Ancient is the New Contemporary

Comments (0) By : Emily Wilson Wednesday, Jun 6 2012

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Magic Theatre

Fort Mason, Bldg. D, Marina & Buchanan, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94123

Category: Theaters

Region: Marina/ Cow Hollow

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Playwright Luis Alfaro grew up in the Pico-Union district of Los Angeles and learned to find contemporary stories in ancient works. He does so again with Bruja, a reimagining of Euripides’ Medeaset in the Mission District, with the young sorceress taken from her native Mexico by her older husband, Jason. Alfaro has looked to the Greek classics before to find inspiration, first with Electricidad(Electra) and then with Oedipus El Rey (Oedipus the King). The MacArthur Foundation fellow teaches young felons playwriting and is also a teacher at the University of Southern California. Alfaro wrote Electricidad after meeting a 13-year-old who had killed her mother to avenge her father’s death — just as in Sophocles’ play — and in Oedipus El Rey, he explored fate and destiny through Latinos in the prison system in California. Alfaro says he doesn’t see his job as a playwright to answer questions, but to ask them. In Bruja, the questions concern immigration and exile. He hopes audiences, when pondering these questions, will see how we live today in a story from 1,000 years ago.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: May 24. Continues through July 1, 2012