La Ruta Remembers the Murdered and Missing Women of Ciudad Juárez
La Ruta refuses to serve up false hope. It simply asks that you listen to the stories of the victims and the loved ones left behind.
Updated November 12 at 4:13 PM
There is a moment in Artist Repertory Theatre’s production of Isaac Gomez’s La Ruta when a sea of pink crosses shines in the dark. They illuminate the space around them like lamps, then are swallowed in shadows, making it seem as if they were never there.
The crosses represent the many women who have vanished or have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican industrial city less than 8 miles south of El Paso, Texas. Though the exact number is unknown, estimates are that hundreds to more than a thousand have been lost. Acts of mass violence against women in Juárez have risen dramatically since the 1990s (giving the city its damning nickname, “the capital of murdered women”), but many of the crimes remain unsolved.
Based on real-life testimonies (playwright Gomez has described his work as fiction that stems from journalistic research), La Ruta refuses to serve up false hope. It simply asks that you listen to the stories of the victims and the anguish of the mothers and friends they were forced to leave behind. Thanks to a cast and crew that have embraced the play’s blazing compassion and brutal honesty, Artists Rep’s production communicates these stories with the defiant clarity they demand and deserve.
