“If you have doubts about your identity, contact Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.” So read billboards across Argentina, where thousands of people were “disappeared” between 1976 and 1983 under a brutal military dictatorship. Questions of truth and identity are explored when Antaeus Theatre Company presents the West Coast premiere of Stephanie Alison Walker’s striking new play, The Abuelas. The play explores the repercussions of Argentina’s “Dirty War” on one family. Andi Chapman directs for an October 11th opening at the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center in Glendale, where performances continue through November 25th. Low-priced previews begin October 3rd. The cast includes Denise Blasor, Irene De Bari, David DeSantos, Seamus Dever, Carolina Montenegro and Luisina Quarler.
In March of 1976, a military junta seized control of Argentina. Those opposed to the new government were told “to make themselves invisible, or they would be made to vanish.” By September of that year, the regime was already responsible for an average of 30 abductions each day. From these abductions, a new word came into common usage: desaparecidos, the “disappeareds.” Among those detained and tortured were young pregnant women who rarely survived, and whose babies were then stolen and illegally adopted out to “politically acceptable” parents. Despite the atmosphere of fear promoted by the junta regime, two groups of women — representing the mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared — began protesting the disappearances of their relatives and striving for the reunification of their families. “The Madres” embarked on a crusade to obtain information about their missing children, demanding both the return of their children and punishment for their captors; “The Abuelas” have a sharper focus: to find the living. They call them los desaparecidos con vida (“the living disappeared”), referring to the babies who had been taken from their murdered daughters and sons.
Developed in the Antaeus Playwright’s Lab, The Abuelas was a semi-finalist for the 2017 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the winner of the 2018 Ashland New Plays Festival, and received its world premiere earlier this year from Teatro Vista at Victory Gardens in Chicago. It was written as a stand-alone companion piece to Walker’s The Madres, which was produced in 2018 by four theaters across the U.S. (including the Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles) as part of a “Rolling World Premiere” from the National New Play Network. “Walker is a powerful and compassionate writer: both of these plays explore how ordinary people can and do become caught up in political horrors, even as they somehow have to keep living their lives,” wrote Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune.
The Abuelas opens on Friday, October 11th and continues through November 25th. Performances take place on Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. and Mondays at 8 p.m. through Oct. 31 (dark Monday, Oct. 13); check the website for the performance schedule between Oct. 31 and Nov. 25, when performances will run in rotation with Eight Nights. Preview performances of The Abuelas begin Oct. 3. Seating is reserved, with all tickets priced at $35 except preview tickets, which are $15. Visit www.Antaeus.org for more information.