With the release of House of Sueños’s final instalment, playwright Meme García brings a beautifully cathartic and blissful end to a story that keeps on going long after the last word spoken has faded from our minds. While the story and conflict among the two sisters Amelia and Rina, their mother, father, and stepfather may be resolved, the memories they share of their past and present are maintained and held onto with a strength that does not permit them to end. It is the love this family shares for each other and the strength to reach out to one another that urges them to pull themselves back together when each character nears their breaking point.
As the show progresses and nears its end, the pain, confusion, and hurt felt by each character grows more and more apparent. Accusations are thrown and backs turn as the ongoing cycle of silence and repression continues to build pressure until the family threatens to fall apart. It is at this pivotal moment that García shares the healing message of remembrance and acknowledgement for both the past and the pain it carries. Since the death of Papi, the family’s trauma has been held staunchly by a clenched fist of a heart that will not yield. When an arm reaches out and finds another arm held out to meet it, the walls melt, the hand opens its palm and the suffering is finally released, allowing it to be heard and understood for the first time. Through García’s heartrending portrayal, we see how this process of confrontation, realization, and remembrance enables the family to quit pushing each other away in order to hide their pain and embrace each other instead.
Through this act of acceptance and recognition of the past, the memory of what their family has gone through is given life and a path forward. Even while Amelia and Rina’s father has not disappeared from the attic, the hate and rage that stirred inside his spirit have. Because of this, the story does not end when the credits roll. Unlike Hamlet, the play from which this drama draws inspiration, the family in this story does not give in to their hardheartedness, and instead, lets their story move on. While at the end of Hamlet everyone in his family is dead and none of their conflict is resolved in a meaningful way, the characters in House of Sueños staunchly refuse to let that happen and hold onto themselves and their memories as tight as they can. Those memories allow the characters and their story to live outside the parameters of this audio drama in the minds of Rina, Amelia, their mother, and even their new stepfather.
In regard to the show’s production, House of Sueños expresses itself amazingly through the surrealistic experiences of ghosts, visions, and spiritual journeys, showing through words and our own imaginations how the endurance of this trauma and the act of overcoming it must feel. In their work, García marries stunningly elements of psychological horror, mental health, mystery, and even Shakespeare with aspects of their own personal life. Along with the help of the rest of the audio drama’s production team and cast, together they have created a fantastic show that provides space for ideas that need to be heard and that is a wonder to experience for any listener no matter what language or languages they speak.
Whether you are Latino yourself, come from an immigrant family, or are neither of the two, this audio drama is a wonderful and moving expression of family, generational pain, mental health, and sisterly love that I recommend everyone experience, especially in this theater starved moment we are all currently living in and pushing our way through.
House of Sueños, by Meme García. Produced by the Seattle Shakespeare Company. This audio drama is available through SSC’s podcast Rough Magic, which can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All episodes will be available for listening through March 17th. Info: https://www.seattleshakespeare.org/rough-magic/