Hasta encontrarte

His teenage daughter has disappeared. And there is only her mother, Alma, left to find her. Life around Alma disappears: family, work, friends, even her own health, eroded by the urgency of a search she undertakes alone. In Hasta encontrarte, this drama of Alma, narrated by the character herself, condenses the tragedy of the more than 114,000 disappeared people in Mexico, among them more than 26,000 women, most between the ages of 15 and 19.

On stage, Mexican playwright and actress Vicky Araico raises a testimony against oblivion in a monologue that reconstructs real experiences. Two years before the premiere of Hasta encontrarte, Araico, artistic director of the company El Ingenio del Caldero, and Nir Paldi, co-director of the British group Ad Infinitum, began researching the families of the disappeared.

It was their fourth collaboration since first working together in 2012 on Juana in a Million, followed by Milagros (2015) and Bucket List (2017), which have been performed in theatres in the UK, Mexico, and other international venues. As with Hasta encontrarte, these pieces share the desire to explore different forms of social injustice, with creations developed in close contact with those affected by the issues they address.

In taking on this project, they met with mothers of the disappeared and participated in the search for their children. They gathered testimonies from journalists, authorities, search groups, and human rights defenders. From this material, they produced two audio pieces for a podcast in English and Spanish. Later, they created Hasta encontrarte to show, as Araico states, “the trace of pain that remains in the lives of the families of the victims of this horrible crime.”

Up to ten characters are portrayed by Araico in the play, allowing the audience to witness the actions of the searching mothers, the workings of government bureaucracy, and the protests in the streets, in an uncertain journey marked by pain, anger, and, in spite of everything, hope.