Lenny Mendez as Paola. Photo by William T. Gallagher Photography.
The show opens in pitch-black silence. A voice counts: “One. Two. Three.” The lights flash on. Two women stand still. Then darkness again. “Four. Five.” The women return, same figures, new positions. From the very first seconds, this production, written by Marisela Treviño Orta and directed by Elena Velasco, signals that time and space are fluid, that identity is not fixed, and that death is not the end but an ever-hovering presence.
Visually striking and emotionally charged…challenges audiences to confront the borders within themselves…invites us to listen more closely, to act more courageously…
Visually striking and emotionally charged, the show blends political drama, spiritual reckoning, and ghost story. A gauze screen cleverly separates the physical world from the spectral one, with figures moving in eerie silhouettes just behind the veil. Whenever the ghost of Paola (Lenny Mendez) appears, there’s a sharp flicker of light and a jarring sound cue—less jump scare and more spiritual twitch, like the room itself is reacting to the presence of unresolved grief.
Set at the U.S.-Mexico border, “Woman on Fire” follows Juanita (Odette Gutiérrez del Arroyo), a white-passing woman struggling to hold her marriage together while navigating tensions between her politically aware, identity-conscious sister Araceli (Nadia Palacios) and her conservative husband, Jared (Evan Crump), who patrols the border. Juanita soon begins to see the ghost of Paola—a migrant girl who died in the desert without a proper burial.
Gutiérrez del Arroyo delivers a poignant and quietly riveting performance as Juanita, capturing the interior unraveling of a woman split between duty, desire, and dawning awareness. Her arc is mirrored by Mendez’s hauntingly expressive Paola, whose ghost is rendered with equal parts vulnerability and otherworldly force. The two women’s stories begin to converge—through dialogue, ritual, and memory—until they become something like echoes of each other. Juanita realizes she has “one foot on each side of the border,” and the show invites us to consider how national borders fracture people just as much as they divide land.
The lighting design by Lorenzo Miguel is exceptional. Shadows stretch and contract across the stage, creating a constant visual tension between the seen and unseen. Still images on screen, crafted by projection designer Julian Kelley, appear at times to quiver or breathe, evoking the haunting movement of Edvard Munch’s The Scream and underscoring the idea that memory, like trauma, is never fully still.
A standout moment comes when Juanita reflects on how her family has lived on this land for generations, long before borders were drawn: “If that line had been drawn five miles north, where would I be?” The question reverberates, not just for her, but for all those whose identities straddle invisible, bureaucratic lines.
Palacios gives a commanding and razor-sharp performance as Araceli, a culture and identity professor who becomes the play’s moral anchor. “Skin color is political,” she declares—cutting through any illusion that the story exists outside of power dynamics. Her rejection of traditional gender roles and invocation of “laws better than man’s” gestures toward a larger spiritual order, one that transcends nationalism, binaries, and death itself.
Marigolds, known for their role in Día de los Muertos altars, become a powerful symbol throughout the piece—bright, fragrant, and insistent in their call to the dead. Scenic designer Margie Jervis and costume designer Nyasha Klusmann infuse the stage with folkloric hues and cultural resonance. The idea that remembrance is a form of resistance simmers just beneath the surface.
Crump’s performance as Jared is restrained yet simmering, embodying a man torn between grief, rigidity, and latent guilt. Consumed by the death of his brother but disturbingly indifferent to the unnamed migrants dying daily at the border, Jared becomes a symbol of selective mourning in American life. Even though the ending hints at a change in perspective, it feels abrupt—perhaps more performative than true emotional transformation.
Ultimately, “Woman on Fire” challenges audiences to confront the borders within themselves—between the visible and invisible, privilege and pain, the remembered and the forgotten. Like Queen Esther in her palace, we are reminded that proximity to power is no shield from the moral demands of justice. To be on the “safer” side of the border does not absolve us of responsibility. It invites us to listen more closely, to act more courageously, and to never mistake comfort for innocence.
The show doesn’t preach—it gently insists. We are all, in some way, caught between worlds. If we’re lucky, we’ll learn to cross those borders with humility, memory, and care.
“Woman on Fire” runs through May 11, 2025 at Creative Cauldron, 127 E. Broad Street, Falls Church, VA 22046. For more information and to purchase tickets, please go online.
