Adiós Mamá Carlota
by Luis Valdez
World Premiere
In partnership with El Teatro Campesino
Commissioned through support from The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Theatre Commissioning Award
April 3 - 28, 2019
ENDURING TALE OF LOVE AND COUNTRY
This spring Luis Valdez is back at San Jose Stage after premiering “Valley of the Heart” (Winner of the 2016 San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best Production Entire Bay Area) now being staged at the Mark Taper Forum. Continuing the partnership between San Jose Stage Company and El Teatro Campesino, Valdez’ work will once again take The Stage with the World Premiere of “Adios Mama Carlota, The Empress of Mexico”. This newly commissioned play is supported by The Stage’s 2016 The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Theatre Playwright Commissioning Award, with workshops at El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista and it’s premiere here in San Jose.
Narrated by Empress Carlota in her private chamber in Bouchout Castle, Belgium, 1927, 60 years have passed since the death of her beloved Maximillian before a firing squad in Mexico. Revisiting the rise and fall of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico invoking her role as Empress, she’s haunted by her memories, holding royal court entertaining several distinguished ghosts, including; Maximilian, Napoleon III, Benito Juarez and Abraham Lincoln. Carlota questions her survival: WHY has she lived so long without a husband, children, or relatives that no trace of her world remains? Carlota’s real dilemma pivots on her guilt and self-doubt on her abandonment of Maximilian and their unfinished love story.