Asalto al Agua Transparente

Asalto al agua transparente [Assault on Clear Water] is a play that tells the history of water in Mexico City. In parallel, the story of Janet Meléndez “the one who arrives” and Ixca Cienfuegos “the one who has always been there” is narrated. Upon settling in Mexico City, Janet knows she has to look for something else than what is at hand where she lives, but she finds herself in a desert of garbage, a desert of asphalt, a desert of multitudes… There where she thought she would find the lakes lies the eroded earth, the gray and desolate sky. In her search she meets Ixca and that is how the story begins. Together they compile past and present events that tell us about the history of water in this metropolitan area, the most populous in the world and which is also the
capital of the Mexican Republic.
This show is a search towards documenting reality within fiction, not ex- pressing it, not interpreting it… Only to present it, and from there, ask ourselves again and again: what happened to the water in the Basin of Mexico? For us the drying up of the lakes is one of those events in which the sum of all its parts is not equal to the whole. Our question was: how did we get to this? A city that does not capture rainwater and that invests huge amounts of money to pump water from other states.”
Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol, 2006

The text (the play) alternates the story of the relationship between Janet and Ixca with a series of hard data and statistics on the actions that led to the desiccation of the lakes in Mexico City. From the arrival of the Aztecs to the isle where the legend tells they saw the eagle de- vouring a serpent on top of a cactus, to the desiccation of one of the Chapultepec lakes in 2006. We asked ourselves: how to expose, through theater, our concern about a real problem?
Asalto al agua transparente is still a formal inquiry, in which we try to do away with representation. Things that happen do happen, there is no trick; instead, there is a desire to make everything that happens on stage real and concrete, so that this feeling makes the viewer remember that the story we are telling her 1 did happen.
It is a play in which we avoided fable, in which our subject is our fable. From there we set out to communicate with the viewer under the assumption that there is a common subject, that we all live or know Mexico City and that no one has ever seen it surrounded by lakes.
It was the first play of the company in which we worked directly upon a real issue and in which the character’s tale paved way for statistics and a deeper investigation. It was the first project in which we spent a considerable amount of time in the library. Reading history books, looking for images,
watching documentaries.
The space consisted of huacales (boxes in which fruit is stowed) and a series of objects that hung from the ceiling: piñatas, a soccer ball, toys, a Mexican flag and so on. There were also three bags filled with water, like the ones used in popular restaurants to scare off flies. These bags were punctured simulating a very light rain. The music in the play was very important and consisted of a series of recordings found in a collection from the INAH that rescued traditional Mexican music. We used a recording of a traditional tune from the Colonial era and a song by a Mixe brass band. Towards the end we used Lila Down’s version of “Paloma negra” and “Ya lo pasado, pasado” by José José.

Texto, Dirección y Actuación Text, direction and performance: Luisa Pardo y Gabino Rodríguez • Asistente Assistant: Maria- na Villegas • Iluminación Lighting: Juliana Faesler • Producción Production: Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol y La Máquina de Teatro • ImagenImage:JuanLeducyEduardoI.Vázquez•Pintura escénica Backdrop painting: Ximena Ayala • Productor primera temporada First run producer: Pablo Enciso.

Asalto al agua Transparente premiered in April 2006 and had runs in various venues along with national and international festivals for over fifteen years. It was part of the 2006 Muestra Nacional de Teatro and of the collective’s first international tour when it was invited to the 2010 Festival TransAmériques in Montreal. It won the Audience Award at the 2011 Impatience Festival in Paris. On the occasion of the publication of the book A Shared Truth by Julie Ann Ward, we set the play again in 2019 to be performed in Oklahoma and in Paris in 2020.