A Choir of Orphaned Children

Carnage on the streets of Mexico City:  The Ultras, a brutal band of bloodthirsty protesters, are hunting down Right-wing politicians in an all-night purge of distopian proportions.  The most hated of all, Cáustica Mendieta, careers desperately through the streets in search of a safe place to hide.  But she has one thing in her favour:  not knowing that the Ultras were planning their attack today, Cáustica’s arch-rival, Carmelita Farisegui, ‘the last bastion of the Mexican Left’, chose today to hijack Congress with a protest of her own:  a choir of children borrowed from a local orphanage in a bid to melt the MPs’ hearts.  In the mélée, Cáustica has kidnapped one of the orphans and is using him as a human shield to get her through the night alive.  Peopled with an exhausted, cynical doctor; the cantankerous owner of Mexico’s oldest porn cinema; a literacy campaigner from the provinces, and the brusque, bemused owner of a Chinese restaurant, this biting satire on the state of Mexican politics is a mad-cap night to remember.

Solomon, if these children walk into the chamber of deputies and sing, they will move those… bastards… It’s the only way to make them listen to me…! We need to touch those pigs’ hearts…

…STOP PLAYING THAT VIOLIN!

A Choir of Orphaned Children was written as part of the Royal Court Theatre’s international playwrights programme, in conjunction with the Anglo-Mexican Foundation.

It is published in the anthology Mexican Playwrights at the Royal Court, along with Beat by Bárbara Colio.  The anthology is published by Paso de Gato and can be found online here.

Contact me for more details.  

Back to translation page, or see more about my work with the Royal Court.