Yucatán playwrights explore family across time in Mexico City
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Xhaíl Espadas Ancona and Ulises Vargas Gamboa are presenting their play, En casa, in Mexico City this weekend at the Teatro del Bosque Julio Castillo.
The Yucatán-based theatre companies Tinta-Teatro and Belacqua collaborated on the production, which portrays six generations of women from the same family living together in a single home. The play disregards traditional timelines, allowing a mother and daughter to interact as children, and a granddaughter to be older than her grandmother.
The play originated from a workshop where the script and staging developed simultaneously. The set design features a fixed floor and two rotating panels to represent the interior and exterior of a traditional house in Mérida, Yucatán, inspired by a family property that has stood for around a century. Espadas Ancona and Vargas Gamboa initially drew inspiration from letters written between 1885 and 1891 by the playwright’s great-grandparents, but ultimately created a fictional family to explore themes of intergenerational relationships.
Central to the plot is Tonita, a great-grandmother who blames a woman named Doña Política for her family’s misfortunes and seeks to stop her from causing further harm. Through Tonita, Espadas Ancona uses the play as a way to address societal issues and involve the audience in the resolution. The play also explores themes of personal choice versus family expectations, as characters grapple with issues like domestic violence and societal pressures.
The production previously appeared at Mérida Fest 2025, the Playa del Carmen International Theatre Festival, and as part of the IMSS-Cultura program in Campeche.
