THIS IS FOR...
El Mentiroso and his Cyclops is for grown-ups being bullied by childhood trauma- it’s for anyone haunted by harm. Perhaps it winks at you through the mischief of your children; pesters you in your mother’s silence, or befriends you on the toilet in the dark at two in the morning when you think everyone is asleep…
“When you’re growing old, there’s no place to go, so you have to journey back and in.”
THIS IS A STORY...
It’s late, you’re tired, you haven’t taken a shit in days and it’s not because of what you are eating but because your mami’s in town and she insists on telling you how to parent your kids. And then an unbearable pain hits you - your surroundings turn sideways, cyclopes dressed as chefs pop out through your kitchen cabinets, and you find yourself the plato principál in a bizarro version of The Iron Chef, where the contestants aim to cuisine art your fattiest traumatic memories…how do you keep them from finding out what really happened?
“He’s been telling lies. He’s been telling lies.”
HOW WE GOT HERE...
“Dissociation is the essence of trauma…the trauma that ‘started out there’ is now played out in the battlefield of our bodies.” - The Body Keeps the Score
This piece was initially commissioned in 2018 by Trinity Rep in Providence as an exploration of Miguel De Cervantes’s Don Quixote. We chose to combine this text with Suzanne Lalonde’s article “Don Quixote’s Quixotic Trauma Therapy: A Reassessment of Cervantes’s Canonical Novel and Trauma Studies” which frames Cervantes’s book as a process for healing trauma. We learned that Quixote’s escapades are the spiral of a fool coping with loss and loneliness by imagining bombastic battles with mountains and monsters. Additionally we were inspired by Bessel van der Kolk’s analysis in The Body Keeps The Score where he argues that the road to healing includes modes of expression and communication beyond the verbal.
In combination with these texts, the piece is an adaptation of Mauricio’s lived experience with sexual abuse and his various approaches to coping with it. In order to do this with care, we utilize healing elements such as repetition, humor, dancing and food. El Mentiroso - our quixotic fool - goes on his embodied journey for healing trauma traveling beyond the verbal to choreographed 80’s dance combinations, farcical chase scenes, and sharing food with the audience all while battling the ever transforming cyclopes.
DESIGN
The world begins in a contemporary kitchen with el Mentiroso in his pjs working late at his kitchen table. Suddenly cyclopes emerge out of kitchen cabinets - they’re versions of himself at different moments of his life. The set spirals and swirls to descend into el Mentiroso’s subconscious - his grandmother’s kitchen - the tent fort of his childhood - the mouth of a cyclops. The show is fully scored with original composition and of course music by Paula Abdul.
Set Design Fool’s Kitchen
Set Design Memory Kitchen
TIMELINE
2018 - 2023: Organized 6 workshops to explore the following questions: “How does one person’s story become the story of the collective?” “What secrets do we cook into our meals?” “What is the rhythm of healing?” and “How do we perform a disintegrating memory?” The workshops reckoned with the juxtaposition of isolation and interconnection. Through movement we explored what it would look like to perform the recipes of our favorite meals, recipes we’ve inherited (including the parts that had been scratched out), recipes for eating our mothers, and recipes for starving the cyclopes in our freezers.
March 2024: Produced a three-day movement-based workshop and built the first draft of the Fools descent.
May 2024: Produced a two week-long workshop to further develop the script and design elements and discovered that the cyclopes have a love for cooking shows and Paula Abdul. We also created the censored pilot of Latin American talk show phenom, Christina Saralegui’s, radio show.
September 2025: Developmental workshop with a limited run at Arts on Site in New York City funded by Piece by Piece Production with budget of $196,000.
WORKSHOP VIDEOS
CREATIVE TEAM
BUDGET
Summary of approved budget for the 2025 Developmental Workshop at Arts on Site in New York City: $196,000
$100,417 in payments for Actors, Artisans, Designers, Directors, Coaches, Managers, Technicians, Writer and Choreographer.
$18,325 rental fee for a month-long rehearsal and tech process at Arts on Site.
$24,000 for the building of remaining sets and costumes and for lighting and sound equipment rentals.
$2,500 for archival material.
The remainder will cover production and payroll expenses, contingency, and additional union contributions and bonds.
As a co-producer, Arts on Site has agreed to take on the cost for the space for the 15 show run. They will also manage the marketing, ticketing and the house during the run of the show.