Archivo y repertorio en el docudrama transfronterizo (Ciudad Juárez-El Paso): La sal de la guerra de Selfa Chew

Abstract:

The theatre of Selfa Chew (Mexico City, 1962) takes ownership of historical events to add fictional but feasible possibilities within the represented political reality to which it belongs as a descendant or heir. The docudrama The Salt of War is an example of such theatre. The possible scenarios of this dramatic text, written in 2014, are constructed with the same subjectivity as the official U.S. versions of the exploitation of natural resources after the demarcation of the Mexico-U.S. border in 1848, the Apache extermination (1861-1886), and the conflict over the exploitation of salt between the residents of the town of San Elizario and the Texan authorities (1877). For the analysis, I focus on the main components of the text: 1) Documentary: the actual reference; 2) Archive/repertoire: the deficit of documentary sources and the use of the collective memory of the people involved; 3) Female characters: the relevance of the way in which women are portrayed; and 4) Cross-border region: the geographic coordinates where the factors that afflict its inhabitants take place: marginalization, racism, xenophobia; and other issues that, in a timeless way, persist in this liminal zone, facilitating the connection of the plays with their ideal audience.