La Bestia: Sweet Mother

a multi-media exploration of universe as creator and destroyer

La Bestia: Sweet Mother had a long arc of development and production, stretching from 2013 - 2018, and comprising a theatrical production (thrice-produced in NYC), a dance piece (produced in MD), a series of paintings and a full-length musical ballad. 

I began this project as a LABA Fellow (14th Street Y), creating and producing a 20-minute, multi-media one-act which premiered in January 2014.  The piece, inspired by humanity’s earliest creation myths (Babylonia, Sumerian, Zoroastrian, Egyptian, Greek etc.), recast their ideas in a contemporary story.

La Bestia: Sweet Mother explores the stories of three women who challenge the roles imposed on them. The lives of a CIA agent, Middle Eastern dissident, and Honduran immigrant intertwine with life-changing consequences. This is a geo-political drama with a goal of exploring the refugee and immigration experience through the eyes of three strong female characters in a way that questions Americas foreign and domestic policy, as well as its patriarchal society.

I weave a contemporary tale of three mothers who are also, due to their personal circumstances, forced to become destroyers.  It also uses the frame of La Bestia Freight Train, which brings immigrants up out of Mexico to the United States border (a real-life conveyance that is extremely dangerous to travel upon) as metaphor for this thin line between creation and destruction.  

The tales of Suzette, an American CIA agent, mother and murderer; Valencia, a Guatemalan immigrant who works for Suzette (and who had to sacrifice her child so she could cross the border into the United States) and Huma, a Syrian Freedom Fighter who had her arranged marriage "annulled" by murder and then took the murderer as her husband, are explored individually, and then they slowly weave together to the finale, with all three mother/murderers on stage together.  Ultimately, the story is told as myth, a story within a story, echoing those earliest creation tales, which wove murder and life together into an explanation for how this universe and world came to be.

After the premier at the 14th Street Y Theater, I expanded the work – and it was presented in various formats over the next five years.

La Bestia: Sweet Mother was performed at Theater at the 14th Street Y (NYC, January 2014), Here Arts Center’s “Downtown Urban Arts Festival” (NYC, May 2015), Theater for the New City’s “Dream Up Festival” (NYC, September 2015), Drama League (NYC, December 2016), and Wild Project Theater’s “International Human Rights Art Festival” (NYC, December 2018). It was also presented as a dance piece at th Takoma Park Theater (MD, September 2014). Click on the image to see more theater info.

Theater

La Bestia: Sweet Mother, A Troubadour’s Tale was produced at the Theater at the 14th Street Y (NYC, January 2014), starring Desiree Miller (Cello; music director) and Becca Weiss (singer), recorded by Michael Owlania. The CD was reviewed by Colin McGuire of he Frederick (MD) News-Post. Check it out HERE.

As part of the project, I created a series of paintings of the characters from the narrative piece. Click on the image to see the series.