The Hungry Woman

In a psychiatric ward, a prison guard in a ski mask stands with her hands behind her back. Keys hang from her belt. Around her, a vase of flowers wilts, a hospital bed is unmade, and a game of dominos has been set up. Medea is a patient in the ward. She stares into a one-way mirror, through which the patients are observed. Her hair is disheveled, and her shadowed eyes reveal her lack of sleep. Medea can sense that she is being watched. The prison guard speaks to the audience, announcing that this is a prison psychiatric hospital in “the near future of a fictional past, dreamed only in the Chicana imagination” (10). The hospital is located on the border between the United States of America and Aztlán, a separate nation for Latino, Hispanic, and Indigenous people. As the prison guard hands a wilting flower to Medea, a nurse enters with food on a tray. Medea asks how long she has been in the institution. Many months, the nurse replies, though not yet years. Medea does not like the food wrapped in plastic, brought to her on a plastic tray. She wishes that she could fly away. The food today is an oatmeal which resembles gray mush. Medea remembers an old jingle about oatmeal sticking to the ribs. The nurse exits to attend to other patients.

Medea prods at her oatmeal, lamenting that there is no one to talk with. Abandoning the breakfast, she returns to the mirror. Medea says that she lives “inside the prison of [her] teeth” (11). She remembers what Luna, her girlfriend, once said about her teeth. Medea wishes that she were with Luna still. The play switches to a split scene, set in Luna’s bedroom in Arizona. The urban sounds are starkly different from those of the hospital where Medea is trapped. Luna sits up in bed, as though roused from a dream. A woman beside her, under the covers, stirs. Luna rises for the day. In the psychiatric ward, the nurse returns to collect the breakfast tray. Medea asks her to cover the mirrors. She does not want her son to see her in this condition. She wants to prepare for the resurrection of her son and threatens to sleep until he returns to her. As Medea presses up against the mirror, the nurse perfunctorily wipes it clean. Medea laments the tiny ghosts that live inside her, and she recalls her time with Luna. The nurse urges Medea to save these words for Luna, who visits every Saturday. Since today is Friday, Luna is due the next day. Medea reiterates how much she misses Luna, though the nurse mentions that Medea rarely talks when Luna visits.

The nurse and the guard play dominoes. Medea, still at the mirror, examines her face. She feels as though her features are falling. Luna describes how Medea always “hide[s] from the light” (12). Medea talks about using cucumber peels as an anti-aging treatment. When she lay in bed with cucumber slices on her eyes, Medea remembers, she would overhear her son Chac-Mool talking to the stonemason outside. The stonemason was a migrant woman, hired by Medea’s husband, Jasón, to install a garden patio. Luna and Chac-Mool appear on the stage, a part of Medea’s memories. They discuss what to plant in the garden, whether to plant corn to feed people or medicine to heal people. On her side of the stage, Luna kisses the person in bed with her. She is “tired of mourning Medea” (14), she says, and she dreams of other women who may come to this place.

The guard and the nurse move Medea’s bed into a government-funded urban apartment. After scattering garbage on the floor, the guard informs the audience that this is a year earlier in Phoenix, Arizona. She names this place “the land of the exiled” and, before leaving, hands Medea a letter (14). Luna collects the trash from the floor as Medea paces, the letter and a bottle of tequila in her hands. Medea complains about the dense legal language of the letter. Cihuatateo South enters, dressed as Jasón in military blue. Medea reads the letter aloud, in which Jasón describes the Medea of “before the war” (15), before she was changed by politics. Jasón was Medea’s husband, but he now wishes to marry this young woman whom he has met. The legal jargon of the letter is asking Medea for a divorce so he can marry this young woman, who reminds him so much of a younger Medea. Medea and Luna talk about the prospective bride-to-be and whether she is still a virgin. She is not, Medea says, as Jasón told her so in his letter. Medea tosses the letter onto the ground. Luna puts it in the trash as Jasón departs the stage.

Medea criticizes men who do not believe that women can be patriotic. Medea claims to have bled for her land as much as any man. Aztlán betrayed her, she claims, and she has no motherland. Luna interrogates Medea as to why she never got a divorce from Jasón. Medea does not believe in the “piece of paper” (16), but Luna notes that the piece of paper could result in Chac-Mool being taken away from her. Medea may not be a custody case, Luna says, but their son Chac-Mool is one. Luna encourages the angry Medea to prepare for work. Medea continues to criticize Jasón and his new Indigenous partner. Jasón has not asked for custody of Chac-Mool, Medea says. Luna believes that the near-13-year-old has a right to decide his future for himself, but Medea does not agree. Luna believes that she loves Chac-Mool more than Jasón ever did. The elderly Mama Sal enters, and Luna takes a heavy satchel from her before exiting. As Medea collapses into the bed, Mama Sal warns Medea that she is in danger of pushing Luna away from her. Medea is concerned about dragging Luna into his chaotic, complicated situation. Mama Sal, a fellow midwife, urges Medea to go back to work. Medea does not trust herself to work with children in her current state, though Mama Sal blames this on the tequila. She hands Medea small sacks of yerbas and encourages her to sleep.

