Mariela In the Desert

Mariela and José were once the golden couple of the Mexican artists’ inner circle. Together they built a family and an artist colony to host friends Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Rufino Tamayo. But now their daughter has grown and run away, their friends are too famous to call, and artistic inspiration has been strangled by isolation and lies. Set in the northern Mexican desert in 1950, Mariela in the Desert is a deadly mystery — a layered yet profoundly honest story of what happens to a family when creativity is forced to dry and wither away.

Karen Zacarías' award-winning plays include The Book Club Play, Legacy of Light, Mariela in the Desert, The Sins of Sor Juana, an adaptation of Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and the adaptation of Helen Thorpe's nonfiction book Just Like Us. Her TYA musicals with composer Deborah Wicks La Puma include Chasing George Washington: A White House Adventure, Einstein Is a Dummy, Looking for Roberto Clemente, Jane of the Jungle, Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans, Ferdinand the Bull and Frida Libre. Her plays have been produced at the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Goodman Theatre, Round House Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Alliance Theatre, Imagination Stage, GALA Hispanic Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, South Coast Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, Cleveland Play House, San Jose Repertory Theatre and more. Her awards include 2010 Steinberg/ACTA New Play Citation, National Francesca Primus Prize, the Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices Award, National Latino Playwriting Award and a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play. Additionally, Zacarías was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is currently a playwright-in-residence at Arena Stage and teaches at Georgetown University. Zacarías is the founder of Young Playwrights' Theater, an award-winning theatre company that teaches playwriting in local public schools.

The shadows of contentious artist-spouses Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera loom over "Mariela in the Desert," which is set in 1950 Mexico at the house of Mariela and Jose. He's an artist of fading reputation and on his deathbed. She had a huge talent but, it seems, set it aside to raise two children and bolster his career. They once moved in elite circles with Frida and Diego, but no longer. Her anger about her sacrifice is at odds constantly with her love for her family.

Zacarias says she wrote the play to examine "what happens to a family when parents' creative impulses or creative lives are shut away and what damage that can do. I think children who have unhappy mothers are very unfortunate children."