A border story inspired by ‘Antigone’
It’s not often that Linda Lopez McAllister gets to be involved with a world premiere.
“Woman on Fire” is the latest production from Camino Real Productions, and Lopez McAllister couldn’t be prouder.
“This is quite a show,” she says. “Woman on Fire” is a re-imagining of Sophocles’ “Antigone” set along the Mexican border in Arizona. It is written Marisela Treviño Orta and was commissioned by the Latino Playwright Initiative.
The play tells the story of the ghost of a woman who died while crossing the border, which haunts the unwilling heroine Juanita, the wife of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Juanita finds herself torn between the law of man and a higher law when she must decide whether to put her husband’s career and their marriage at risk to give the restless spirit the proper burial it demands.
Lopez McAllister says the play was one of three that were recommended to her.
“I liked the fact that it was on the subject on immigration and it was very much going to be in the limelight of this year’s election,” she says. “And it’s written by an extraordinary playwright. She was a poet. There are four characters, and they are written with such depth, and it’s quite amazing.”
Treviño Orta first read Sophocles’ “Antigone” in a philosophy class well before she found her way to playwriting.
“What always stayed with me about that play was the conflict between the law of man vs. a higher law,” Treviño Orta says. “At great personal risk, Antigone goes against the edict of the king to bury her brother’s body so that his soul will find peace.”
In 2007, she was a fledgling playwright, finding her way to the genre after almost 10 years as a poet.
“Around the same time, my friends at El Teatro Jornalero! were developing a performance piece about deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border, specifically how the increased security after 9/11 led to a huge increase in deaths of immigrants trying to cross the border,” Treviño Orta says. “‘Woman on Fire’ was born out of that intersection of a classical play and present-day circumstances. I wouldn’t call ‘Woman on Fire’ an adaptation of ‘Antigone,’ but ‘Antigone’ is a bit of an inspiration — a jumping-off point.”