Latest / The BSB Podcast / Exclusive Interview: Migdalia Cruz of 'Women+ On The Edge of Democracy'

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Exclusive Interview: Migdalia Cruz of 'Women+ On The Edge of Democracy' · The BSB Podcast

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  What happens when artists turn their attention to the state of democracy?
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  Woman on the edge of democracy brings together powerful voices
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  to explore that question, including acclaimed playwright Migdalia Cruz.
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  Known for work that challenges audiences and gives voices
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  to overlooked perspectives, Cruz brings a unique artistic lens to this conversation.
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  Thank you so much for being here to chat with us about this project.
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  Hi, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to to talk about it.
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  So what initially kinda drew you to wanting to be a part of Women+ on
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  the edge of democracy?
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  Well, first all it was nice to be asked.
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  One
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  For sure.
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  is o isn't always asked to come to the table.
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  usually have to kind of bully my way in.
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  But it was ~ but I also think it's an important time to be talking about democracy
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  at a time when you feel like it's f fading and ~ and and that you have very little
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  power ~ in stopping it from fading.
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  And I don't know why we always I think we go through these periods
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  in history where we always feel powerless.
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  And then suddenly we realize, yeah,
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  we can vote. Let's vote. And let's let's
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  We
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  change things and and and talk about it and fight and you know and protest
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  and not let the bullies win. But it always takes some some like gearing
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  up before the the American people do that.
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  I'm not sure why. I think we like it.
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  We're very comfortable in our lives and then suddenly we're not.
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  And it's like
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  You know what? Sometimes you have to make things uncomfortable in order
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  to you know elicit change. That's how I feel.
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  So I was excited to be a part of a project that's about democracy,
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  even though I feel like I my first reaction was like,
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  What democracy? Really? I'm gonna write about democracy.
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  I don't know. But I also feel like it's something I always write about.
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  ~ as a Puerto Rican woman, you know,
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  New Eurekan from the Bronx, I think I'm always writing political plays 'cause
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  I I think ~ often I feel like people think I don't even have a right to exist.
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  Or they forget I exist or my people exist.
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  But we're here and we're loud.
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  So it's good to it's good to be reminded of that and and to take the time
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  to write about it.
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  So getting to use
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  your voice for something that is so important.
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  I mean, this is such a such a unique project because bringing together,
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  you know, thirty-six different voices and kind of giving it back to
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  the community in a big way to kind of be like,
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  we're still here and we have that voice.
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  Like you mentioned, sometimes not only do we forget that we have a voice
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  and other people may forget that we have a voice,
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  but to be reminded and then remind other people,
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  like, you know, we can speak up and we can say something like let's take space
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  in what we ~ in the space that we deserve to have space in.
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  Absolutely. Yeah, I think I then I think having ~ and also understanding that
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  it it sometimes does take courage and that that courage is important in times
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  of of the destruction of things like democracy,
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  of of the fears of things that we have like fascism and of taking over.
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  It's like we have to fight and it's and it might not be comfortable and ~
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  and i and it won't be pretty, but it'll be important in the end.
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  So
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  You know, it's like who do you who do you want to be?
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  What is what is your legacy? We talk a lot about legacy in the theater.
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  And I think ~ I hope my legacy is that I always wrote and and fought
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  for things I believed in. And ~ and I hope that's that remains true 'til I die.
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  So he was hoping not to die too soon,
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  but you never know.
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  Absolutely, there's so there's so many stories
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  to still tell, ~ especially because yours often explore identity,
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  power, you know, marginalized voices,
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  and those are so important. So yeah,
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  we need you around for a long time to continue telling stories like that.
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  when it comes to a story such as this one,
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  because again, this is unique in the fact that you're kind of exploring
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  the edge of democracy or what is democracy,
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  you know, it's a 10-minute play.
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  Did you kind of have an idea of what you wanted to your play to be about when they
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  kind of approached you about this?
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  But did you have to kind of stay with it a while before it started to kind
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  of ~ come to fruition?
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  No, I think I thought about it for a really long time,
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  much more than ten minutes. And it f and and at first I thought,
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  do I really have something new to say?
