A Theatre of Violence and Fear in Contemporary Mexico

• In Event: Performance, violence, and memory

Abstract

For more than a decade violence in Mexico has spilled over from the Drug Trafficking Organizations to every aspect of Mexican life. The struggle between the government, the armed forces, and the drug cartels is very open and public and civilians suffer the consequences of this unspoken war every day. In the new century, Mexican playwrights embrace the responsibility of change by writing plays of violence and narcotrafficking and its impact in their society in dramas such as Yamaha 300 (2006) by Cutberto López, Cielo rojo (2006) and Malverde, día de la Santa Cruz (2008) by Alejandro Román, Rompe-cabeza (2007) by Antonio Zúñiga, and Música de balas (2012) by Hugo Salcedo. The playwrights question the narco-saints and the place of religion as well as the way that Drug Trafficking Organizations have destabilized Mexico. They use modern and creative structures such as interior monologues, norteña music, visual effects and devices that have more in common with corridos, cinema, or religious rituals than theatre itself. All the plays use a language that emanates from violence, and specifically from narcotrafficking. They force the reader/spectator into the world of the drug cartels with a horrifying allure and suspence.

Author

• Iani D Moreno, Suffolk University