MEXA began in a shelter for unhoused people in São Paulo that hosted up to thirty residents. In this forced cohabitation under constant surveillance, new people would arrive while others were expelled for breaking the rules. In their decade together, MEXA has undergone changes, but still grapples with these turbulent origins. In Reality Show, ten performers inhabit a mutable space that evokes both a home and a film set, where furniture and cameras gradually appear on stage, and real-time projections are edited live. The familiar grammar of reality TV—of which MEXA’s members are devoted fans—mirrors their past experience of collective living and their present life in theatre. It evokes visibility without power, glamour entwined with exhaustion, and intimacy turned into transaction. Through a game of elimination, MEXA reflects on how they have at times accentuated precarity to access the theatre circuit. What narratives are expected from a group shaped by instability? Are stories of hardship and scarcity the ones most likely to “win the show”? Do we all use fiction to find acceptance? After two acclaimed works, MEXA returns to the festival with a premiere of one of their earliest dreams. Reality Show is a sharp and exuberant depiction of a decade-long struggle for housing, visibility, and recognition.
MEXA - Reality Show
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