Chac-Mool sits beneath a glaring spotlight, seemingly in an interrogation room. The prison guard, now dressed in a worker’s apron, is known here as the Tattoo Artist. The Tattoo Artist blindfolds Chac-Mool with a black bandana and then begins to tattoo his bare shoulder. Chac-Mool explains that he wants his eyes covered so that he can see the “swirls of purple and forest green” (19). He praises the sunset and the moon, though the Tattoo Artist admits that he can only see a sliver of the moon. Chac-Mool talks floridly about the moon, which he claims to love. He wakes up at night to wish for “full-grown innocence” and he remembers his mother singing lullabies to him about the moon. Back then, much seemed possible, but now his dreams are as heavy as his heart. He rejects the Tattoo Artist’s pity, however. He urges the Tattoo Artist to pity his mother instead, as she has lost her connection to the moon.

As the Tattoo Artist presses harder into Chac-Mool’s skin, Chac-Mool talks about prayer. He was never taught how to pray, so he relies on memory. Nothing is written down anymore, he says, but he heard about the Aztlán tradition of piercing skin as a form of prayer. The Tattoo Artist scorns the idea that tattoos or Chac-Mool’s skin piercings should be considered prayers. The Tattoo Artist pulls off the blindfold as the nurse appears upstage, spinning a bingo machine. The nurse calls out a number, and Mama Sal shouts “[B]ingo!” The Tattoo Artist rolls Chac-Mool over to Mama Sal and the bingo game. Savannah and Cihuatateo South are also playing. As the nurse calls numbers, Mama Sal speaks about history. She recalls how communism spread over the world before she was born and took hold in places like Cuba, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. All these countries dissolved at the end of the Cold War, she says, except for Cuba. In the aftermath of this dissolution, politics “changed completely.” Mama Sal talks about oppression, prejudice, and pesticides that were poured down on poor Latino communities. This poison resulted in babies being born with deformities. The job market was destroyed by international free-market capitalists.

Small groups began to revolt across the Americas. Groups such as the Zapatistas and the Mayas in Chiapas rose up. In the ensuing chaos, “pan-indigenismo tore America apart and Aztlán was born” from the bits and pieces (23). The diaspora of Indian mestizos in the Southwest united, as did the various Indigenous groups in the Americas. Individual states were created for African Americans, Indigenous people, and Latino and Hispanic peoples. Shortly after the revolutions, however, the male leaders of these new nations reverted to the same patriarchal oppression they had fought against. They oppressed “queers of every color and shade and definition” (24), so the oppressed peoples were turned into nomads who made a home for themselves in the desert. This home is in Phoenix, Arizona, though it is also named Tamoachán after old Aztec myths. Now, Chac-Mool says, they are building casinos in Aztlán. Mama Sal and Savannah suggest that the Chicanos are copying the Indigenous people of the US in their attempts to make money. They have forgotten their Indigenous traditions. They turn back to their game of bingo.

Chac-Mool and Luna work together in a small urban garden beside their building. Luna teaches Chac-Mool about traditional farming practices and rituals. Medea enters, warning that those who are initiated into these practices must then “leave for good” (26). Luna is teaching these practices to Chac-Mool against his mother’s wishes, though he asked Luna to do so. Medea insists that this is “not a game” and defends herself as the only true warrior present (27). Her body is covered in scars, which she presents as evidence. Luna concedes defeat but suggests that her own scars are not visible. Luna exits. Chac-Mool reveals his plan to return to Aztlán to bring about change, citing historical examples taught to him by Mama Sal. He hints that his father is a traitor to the original revolution, though Medea does not seem to believe that he can convince people of this. Medea changes the subject. Once he has learned the traditions, he will be sent away for “four years of Sundance” (28), during which time he will not be able to see his family. Chac-Mool concedes that he has not thought about this. Medea refers to Jasón’s letter, in which he says that he will marry an Apache woman. Jasón is thinking of this new woman, Medea says, rather than his son. Medea warns that should Jasón come to claim his son, Chac-Mool must know what he wants to do. While Jasón has a right to claim his son, Chac-Mool must consent to go with his father. He will only have one chance to make this choice. Medea assures him that he does not need to decide yet. She asks about his new tattoo, which depicts his religious namesake, a Toltec messenger who carries sacrificed hearts to the gods in a bowl on his belly. Chac-Mool was also a warrior, Medea accepts, but a fallen warrior. She insists that even this name was “better than [her son’s] other name” (29). Mama Sal enters, chiding Luna’s plan to grow blue maize. So long as Chac-Mool can grow corn and light a fire, Luna says, he will never go hungry. Music from a small radio interrupts them, and then the prison guard appears. The guard calls out “the Hungry Woman” (30), then escorts Medea back to the hospital.