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  Do I have something important to say?
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  Do I have something interesting to say?
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  And in the end I felt like what I had to say had something to
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  do with not necessarily democracy,
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  but the the search for truth and how we find ~ truth
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  ~ in the other and how we we we can fight each other,
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  but in the end
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  the conclusion is that we have to keep moving forward to protect
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  our children and protect our innocents.
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  So I mean I came to a s the st what I wrote about was really about a monarchy.
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  I wrote about bees. I wrote about bees and I wanted to write ~ this story 'cause
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  I I I remember the story. I don't know why,
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  because when as soon as I thought about democracy,
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  I thought about the story when my daughter who had just been born,
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  she was like, I don't know, two months old,
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  maybe may if that much. And ~
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  And I heard a buzzing in her room.
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  ~ the door was closed. And I thought,
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  what is that buzzing? I went into a room and her room was covered with bees
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  on the floor and the walls. It was terrifying.
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  It was like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
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  I was like, okay, I'm gonna grab my baby and I'm gonna run out this door
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  and close it. So I did that, and I could hear the sound of the bees on
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  my feet like crunching, and I had bare feet,
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  that's the other thing, walking over these bees.
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  And they were pretty
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  mild like they'd like they should dated or something.
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  I think they were close to death,
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  but and they hadn't bit her, but or stung her.
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  But I but I was afraid that they had already done that.
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  So I ran in, got her, pulled her out and ~ and put her in an another room,
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  put a a towel under the the crack to the the bedroom door and just thought,
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  what the hell do I do about this?
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  What is this? What is happening?
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  And it really felt like also because I was so sleep deprived from it.
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  Being a new mom, I think I was like I was
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  Yeah.
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  totally was like in a nightmare mode.
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  I was like
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  Why is this happening? Why is this in my house?
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  Why are these bees looking for a new home?
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  And so I s so I I started from sort of that idea of what happens when like
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  a ~ a mother goes crazy and thinks she's protecting her her child by sort
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  of killing bees. And what does it mean?
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  And and then I started thinking about what does it mean when the when
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  the when the queen dies in a in a in a beehive and bees have to find that's
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  why they are in my house, 'cause their queen was dying.
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  Said they had to find another house.
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  So I thought, is that what's happening?
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  Or is that why people keep talking about monarchy now?
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  I don't know. All these ideas sort of were swimming in my head.
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  I'm sure none of it is making sense as I'm telling you,
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  Brian, about it. But I I felt I felt excited to explore it because it
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  was weird and ~ not what I would expect to write.
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  I remember when ~ when we were first talking about what to do,
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  they were like, well, you can write a monologue.
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  And I thought, a monologue about democracy.
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  Really? Why would I want to do that?
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  I just kind of felt
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  Mm-hmm.
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  like like it wouldn't be dynamic or active,
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  not from not in my voice anyway.
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  And I wanted to do something that was about someone actively looking
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  for different forms of freedom and different form
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  Sure.
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  you know, when what happens when the hive has to find a new place to live
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  and ~ and and who who gets to go there and who gets who gets saved
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  and who gets destroyed.
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  So I wanted to do that in sort of a fairy tale way and I I mean I hope I did that,
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  but that's what I tried to do in the in the pi the piece anyway.
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  I'm gonna say I I love I love that idea.
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  Like the idea that well, first off,
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  that you're able to take something that could have been quite
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  a traumatizing experience, you know what I mean,
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  and really use it for something that you're exploring such a topic,
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  and who knew that there would have been parallels to bees.
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  But when you talk about it, there is a hundred percent a parallel between what's
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  going on now and what was going on with those bees and finding homes and what
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  is h what kind of what does home mean in that aspect.
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  And
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  goods to go. I love that idea of being able to explore that.
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  Yeah, really. I mean, I felt I felt good about it and I felt like it was,
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  you know, it was unique to me.
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  So I thought, okay, I won't I don't think anybody else gonna be writing about bees.
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  So I saw I'll be okay. I just could imagine like monologue after monologue about,
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  you know, all everything we've lost.
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  And I thought, that's gonna be a downer.
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  So I also wanted to make it funny.
