Mi Madre y el Dinero

For over 60 years, from 1960 to 2020, Josefina Orlaineta worked in more than 40 jobs in Campeche, southern Mexico; her son Anacarsis moved to Mexico City, where he discovered theater and his identity as a gay man. Now Josefina stands on stage with her son—in her own story. Enchanting, with plenty of charm and humor, she looks back on her various occupations and reveals her sales techniques and survival strategies while stuffing sausages on stage—as if she were filling the scenes with memories.

With sensitivity, Anacarsis Ramos questions his mother and expands the intimate dialogue into a thoughtful reflection on the economic realities of survival, class, and the theater itself. For Josefina also has compelling ideas for improving the precarious working conditions in the theater. And when Ramos laments Europeans’ fondness for documentary theater as well as his mother’s significance as a self-presenter, the play lands squarely in the present. The fact that Josefina, just as in her other jobs, manages to get by in the theater too is one of the qualities of this evening, which is as profound as it is entertaining.

“‘Mi madre y el dinero’ arose from the need to find a bridge that would allow me to return to my mother’s home after homophobia, violence, and poverty—which characterized the environment in which we lived in Campeche—had kept us apart for ten years. This work is an attempt to build a different relationship with my mother by creating a space mediated through work and fiction, where we can explore our economic history and our relationship to money, and from there, rehearse and reenact on stage the transactions that held us together and shaped our family.”

Anacarsis Ramos

(Spanish – with German and English surtitles)