New Mexico Ideas

I’ve spent time rewriting the grandmother play, adding and focusing the work. I think it works much better now that I’ve given the brothers more of an understanding. The play is now called “De Colores,” since it’s about the colors of paint and of race. I’ve been thinking a lot about race more and more, especially being in the thick of it here with my family. Last night, we went shopping and this woman who was helping us was throwing out Spanish words left and right in the midst of her sentences, no stopping to see if people understood, just kept going, back and forth, English to Spanish. Throws me off a bit. I’m going to be taking an anthropology class in the spring about Mexicans in America, especially in the midwest. I don’t know what I’ll get out of it, but I thought it sounded like something I should take a look at and understand more. In my growing up, I’ve become a bit more interested in the past, the heritage. Not obsessed like some people, trying to define who they are completely by the words they choose to describe their race, but just to be aware of my family and where my family has come from.

My next play that I’ve been sketching out after watching the movies “Spanglish” and “Closer,” is going to delve deeper and darker into the race issues and gender issues that I was skimming on in the grandma play. What makes a Mexican man a Mexican man? That is one of the main questions that I’m going to be considering. How is a Mexican man different from a white man? I think there are certain sensibilities that come up especially in dealings with the opposite sex. And that is one of the core issues. Sex and violence and race. So, on the one hand, I have these dark plays about sex and violence, while I’m trying to write upbeat comedies, which are also a bit about sex and violence. One of the new dramaturgs named Jessica Dart said to write a Chris Leyva play, all you need is sex and religion. I’m excited to get this new play going: “Solamente una Vez.” My hope is to get it done in a month or two. I have already worked out a very climactic moment, which rings true somehow.