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  And I just had this idea that the bees should all be from different Latin American
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  countries. So there's a Puerto Rican bee,
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  there's a
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  There's a Cuban bee and there's another bee that's half Mexican.
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  I think he says he's half Mexican.
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  So it's so like trying to find a connection to what's happening also
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  in Latin America and and all these other places.
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  And and what is this site this this new phrase,
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  I don't know if it's that new,
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  but it's been used a lot lately about what is the hive mind?
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  And are these people sort of following other people blindly
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  or or collecting information and then ~
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  And then that's what you're supposed to believe because this group
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  of people all converge on you and tell you this is the truth and
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  you haven't really figured it out for yourself what the truth is for
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  you and your family and your people.
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  So yeah, so I th so I don't know,
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  I was excited about it. I hope other people are too.
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  But anyway, I've done it and ~ and I'm so happy that it's in this group
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  of these incredible women. ~ I'm really looking forward to hearing
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  all of them actually.
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  You had mentioned that about this being ~ having a lot of humor,
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  being very humorous. Why why to you you feel like humor is so important
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  for maybe the message that you're also trying to deliver here?
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  'Cause I think plays when people say I'm writing a political play,
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  it's I I immediately go to sleep.
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  I'm like, What? Because
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  Ha ha.
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  p I mean most plays like I s as I said,
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  I think my plays are inherently political 'cause of who I am and what
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  how I write and I write, you know,
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  openly and clearly about sexuality and being bisexual and and talking about
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  ~ you know, being Puerto Rican and what does all that mean and ~
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  But then when somebody says write a political play,
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  my mean mind immediately goes to some kind of strange speechifying or
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  or talking to people who only agree with you.
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  And I feel like comedy is a good way to get people who don't agree with
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  you to listen. Because if you can make somebody laugh,
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  if you can make somebody smile,
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  if you can make somebody think differently about who you are or where you're from,
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  it's more effective, I think, than telling them this is who I am and this
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  is what you should believe and and all this is,
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  you know, is
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  messed up and we should do it this way.
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  I think those things become so didactic and and
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  ~ boring to me. So I I felt like the thing to do was and to make
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  it to make what would make it important for me,
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  I think, ~ would be to try to reach as many people as possible with something that
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  was so so kind of funny and absurd and yet so real for our times that
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  then maybe people couldn't just turn away from it and ignore it.
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  So so that's what I thought.
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  You know, I love that you said that because I do think sometimes political plays
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  can feel I don't want to s like for lack of a better word,
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  like they could be like very like ~ preachy or like very ~ informative,
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  you know what I mean? Like you're kind of standing there and you're listening
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  Right. Exactly.
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  to like a lecture almost. And that sounds like
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  you w really, really wanted to kind of like go around that.
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  You didn't want to tell like a lecture to people.
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  You wanted to share something that people are hopefully gonna take something
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  out of collectively and more expansively.
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  Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what I was thinking.
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  'Cause I really d you know, I just thought we don't need another lecture play.
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  There have been enough of those,
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  I think. And also they just don't they're not effective,
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  I don't I don't believe. 'Cause it's always the same people who go to those.
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  So it's like, well, yeah, I mean I agree with you and wh everything you're saying
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  is is is believable, but maybe it's not so fun.
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  Or maybe it's not so interesting,
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  or maybe it's not so inclusive.
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  So how do we how do we make it more interesting?
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  How do you know, and I really I mean,
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  I just and I did have running in my mind the the the killer bees sketches from from
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  SNL from many years ago. That's pr proving my age.
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  that John Belushi used to be the head killer bee from Mexico.
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  So anyway, I just I I mean, I always loved thou thou skits and I thought,
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  well, there's a reason why we love them because it wasn't j they weren't just
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  talking about
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  an insect problem, they they hum humanized it.
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  So I thought that's it's an interesting it's an interesting premise
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  to think about how ~ you know,
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  you can use ~ other species to talk about making us better.
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  And what I love about that too,
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  it kind of proves that like universally a lot of things are more connected than
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  maybe we even think about, you know?
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  Absolutely. I agree. I agree a hundred percent.
