Click any thumbnail for a full-size image of Marissa Chibas as the plañidera. Photos: Richard Feldman.

A plañidera (a hired mourner or keener) is meticulously scrubbing down a room while she remembers her life in Colombia and prepares for the unthinkable. She recalls growing up as an orphan in a small town, marrying the local doctor when she was seventeen years old, and leaving the town when her husband died and the villagers turned against her. As she continues cleaning, she remembers setting out on foot with her two sons and meeting Señora Eduviges Caldera, a plañidera who takes them to the village of Aguacatal. A small town in northern Colombia far away from any of the highways, Aguacatal becomes her new home. She watches her sons grow up there. She also sees her beloved village change, as smugglers and guerrillas start passing through and demanding supplies. Eventually, she moves back to her old town and opens a funeral home. One day, her oldest son warns his mother to stay away from Aguacatal for a while. Sensing disaster, the plañidera tries to get to Aguacatal to warn her friends there, but arrives too late. As she prepares for the most difficult mourning of her life, the plañidera makes a decision about how to confront the violence that has destroyed her family and country.

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  ARTicles & Program Notes
  • Welcome - from artistic director Robert Woodruff
  • The Crying of the Plañidera - Ryan McKittrick traces the development of The Keening
  • A Monster with One Thousand Heads - A Colombian Timeline - by Rachael Rayment
  • The Colombian War in the Theatre - Humberto Dorado's The Keening - by Guillermo González Uribe
  • A Note From the Playwright - by Humberto Dorado
  • Songs from The Keening - with translations
  • ARTicles Vol. 4 No. 1 as PDF (requires free reader from Adobe.com)
  • Keening Program as PDF (requires free reader from Adobe.com)
• A.R.T. Connections - One-on-One with Marisa Chibas
• Variety Magazine - review by Frank Rizzo
• Boston Globe - Mournful Keening cries out for justice in Colombia - by Maureen Dezell
• Boston Phoenix - Town crier: ART presents The Keening - by Iris Fanger
• Boston Phoenix - review by Carolyn Clay
• Patriot-Ledger - A.R.T. to offer English premiere of Keening - by Constance Gorfinkle