By Robert St. Martin
Saturday night was the opening night of a three-week run of The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon, an award-winning play at the Latino Theater Company at their resident venue – the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles. Inspired by true events, the play addresses the issue of the relentless violation of human rights against journalists who strive to report the truth. Written by acclaimed Venezuelan playwright, actress and human rights advocate Rebeca Alemán and directed by Iraida Tapias, The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon, was first stage by the Water People Theatre in Chicago in 2019. Celebrating its 40th year in Los Angeles, the Latino Theatre Company chose to present this play as the final production of its 2024-2025 season. It is only fitting that the opening night of this play on May 3 corresponded with World Press Freedom Day. This strong work of theatre written by Rebecca Alemán (who also in the play’s main character) is a true tribute to journalism and the courage of journalists who often lose their lives telling the truth.
A taut psychological drama, The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon is set in 2019 somewhere in Latin America in a country immersed in violence and corruption (in this production referenced as northern Mexico). Alemán stars as Paulina, a human rights journalist and advocate for victims of femicide and indigenous communities. After surviving a vicious attack that left her in a coma, Paulina struggles to regain her memory. With fellow journalist Rodrigo at her side, she must painstakingly piece together the truth in order to demand justice.
Rebeca Alemán and Eric K. Roberts are so compelling as Paulina and Rodrigo respectively. The first ten minutes of the play is silent acting at its finest, as the physical elements and emotions conveyed were devastating difficult – without a single word even needed to be said aloud. Paulina is unable to speak at all having just emerged from four months in a coma. One these two characters do speak, we witness Paulina trying to piece together individual words and eventually being to piece together her memories of what lead to the events that resulted in her severe brain injury. We will discover why Rodrigo is there taking care of Paulina and the tragic secret that drives him to look after her.
As the months pass and Paulina slowly recovers some of her memory and language skills, we learn from the scattered pieces of information that the journalistic work Paulina pursued for a major news publication resulted in her tragic state. As Rodrigo helps Paulina to recover bits of her past, we learn that Paulina was reporting about murdered journalists who were investigating the displacement of the Venezuelan indigenous population by land-grabbing business interests. The story unfolds slowly but we are so focused on the stellar performance of Rebecca Alemán as the struggling victim of an assassination attempt in the stages of regaining some of her mobility, her memory, and her command of spoken words. At times painful, the very real portrayal of the process of recovery from a coma and brain injury is profound – especially for myself who has witnessed this with stroke victims and those who experience a brain aneurism.
Add to that the story that is slowly revealed as Rodrigo helps to coach Paulina’s memory with basic word association and later complex questions. This is so achingly human that I found myself frozen in my seat, as if like Rodrigo, I too were trying to help Paulina remember what she can of words, names, associations, and events. The only thing she remembers is that she has a mother and a daughter. Eventually she recalls the name of an indigenous journalist who was targeted for work in local communities where some corrupt land-grabbing schemes were afoot. With Rodrigo’s prodding, she remembers a little about the newspaper office where she previously worked and what she was doing on the eventful day that changed her life. To achieve justice, it is essential for her to recover her memory and reveal the truth about the past. With that returns some her former command of language and the poetry she once wrote:
“I walked through streets that no longer exist
I feel for myself and for all others,
who live in this world that is turning to dust.”
The power of The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon can be attributed to the brilliant play script and the strong performance of Rebecca Alemán that shapes this play in a special way that makes it powerful and poetically stirring. Of course, much credit needs to be given to stage director Iraida Tapias who has specialized in producing and directing plays by Spanish American authors, with a particular emphasis on Venezuelan playwrights. Iraida has authored seven plays and produced over 30 theatrical performances.
Rebeca Alemán, Founder and Executive Artistic Director of Chicago-based Water People Theater. Rebeca is an actress, writer, pianist, and journalist. She has played leading roles in over 38 theatrical productions, soap operas, and films including those as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Frida Kahlo, Adela, Martirio, Yerma, and Camila O’Gorman. Rebeca has written six plays, four short films, and one children’s book.
Eric K. Roberts is an American actor and film photographer. He has played Valmont in Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Cadmus in Euripedes’s The Bacchae, Oberon in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Edgar Allan Poe in Water People Theater’s production North & Sur.
Venezuelan playwright, director, producer, and scriptwriter, Iraida is a Jeff Award Nominee for Best Director. With over 51 years of experience in theater, she has specialized in producing and directing plays by Spanish American authors, with a particular emphasis on Venezuelan playwrights. Iraida has authored seven plays and produced over 30 theatrical performances.
Performances of “The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon” run May 3 – May 25, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 4 p.m. Location: The Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles CA 90013. Tickets: $10-$48; Students, Seniors, Veterans and LAUSD teachers: $24 with valid ID. For more information and to purchase tickets, call (213)489-0994 or go to latinotheaterco.org.
