A few weeks ago I went to the showing of a piece titled Braided Sorrow at the University of San Francisco Lone Mountain Theater. Braided Sorrow is a performance written by Marisela Orta, was directed by Roberto Varea and was presented by the USF Performing Arts Department. When I arrived to the performance the first thing that I noticed was the set up of the stage. It looked very different from usual. This past spring semester I was in a class taught by Professor Varea (The director of the play) and throughout the semester we were required to go to a number of performances. So this was not my first time at the University’s theater. I arrived early in hopes of finding a good seat, and saw a number of tables set up across the stage. In addition …show more content…
I had no background information whatsoever so the reasoning behind this was unclear, but I knew that once the performance began I would most likely find an answer.
Braided Sorrow focuses on the story of Alma a young 16-year-old girl who leaves her home in San Luis Polosi, Mexico to work in a factory in Ciudad Juarez. There at the factory she is objectified like her coworker by their supervisor Senor Filmore. She works these long hours, for low pay, is under horrible unsafe work conditions, but worst of all she is sexually harassed by Senor Filmore. We learn that these issue concerning work conditions, money and pay are significant, but do not compare to the issue of women being victims of sexual violence and death.
In the piece, we are introduced to La Llorona, an earth spirit who strolls the earth mourning over what happened to her daughter. In addition to dealing with the sexual harassment at her new job, Almo is attacked and almost becomes a victim of sexual harassment, but at the very last moment is saved by La Llorona. La Llorona, who has the power to save women from their horrible outcome, has witnessed all of the horrible acts that men in the city have