{"id":129,"date":"2021-05-21T11:11:43","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T11:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/?p=129"},"modified":"2026-06-19T11:41:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T11:41:38","slug":"interviews-with-jorge-vargas-and-cabino-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/interviews-with-jorge-vargas-and-cabino-rodriguez\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexican avant-garde: Interviews with Jorge Vargas and Gabino Rodriguez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Steve Capra<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mexican theatre\u2014its avant-garde\u2014is vaguely associated in the anglophone mind with documentary theatre. In 2019, I had the pleasure of interviewing two of the leading directors in Mexico City. I learned that Mexican theatre is\u2014 not surprisingly\u2014a good deal more complex than that. Indeed, the nature of its relationship with the actual world, with issues, is subtle and heterogenous. Its dramaturgy is fascinating.<\/em> Below are my interviews with Jorge Vargas and Gabino Rodriguez, two of Mexico\u2019s most intriguing avant-garde directors.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to thank Rodolfo Obregon for his invaluable services.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

28 February 2019, Mexico City<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

We fight with a monster. We fight from defeat. We are already defeated\u2014but we resist.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jorge Vargas, one of Mexico\u2019s most prominent avant-garde directors, is founder and Artistic Director of Teatro Linea de Sombra, a multi-disciplinary arts organization that stresses social engagement and tours extensively. He created the company in 1993 after studying at the Etienne Decroux School in Paris. Mr. Vargas is also Artistic Co-director of Transversal: International Encounter of Contemporary Scene (Mexico).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One particularly remarkable production, Peque\u00f1os territorios en construcci\u00f3n<\/em> (Small Territories under Construction<\/em>), explored The City of Women in Cartagena, Colombia, where displaced women built their own homes. Mr. Vargas and his company traveled to Columbia to research the piece. In 2019, he staged a highly praised production, Banos Roma<\/em>, that explored the life of the celebrated Mexican boxer, Jos\u00e9 Angel Mantequilla Napoles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since this interview, Mr. Vargas has continued his idiosyncratic, inspired work, sometimes online. He has presented such productions as Danzantes del Alba<\/em> (Dancers of the Dawn<\/em>), which springs from the circumstances of labor and uses dancing and costume to present them. Another production, Amarillo en la ruta migrante<\/em> (Yellow in the Migrant Route<\/em>), concerns the route that Central Americans take migrating to the U.S.A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Vargas and his company have received many honors, including The Audience Award for Best Performance at the Exponto International Performing Arts Festival in Ljubljana and The Latin ACE Award for Best Foreign Production in New York. The Association of Theatre Writers and Critics twice honored Mr. Vargas with awards for Best Research Theatre Director.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Jorges Vargas. Photo: Courtesy of Jorge Vargas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

You have said that you have had many influences. You combine so many approaches to theatre. We are so lucky today that we can do that! We can combine whatever sources we want in our theatre. Our grandparents could not do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, of course! Because also art expands its limits, and it becomes something very porous<\/em>. It is more liquid; the frontiers of art. So, we profit from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your first group was Teatro L\u00ednea de Sombra<\/font>. Could you tell me about it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, with our first project, Amarillo<\/em>, we made some decisions that later became very important for us. For example, we always talked straight to the audience. We were interested in that form of communication. We were there to testify<\/em>. We became witnesses<\/em>,and we testified <\/em>in front of the audience. We did not represent. We presented. And it was the same with the objects we used. We used objects without mediation\u2014not mediated by any process of artifice. We found an object and we brought it on stage as it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the laboratory, we tried to figure out how we could transform this object into an object with social meaning, political meaning. We talked about \u201can object that is intensively alive.\u201d It is the same object that we see in reality, but when we work with it, it becomes intensified. We try to make a kind of theatre without any intermediaries between reality and the stage. The least possible. Because of course, there is always something. We need conventions. The interesting thing is always to put on stage a kind of a tissue\u2014<\/em>in the sense of biology. You cut a piece of a tissue, and you put it under a microscope. Not to say something absolute or to present truth about what we have found, but to ask about this reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people say that we are doing documentary theatre\u2014but we say \u201cNo.\u201d We are not interested in that idea of theatre, you know? We are interested in putting a piece of reality on stage and opening up its complexity. So, we ask a lot of questions. Sometimes, the questions that you ask are different from the questions I ask. We can only create a space to think about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We work with what we call casos, cases<\/em>. For example, Banos Roma <\/em>is a case about the boxer\u2014a former boxer\u2014who chose to live in Ciudad Juarez, which was one of the most violent cities in the world at the time. We do not know why he chose to live there. We went there because when we find something that we are interested in, we always try to create what we call question systems<\/em>. We ask questions about something and find one question that forces us to go to another place, to the context\u2014not stay in our comfortable theatre. That is the way we start the process in most cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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