Familias is a full-evening multi-media work that explores, as one critic wrote, the "totality" of the Latino family from the inside. A theatrical monument to the South Bronx familial experience, Familias is not the story of a single family, nor intended to be "representative" of the Latino family. Familias was conceived as a poetic meditation on the nature of family - one that comprehends the intricacy of relationships, pressures, and perspectives that make up this experience in a way that is both culturally specific and universally resonant. Familias takes place not on the narrative plane of storytelling, but rather at an unconscious level of dreams and archetypes, where much of the drama of family life is played out.
Videos
The Making of a Family: A documentary of the making of Familias
Produced and Directed by Al Cacioppo
Emmy nominated BronxNet video of the full performance of Familias, 1995. Directed by Michael Max Knobbe.
El Diario Review: "The content of this performance cannot be analyzed in the traditional manner we are accustomed to when we go to see a theatrical production. Familias is a totality; it's like an intelligent chess piece, in which the players don't move their pieces in the habitual way. And. as accomplices, witnesses, and also members of the totality of the Latino family - since that's what the experience deals with- we can choose, share, or reject different moments of the production presented to us on the stage. What we cannot deny is its authenticity." (Alberto Minero, EI Diario , Dec. 14, 1995)
Images of activities with families engaged in the making of Familias. Videography: Irene Sosa.