Espejos: Clean - by Christine Quintana (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A fascinating investigation of class, trauma, wealth, poverty, and the agonizing need to confront one's past. --BroadwayWorld

The lives of two women from very different worlds collide in the illusionary paradise of a Mexican resort. Sarah, a Canadian wedding guest, is a shot glass half empty. Adriana, a fastidious and vivacious hotel floor manager, finds solace in establishing order. At first glance, they're simply animated, but looking closer reveals the anxieties they're trying to hide. When their worlds collide, everything they've kept hidden comes into sharp focus.

A bilingual play in English and Spanish, each woman speaks in her own language and shares her unique experiences directly with the audience. Their vastly different realities are reflected in parallel, coming together to mirror and magnify a mutual pain. Through nuanced and surprisingly funny monologues, Quintana and Zelaya-Cervantes focus an attentive microscope on female strength and solidarity to stunning effect.

Review Quotes

A riveting drama showcasing a pair of vulnerable women who each come from very diverse backgrounds, economic levels, and, most significantly, native languages. While their individual experiences couldn't be any more different, they do both share the rather arduous common goal of trying to get past their respective prior traumas that have shaped who they are and have continued to haunt them as adults.
--Michael Quintos, BroadwayWorld

Christine Quintana's beautifully written Espejos/Clean is a lush, layered, complex story with the depth, poetry, and drama of a great novel.
--Createastir.ca

A lush, layered, complex story with the depth, poetry, and drama of a great novel. Just like when you're standing barefoot on a beach as the tide comes in and your feet slowly sink down into cool, wet sand--then sink a little more--this bilingual two-hander takes you deeper and deeper and deeper into the characters' lives, hearts, and minds in the most thoughtful, impactful of ways as it goes.
--Gail Johnson, Stir

An impressively mature work of art.
--Colin Thomas, ColinThomas.ca

I loved Espejos/Clean because it didn't feel like a play with a Latinx or Spanglish aesthetic. Instead, it felt truly and fundamentally bilingual and both Adriana and Sarah were culturally specific entities, from language to how they dream, from their fears to what their biggest flaws are
--Dora Prieto, Vancouver Arts Review

About the Author

An award-winning playwright, actor, and producer, Christine's plays have been performed in French, Spanish, German, and ASL. Creation highlights include Selfie (commissioned by Théâtre la Seizième and Young People's Theatre); Espejos: Clean (translated and adapted by Paula Zelaya-Cervantes, premiered with Neworld Theatre and South Coast Repertory); Never The Last (co-created with Molly MacKinnon, premiered with Delinquent Theatre), and upcoming projects for Tarragon Theatre, Arts Club Theatre Company, and Belfry Theatre. She is the winner of a Dora Mavor Moore Award, Jessie Richardson Award, Sidney Risk Award, John Hendry Award, and was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award for Selfie. She was honoured with the 2017 Siminovitch Protégé Prize for Playwriting from Marcus Youssef, and holds a BFA in Acting from the University of British Columbia.

Mexican playwright, screenwriter, director, and translator Paula Zelaya-Cervantes graduated from UBC in Vancouver, Canada, with a double major in Theatre and Honours English Literature thanks to the support of the International Leader of Tomorrow Scholarship granted to only thirteen students worldwide each year. Paula has written and directed several plays including The Orbweaver/El Hilador (Teatro Helénico 2018, Mexico City; Vancouver Fringe Festival International Mainstage Selection, 2016) and 245 Acts of Unspeakable Evil, which she co-wrote with Ana González Bello and which won the Latino National Playwright Award granted by the Arizona Theatre Company and the Sharon Enkin Play for Young People Award granted by the Playwright's Guild of Canada. Paula has adapted and translated close to thirty plays, several of which she has also directed.