LATINIDADES 3: ‘The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon’ @ Cara Mía Theatre Company
—Teresa Marrero
Thus far, the crown jewel of Cara Mía Theatre Company´s 6th Annual LATINIDADES FESTIVAL just might be The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon/Las delicadas lágrimas de la luna menguante, written and performed in Spanish by Rebeca Alemán of Chicago’s Water People Theater on October 2, 4 and 5, 2025.
In the intimate space of the Latino Cultural Center´s Black Box theater, the audience is invited into a personal journey of fractured memory, loss of language, and the body’s will to recover identity. Alemán (as Paulina) inhabits the role of a journalist who has survived a bullet wound to the brain, rendering her speech and sense of self fragmented and tentative. She has no short-term memory.
Journalism and Its Dangers
Alemán’s play highlights the dangers that journalists endure in many countries, and how a strong ethical commitment to expose the truth can come at a high risk. Based on Alemán´s research of feminicides in Northern Mexico, this tragic story bases its premise on the real-life stories of journalists and Indigenous women who struggle to expose injustices in a system marred by political and cartel interests. The perils described are not much different than the abuses in her native country of Venezuela. A talkback after the performance included local journalists who concurred with the play´s representation of journalistic oppression and dangers. The audience was able to draw its own conclusions on parallel journalistic censorship happening in the Unites States currently.
The Direction
Under the direction of Iraida Tapias, who is also Venezuelan, the production achieves a remarkable balance between spareness and fullness. Tapias orchestrates space, sound, and body with a keen sense of proportion, allowing Alemán’s performance to breathe without excess, while maintaining narrative clarity. The result is a theatrical experience that feels at once intimate and expansive, drawing the audience into the fragile, painful, yet determined act of remembering. What begins as fragmented speech patterns and hesitant recollections slowly grows into a fuller story—the trauma of violence, the disorientation of survival, and the reclamation of selfhood. This dramaturgical slow reveal mirrors Paulina´s inner reconstruction, aligning form and content with steady and poignant precision.
A Remarkable Performance
What makes the performances by Alemán and Gabriel Porras (as her supportive Mexican friend Rodrigo) remarkable is their restraint. Rather than dramatizing impairment with overt gestures, Alemán opts for a minimalist vocabulary of movement: small shifts of the hands, slight turns of the head, the twisted mouth, the carefully calibrated pause in breath and phrasing. We can feel the weighted effort of simple movements. These subtle choices draw the audience into the intimacy of her struggle. Every word regained feels earned, every gesture a triumph over silence. The effect is profoundly humanizing, making us not only witnesses but accomplices in her process of relearning. Alemán’s embodiment of the semi-paralyzed Paulina made me think this is as fine a performance as Meryl Streep’s in Sophie´s Choice. Yes, Alemán is that good.
Scenic and Soundscape Design
The opening scenes are illustrated with projections of a huge moon rising and falling in the background. This and other projections by Carlos Trujillo, Stephanie Rodríguez, Marisabel Muñoz, and Javier Rodríguez include flashbacks into Paulina´s life, a walk in the forest, and walls of newspapers. Lighting designer Ernesto Pinto complements the entire design with a palette of colors that range from the subtle to the stark.
All the while I kept listening, not only to the dialogue but to the input in my ears. The original music by Lester and Ludwig Paredes and sound design by Iraida Tapias and Maydi Diaz envelop the performance with understated insistence. At times the piano´s single note repetitions, subtly punctuated with a nearly imperceptible buzz, form part of the internal landscape of the brain´s trauma. Tapias revealed in the talkback that this buzzing replicates what a person with head trauma feels as a painful memory draws to the foreground. The use of Indigenous-inspired woodwind instruments heighten the textures of a mind seeking a Latin American identity.
The music functions as both companion and counterpoint to Alemán’s voice, guiding the audience through moments of vulnerability, rupture, and resilience. It is this level of attention to detail that makes this performance truly memorable and exceptional. The naturalistic set design by Roland Mazuca and costumes by Kim Crbin felt perfect. This performance embodies the characteristics of a carefully orchestrated symphony.
Voices “off” include Laura Crotte as Antonia (Paulina´s mother), Sofía Ybarra as Anabel (Paulina´s daughter). and Miguel Núñez as the Announcer.
In conclusion
Alemán’s play is a jewel. The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon is not only a story of survival but also a meditation on the resilience of the human spirit and the commitment to exposing abuse. Paradoxically, a play about forgetting lodges itself indelibly in our memory.
Coming up at the Latinidades Festival: Be sure to catch La razón blindada by Arístides Vargas pn October 9-11, and the much-anticipated dance-theater work of Yemayá Flamenco on October 11-12.
Teresa Marrero is Professor of Spanish at the University of North Texas. She specializes in Latin American and Latine Theater in the United States. https://class.unt.edu/people/m-teresa-marrero.html
WHERE: Latino Cultural Center, 2600 Live Oak Street, Dallas
WEB: For a full schedule of performances and to buy tickets, go to: caramiatheatre.org/latinidades-festival/
