Artist’s Statement

La llave [The Key] is an adaptation of the play La frontera (2003) by Laila Ripoll and the short stories by Juan Rulfo from El llano en llamas (1953). It tells the story of a young man and his grandmother, an Spanish exile who left during the Spanish Civil War, in their journey through the desert to the U.S.-Mexican border. The action of the play centers itself on the dispute between the two of them, focusing on themes of cultural abandonment and the condition of the migrant outside of his or her native land.

The history problematizes the meaning of “belonging to no place” for the migrant. Through an intergenerational conversation, we attempt to contextualize the difficulty of abandoning one’s homeland turning to a place where someone “has no roots.” The narrative demystifies the United States as a “land of opportunities,” an image that is fading day by day. The puppet that represents the grandmother is perched on the shoulders of the actor throughout the play. It symbolizes the weight on the conscience of younger generations.

The puppet allows a physical representation of the grandmother’s ghost that returns to life in the mind of the young man. Her presence shows the duty of the young man to not abandon his customs or his family history while he treks on.