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October 27, 2016 | What Did You Think?,
What did you think of Mala?
We’d love to hear your thoughts on Melinda Lopez’s Mala.
- What did you think of this unsentimental journey?
- What element of the story did you relate to?
- What’s something you’d identify as “one true thing”?
Tell us in the comments, start a conversation, and connect with your fellow audience members!
What I loved about Melinda’s show was hearing about the caregiving experience through a Cuban-American prism. That was something new to me. Her struggles–surreally sad/funny and poignant with her mother and how devastating it is to witness the decline and death of the one who gave birth to you and whom you love deliriously as Melinda did, showed me that this kind of caregiver stress, this painful dilemma of the ‘sandwich generation’ is universal. Melinda is a terrific storyteller/actress and I left the Black Box feeling uplifted and moved and tickled.
I had already buried both of my parents 17 years ago so this play has deep meaning for me. I had read the play in advance of seeing it and the material touched me in a familiar way. However, Melinda’s performance has taken me to a place I had never been concerning the very human, very sad yet “ordinary” experience of the death of a parent. Her performance stirred memories and excavated deeply buried aspects of my experiences with their deaths that has provided a space of self-forgiveness, understanding and a need to create a safe, loving space for me to hold my own humanity and mortality. Bravo for a story about life written and performed so honestly and so beautifully. Thank you, Melinda.
This was a great performance and production. As a Latina American I can relate to the cultural pressures and battles. Melinda was mesmerizing, and the shift in energy between audience and her was palpable. Thank you for your artistry, and for sharing it!
This performance will resonate with those who’ve cared for and lost a loved one and inform those who have not. The comic relief was a vital part of some of the intense and painful parts. Melinda’s ability to draw in the audience probably helped people who haven’t experienced it to understand some of the permutations of the experience of dealing with aging, illness, dementia and loss.
What a lovely, touching, graceful and honest performance. I felt lucky and honored to be in Melinda’s presence, and I’m so glad I will be going again with a Latina friend. The ‘truths’ Melinda speaks are indeed universal.
A truly amazing, thoughtful, moving experience. Thank you.
I’ve known of Melinda Lopez’s work since When Sonia Flew and love her work. I appreciated the subtlety of this production and its writing, its understatement of an experience we’ve all encountered in various ways. As I said in the audience talk for last night’s show, I identified with how the protagonist/teller wrestles with The Telling—the selectivity and her meandering between the emotional and factual sides of the story. The circular telling is like most women’s if not many men’s and pulls us directly into this experience and our present and past memories of the confusion of emotion and fact as we lose and identify with the dying of a loved one. I completed a solo photonarrative exhibition in 2015 and am continuing my CUBA project and would like to share that with her. (Have been in touch with Boston area CUBANS about it.)