MI MADRE Y EL DINERO

For sixty years, Josefina Orlaineta worked in more than forty different jobs in Campeche in southern Mexico, one of the poorest states in Mexico. Her son Anacarsis moved to Mexico City, where he found theatre and his identity as a gay man. Now Josefina has yet another job: appearing on stage with her son and telling her story. She looks back at her working life with charm and humour, talks about sales techniques and survival strategies, stuffing sausages as she does so – as though she were filling the scenes with memories. MI MADRE Y EL DINERO is a journey through sixty years of Campeche’s economic history and reflects on economic crisis as a permanent situation, how work extends into the family sphere and the lack of support for self-employed workers. The dialogue between mother and son results in a documentary play about work, money and the theatre itself. Because Josefina also has some convincing ideas about how to improve working conditions in theatre. When Anacarsis reflects on his mother as a self-promoter, the play lands right in the present. How can another person’s life story be told in the theatre – and how can we come up with more empathetic narratives about ourselves at the same time?

Anacarsis Ramos is a playwright, stage designer and director, and is self-taught in theatre and sociology. Most of his work is created as part of Pornotráfico, a company he runs with Karla Sánchez Kiwi, Erik Gutiérrez Otto, Santiago Villalpando, Fausto Castaño and Moisés Romero. In his own artistic practice, he explores the tensions between social reality and media portrayal with the aim of creating work that questions political narratives and influences social discourses.