Raquel | VOICES 2022

Produced by Open Scene, Raquel is an original play by Claudia Vargas Vega that first came to the organization through the Escena Abierta Playwriting Contest. Although it was not the winning entry, Open Scene responded strongly to the work and selected it for production within the VOICES program. Directed by Edwin Yumar and performed by Karina Gentile, the play follows Raquel, a cisgender woman traveling with a circus, and her partner Desiré, a transgender woman, after a violent attack transforms their lives. Through an experimental and surreal theatrical language, the production examines love, grief, gender-based violence, police impunity, memory, and the search for justice. The project was accompanied by community conversation as part of Open Scene’s ongoing use of theater to engage difficult social questions.