As the woman cleans the floor, the counter, she makes a discovery: “Instead of a housewife, she was a slave.”
Those song lyrics (translated into English by Elena Estér) open “Doméstica Realidad,” now in a U.S. premiere atBrava Theater. The rest of the script — which Natalia Burgueño, Etelvina Rodríguez, Camila Sanson, Florencia Dansilio and Sofía Espinosa wrote based in part on interviews with domestic workers and their employers — is just as bold, exploring our fraught modern expectations about women and historically unpaid domestic labor.
Act I chronicles professional women of privilege. “That’s the problem with the capitalist system: It forces you to be a self-exploiting exploiter,” one says. Act II turns its gaze to domestic workers. Act III brings this terrifying phrase: “Your home is your country, and you are its Madam President.”
Virginia Blanco directs the show for La Lengua Teatro en Español, which specializes in Spanish performances with English supertitles.