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  Yeah. And I think we don't we don't make those connections ~ right away
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  and and we don't like making them somebody says,
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  you know, you need to make that connection,
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  like your mother nagging at you to tell you to do stuff.
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  I just had this argument with my daughter the other day about it.
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  She says I'm always nagging her.
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  I was like, You're right, I am.
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  But it seems it almost sometimes it seems like that's what a mother's supposed
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  to do and I thought, you know,
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  you don't have to do that. You can you can let her make her find her own
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  way and ~ and that's the better way for her now.
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  figure out what she needs to do.
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  So so I'm I'm taking a step back.
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  where the true as
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  What?
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  I say, that's where like the true growth happens,
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  you know, when you're taking it in in a different way other than just like most
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  people when you're going to a lecture and stuff or your parents lecturing you're
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  Mm.
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  just you know
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  it's in in one year, not the other.
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  You know what I mean? Like, yeah,
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  Yeah. Mm-hmm.
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  we've heard it before.
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  And also you just don't want to hear it anymore.
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  It just it just becomes tiresome rather than informative.
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  ~
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  Exactly.
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  you know, or transformative either.
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  So so yes, I was looking to do something that maybe was transformative
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  and different and I don't know,
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  fun for me to. I just thought,
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  my god, write about democracy.
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  What the hell am I gonna write about democracy?
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  Does it exist? Does it exist?
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  Has it ever existed? How does it exist in this world?
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  So there's just a lot of
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  questions I had about it.
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  It's such a big question right now,
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  I feel in the world. There's like so much to kind of have to pull apart.
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  Like, what is democracy? You could you could write twenty plays,
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  you know, fifty plays about what that is and maybe still not ever feel like
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  you actually have an answer or conclusion to that.
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  Right, and not know if you've actually ever experienced it.
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  Even though we live in the United States of America,
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  it's like have we all been equal?
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  Have we all been treated equally?
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  What you know, what is and does it does being e treated equally equate to democracy?
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  Is democracy just another form of government that kind of keeps
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  us tame or something? Should we all be anarchists?
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  No, I don't really believe that.
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  But I do feel like sometimes there is the the the world needs a little anarchy.
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  The world needs a little chaos,
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  a little ~ force in it or a like drive to make change.
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  It's like I don't know. We can we can all be nice,
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  nice, gentle democrats, but it's not gonna change anything unless we have a strong,
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  strong ~ strong ideas about what make things better and how to be more inclusive
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  of everyone around us.
• 14:37
  Sure, absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  Was there anything about this whole process with Women on the Edge
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  of Democracy that either like challenged or surprised you as you were writing this
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  project?
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  I had to the rewrites I did, I had to take the speeches out of it.
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  'Cause I c I could fi I found myself falling into a speech pattern,
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  like, you know, and making statements the way I if I as if I was trying to be,
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  I don't know. Some some pundit that was gonna tell you all about what
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  you should do about democracy.
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  I thought, that's not my voice.
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  Who who the hell do I think I am?
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  But it also felt it just felt un it just felt n unreal to me,
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  un
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  natural to me to write write in that kind of ~ dictatorial voice,
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  like you should do this and this is what it is and this is what makes it better.
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  And my character in it is kind of crazy.
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  So she she she did have a tendency to talk a lot,
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  but I felt like I needed to make it more c come out of something a little less more
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  absurd rather than something so directly political.
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  So that's the kind of rewriting I did was finding a way to make her speech natural.
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  and make this moment natural f for her and to her.
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  Rather than say, I'm gonna write a play about democracy and this is what it's gonna
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  be and there's gonna be a lot of bees in it and everybody's gonna laugh.
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  Like, you know, you can't ever say that but you have to find the comedy within
• 15:58
  it through the reality of it, I think.
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  So I hope I found that, but that's what I was searching for.
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  And I would I'm not I'm not a writer like a like a playwright,
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  you know. I obviously do write reviews and stuff,
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  but I would assume that comedy can sometimes almost be harder to find than maybe
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  like just writing like a drama or something like that.
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  You know what I mean? Because you have to be able to find those beats that's like
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  you said, that are kinda naturally there,
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  like how does it flow to make sure the message is getting across,
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  but also that you're getting the the humor across as well.
