Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman 2003

Computer controlled video sets for play.

Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman
Written by Sabina Berman, Directed by Alma Martinez.
Digital Video Sets by Elliot Anderson

Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman is a contemporary drama by the Mexican playwright Sabina Berman. Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman confronts the political, social and private conflicts that affect the lives of individuals in contemporary Mexican society. The play reflects on the myth of Pancho Villa in contemporary Mexico, the presence of that myth and what occurs when a public fantasy is implanted in a private fantasy.

The video sets are comprised of three large-scale projections that delineate spaces on stage. The video images are both stored on and controlled by computer. The drama takes place between contemporary Mexico City and the turn of the century world of the Mexican Revolution. As the play progresses the images shift reflecting time and space of a scene. The video acts not only as a backdrop but symbolically. At times the image may be a landscape or building, but often it is a symbolic reference to the content of the scene being performed. The images echo actions in and create a dialog with the scene being performed.
For example the rose recurs as a symbol of love in the text of the play. It appears as gunshots as Pancho Villa is wounded by the rebuff of the female lead character. The main characters engage in a violent lover’s clash as roses fall as rain on the screens. The mythic character of Pancho Villa appears physically on stage in some scenes and as a ghost on the video screens. An actor appears on stage in a contemporary moment while on the video he or she appears as character from the past. In the final scene Pancho Villa appears on the screen firing a salvo from a cannon that ends the drama.

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