Mean girl seance
Four teenagers try to summon the spirit of Pablo Escobar in Our Dear Departed Drug Lord How a bit of queer may help summon up a ‘Drug Lord’ at Second Thought Theatre RICH LOPEZ | Staff writerrich@dallasvoice.com Second Thought Theatre’s current show, Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, closes this weekend, but there is still a chance to see how four high school girls summon the spirit of Pablo Escobar.
Set in the late aughts, the play focuses on these characters finding their sense of selves, but also, according to director Ruben Carrazana, it’s about demanding more for their own lives. “One thing we tried to explore is what happens when young women try to take up as much space and power when, their entire lives, they have been told not to,” Carranza said.
Add to the mix two characters — Pipe and Kit — who bring in their queer sensibilities to that search. In the play, the young women convene in an abandoned treehouse to summon the spirit of the famed drug cartel leader.
The time is pre-Obama, the place is Miami and the characters play around with the supernatural. Almost like a gang, these women have nicknames — like Pipe who is Cuban-American, the Jewish-American Zoom, Kit, who has Colombian roots, and Squeeze who is Puerto Rican-Haitian.