• 16:28
  Yeah, no, absolutely. I really felt lot that that I
• 16:34
  had to find I had to give them time,
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  even though it was only ten minutes long,
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  which was the other challenge,
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  to write, you know, a complicated play in ten minutes,
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  was find a way to make it seem ~ inorga organic,
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  like the all of the all the comedy to be organic.
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  And that I wasn't just writing stereotypes of Latin American bees.
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  It wasn't a skit. It shouldn't feel like a skit,
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  but it but that it was something deeper and that they were looking actually really
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  looking for freedom, the bees.
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  So ~ so how do you write that?
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  You know, so you know, so that was the challenge was to to keep it real
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  yet up somehow funny,
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  somehow interesting or somehow ~ unique.
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  So so I hope I did that.
• 17:20
  I mean, I'm sure you did. I mean
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  Yeah.
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  th your work is is incredible already.
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  So to be able to be a part of a project like this and get to include your voice
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  thank you. ~
• 17:27
  to that
• 17:28
  is just like another incredible piece to an already great career.
• 17:31
  ~ but before I let you go, I'm just kind of wondering,
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  you know, as you're looking at this project,
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  as you're looking at what's happening with ~ women on the edge of democracy,
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  what kind of conversations do you hope audiences are going to have on
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  the other side of this? You know,
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  there's a lot of different perspectives,
• 17:46
  there's a lot of different people.
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  What are you kind of hoping is the conversation after after it all kind of wraps up?
• 17:52
  I hope there is a conversation.
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  I hope it's not something that just happens and everybody forgets about
• 17:57
  it as soon as they leave and, you know,
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  go have dinner. And that's it.
• 18:01
  I hope they remember to vote. I hope they remember to vote for the right reasons.
• 18:06
  I hope they b right they believe in the people they're voting for.
• 18:09
  I hope we can have a like a decent and human dialogue with each other
• 18:13
  if we disagree. And I hope like nobody else has to be shot at or die
• 18:19
  in order to make their
• 18:21
  make their voices heard. And ~ it's it's difficult to see so much
• 18:27
  ~ so much violence connected with our politics.
• 18:30
  ~ and that's this has been forever,
• 18:33
  right? This is nothing new. But but I would like one day for there to
• 18:37
  be just like some humanity also ~ reinjected into
• 18:42
  our political discourse. That would be fun.
• 18:46
  That would make me smile.
• 18:47
  A lot more compassion is needed.
• 18:49
  Yes. That would be nice. That would be healthy,
• 18:53
  I think, for all of us. Yeah.
• 18:55
  I think for sure. I think
• 18:56
  that there it's politics, granted,
• 18:59
  you know, I was pretty young when it all started to get kind of bad.
• 19:03
  That feels like it's always been a little bit bad,
• 19:04
  you know what I mean? but like it feels like there has been a lack of just
• 19:09
  I don't know. I guess compassion is the word that kept comes to mind when we're
• 19:12
  having these conversations, or like you said,
• 19:14
  are we even having these conversations at all?
• 19:16
  And there's so many different ~ individuals of different backgrounds
• 19:21
  and different minorities and different groups that need to have a voice and that
• 19:24
  It's good to have a platform like this that we can at least hopefully start
• 19:28
  to have or continue to have a conversation if we're already having a conversation,
• 19:32
  but start to have more conversations as we go through it.
• 19:35
  Right, and and inject some something factual into it and some history.
• 19:39
  Some real
• 19:40
  Yes.
• 19:40
  history. That would be that would be a good for a change.
• 19:43
  That's what I would like to see.
• 19:46
  Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 19:48
  It's been so incredible talking with you and learning more about your project,
• 19:50
  but also the project at large.
• 19:52
  So thank you so much for being here.
• 19:53
  Thank you for having me. This is wonderful.
• 19:55
  Women on the Edge of Democracy begins October twenty third and runs through November
• 19:58
  third. So to get more information about this production,
• 20:00
  how it was how it's come together,
• 20:02
  and also how you can participate,
• 20:03
  check out the website. Thank you so much for being here.
• 20:06
  Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Nice meeting you.