weave clues that allow us to confront the ominous, without turning away from those stories that, like fictions, life elaborates in its creative mystery. This production, through its artistic elements, invites reflection on the representation of such deep and complex pain as the loss of a loved one.
"Mother" is a performance that takes place outdoors, where the acting of each of the members impacts and generates a wind that courses through all corners of the room. A proposal that challenges the boundaries between theatrical representation and reality, without falling into spectacularity. Conceived by Cecilia Madanes and directed by her, this play offers the audience the opportunity to enter a territory where the sacred and the profane intertwine in a unique way.
With a duration of 50 minutes, "Mother" is presented at the Teatro Cooperativa Perra, located at Bonpland 800, Chacarita, Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Through the combination of puppetry, costumes, sound design, lighting, graphic design, direction assistance, and choreography, this theatrical proposal invites reflection on motherhood, pain, and transformation. A song to life and death, to memory and forgetfulness, through the eyes and voices of four women who invite us to explore the unfathomable mystery of being a mother. What symbol can complete or contain an absence?
