On August 10-27, Brava Theater Center presents the world premiere of The Mathematics of Love, a new work by Cherrie Moraga with Ricardo A. Bracho. Moraga also is the play’s director. The performance, developed through a collaboration between Moraga and Brava, features a conceptual design by Celia Herrera Rodriguez, and stars Rose Portillo, George Killingsworth, Veronica Maynez, Carla Pantoja, Sarita Ocon, and Carlos Aguirre.
Brava writes that The Mathematics of Love:”…takes place in the lobby of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel at the turn into the 21st century. Peaches, an aging, and mid-staged Alzheimer’s, Mexican woman and her Anglo husband, Poppa, are awaiting the arrival of their out-of-town son, “God.” Enter the 16th century Native female slave-turned-slaveholder, Malinche, wearing red lipstick and sunglasses with “a small pyramid of Louis Vuitton luggage” trailing behind her. Her satirical presence digs up the dirt of a once Tongva landscape, the nagging disquiet of those “Old San Gabriel Mission Days,” and an unresolved story between mother and daughter. In Peaches’ time-traveling re-encounter with Malinche, she is forced to concede a radically revised ledger on her life; its loves and losses — the sum of a 500-year-old rupture in América.”
Previews for The Mathematics of Love run August 10 and 11. A percentage of the proceeds from the opening night performance and after party on August 12 will be donated to the Chicana/Latina Foundation. Tickets are available.