“En las montañas azules” (In the Blue Mountains) at Foro Shakespeare

En las montañas azules (In the Blue Mountains) Showing at the Foro Shakespeare in Mexico from June 6 until August 29

Director: Emmanuel Morales

Playwright: Edgar Chías

Cast: Francesca Guillén, Alfredo Gatica, Diego Cooper, Sheyla Ferrera, Rodrigo Ruíz, Luis F. Padilla, Antonella, Bárbara Falconi, Mariana Trejo, Caribe Álvarez y Cayetano Aramburo

A drama about the negative consequences of the ecological footprint we all leave behind. What prevails in a planet without food and water is the selfishness of beings unable to realize that to destroy others means to destroy themselves. The play condemns the misguided individualism of the characters who are unwilling to share the few resources available. It is a call for ecological activism before we completely destroy the planet.

Theatrically, the play establishes a distance from its pressing social concerns by creating an oneiric atmosphere in which the characters are masked and dressed either as animals or in costumes that evoke mediaeval times. However, while the lighting and setting may transport the audience to a world of fantasy, the pressing issues as well as the unidentified characters force viewers to self examine and hopefully take steps to ameliorate pollution, control waste, and help slow down the decaying process of the world in which we live.

In 2005, the play was awarded the National Dramaturgy Prize Manuel Herrera.

Edgar Chías was born in 1973 in Mexico City. He is a playwright, an actor, and a translator. He studied at the UNAM where he currently teaches. His plays have been performed locally and abroad and have been translated into French, Italian, German, Greek, and Latvian. Chías has garnered scholarships in Spain from both the Fundación Carolina and the Iberescena Program.

In 2007 his plays Crack o de las cosas sin nombre (Crack or About Things With No Name) and De insomnio y media noche (About Insomnia and Midnight) earned him the Oscar Liera Prize. This award is given by the Mexican Association of Theatre Critics to the best contemporary drama. Two years later, the second play also received the National Literary Prize José Fuentes Mares.

Disertaciones sobre un charco (Discourses Over a Puddle), Nacido de un muslo (Made from a Thigh), El cielo en la piel (Heaven on the Skin), and Ternura suite (Tenderness Suite) are considered some of his best plays.

Emmanuel Morales was born in Mexico City in 1981. His theatrical career began at age thirteen when he appeared in a musical directed by Angélica Ortiz. Throughout his teenage years he performed as a dancer and participated in various choruses. at the Centro Nacional de las Artes (CNA, National Center for the Arts) he studied classical dance and at Casazul acting and stage production. From Ximena Escalante and Boris Schoemann at La Capilla theatre, he took lessons in dramaturgy.

He has directed La Orestíada by Esquilo, Hamelin by Juan Mayorga, and his own E.P. As actor, he has participated in more than 20 plays, six soap operas, and the television series Drenaje Profundo (Deep Sewer). He has also appeared in two films La cadenita (2007, The Small Chain) and El baile de la iguana (2005, The Dance of the Iguana).