We sat down with the members of HellBound theatre talking about their new show MadreMonte, tickets and listing can be found here.
What drew you to a story where grief, magic, and nature collide so powerfully?
Since our company is predominantly Latino, we think it’s important to showcase our indigenous culture and ancestors’ view of grief, love, and nature. We also see this work as a love letter to our culture, and we think it’s imperative to tell this story as a theatre company that is entirely POC. It is important for us to share stories that have been around since pre-colonial Latin America. Literary Magical Realism is a genre that was popularized in Colombia, and is rooted in Indigenous stories, voices, and heritage. This genre acts as a fantastical commentary to the political turmoil that has affected Latin America since Spanish imperialism. Because of this, we wanted to create a show which uses this device in a healing way, and that connects audiences with important Indigenous and spiritual values.
How does it feel to bring a mythical guardian like MadreMonte to life on stage?
It is powerful to bring this character to life as a figure that is so important to Latin American culture and mythology. MadreMonte represents female power, rage, and the importance of caring for and maintaining the sanctity of our environment. This ideology is something we think is needed in a metropolis like London, where nature and care for the environment is often overlooked. It is so special to be bringing this character to mainly Eurocentric audiences, where she is largely unknown.
What does it mean to tell a story rooted in Latin American folklore through a queer, international lens?
Family and religious values are deeply important to Latino culture. In our personal experiences, religion has been used by some family members to justify their homophobia and bigotry. Being able to live as these characters and bring them to life has been a very healing and cathartic experience for us. These characters have allowed us to tell our stories through our own unique perspective as queer internationals.
How has working on MadreMonte deepened your connection to themes of loss, healing, and the environment?
MadreMonte has deepened our interest in exploring the vastness of the human experience, and how humanity would respond to knowing that their world and everything they’ve known will end imminently. We were interested in exploring the question of: “How does one move forward when they know they will lose everything they’ve ever known”? Setting our play in an apocalyptic setting allows us to explore how humans interact with each other and the world around them when the stakes are extremely high, and how they will choose to spend their last moments on earth. We also wanted to explore the idea of loss on earth in the physical realm, and how this might transform into something beautiful in the afterlife. Naomi’s character, as someone who has left the physical world but still interacts with her friends living on earth, is a way for us to explore a beautiful and healing perspective of life after death. It also challenges how many of us perceive death as something permanent. Even in death, the love and the memory of our loved ones live on through us.
What’s been the most surprising or magical part of creating this world with HellBound Theatre?
Working on MadreMonte has been a healing journey in many ways, specifically as a way to deal with the loss of loved ones in our own lives. It has been a gift for us to be able to create art that has allowed us to process personal experiences of grief. Our experience of the loss of close friends has inspired the creation of Naomi. Bringing Naomi to life, specifically through the ways she loves and looks after her friends in the afterlife, has been a very healing and important process for everyone in our company. It has also been an incredible way for us to connect with our varied backgrounds, as MadreMonte as a whole is a story about connecting with one another through love and family, even if it is through a found family. We hope this experience of processing grief through artistic healing will also resonate with our audiences.
In what ways has MadreMonte challenged or inspired your own artistic journey?
MadreMonte has allowed us to bring together various art forms that we have been wanting to explore on stage such as movement pieces, puppetry, and the use of song and poetry. For our company, this is our first full-length play that we have written and produced, so the process of creating this show has inspired us to tell stories that are often not told and need to be heard. It is not easy to represent the complex figure that is MadreMonte, and to try to bring this part of our heritage and culture to life in a truthful and respectful way. It is challenging to navigate grief and loss in a personal and meaningful way on stage. This project has allowed us to create a story that is close to our hearts, but will also have the ability to impact audiences from any background or lived experience. It has inspired us to connect more deeply with our ancestry and cultural roots, and we hope it inspires our audiences to do the same.