The rampant murders of women and girls in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez have been the subject of global attention since the mid 1990s, when the phenomenon first began drawing international headlines. Journalists, activists, musicians, novelists, television producers, and filmmakers (for starters) have used the city’s serial sexual assassinations to call for sweeping judicial reform as well as create danceable pop tunes (Tori Amos’s “Juárez”).
As he does throughout the play, Gomez adeptly captures subtle efforts to forge a sense of normalcy amid horror, as the women refuse to break from their comfortable routines until a miserable truth becomes inescapable. But as he also does throughout the play, Gomez interjects a fair amount of inorganic, expositional dialogue. Yolanda, for example, explains at length what Marisela surely already knows: with the passage of NAFTA, factories popped up in Juárez, and now, “We finally have a shot [to] support our own families.”
Through 1/27/19: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 3 and 7:30 PM, Tue 7:30 PM; no performances Tue 12/25 or 1/1, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $30-$89.
