Amarillo

“Highly recommended! An unreachable journey to the North unfolds… in a haunting collage of theater, music, movement, film, projections and rituals. If migrants leave home with hearts full of hope, they end up with this: a storm of sand-filled plastic bags that rain down on the stage like so many parched souls. Amarillo is a scorching commentary that moves far beyond any of the political cant that attaches itself to this subject.”
–Chicago Sun-Times

“Dramatic, fiery, sensitive, urgent, and shrewdly politically pertinent”
–Splash Magazine

“This ensemble-driven piece manages to do things that most works of company-devised theater are not able to achieve… to magnify the journey of the economic refugee: to show the details of the traverse, the risks of the passage, the passion and fortitude behind the traveler’s dreams.”
–Chicago Tribune

“A story of immense immediacy… the six-member cast is athletic and expressive.”
–Chicagoland Theater Reviews

“A story of great importance told with style and grace… that will hold you spellbound. This incredible work of art will ring in your mind for some time to come.”
–Around the Town Chicago

“Raw, tragic, unsparing, poetic, vibrant. Prominent Mexican director Jorge A. Vargas draws from a global avant-garde theater trove, layering live video with film projections, everyday objects used as symbolic props, abstract monologues (with English titles) and a stunning physicality that burns with urgency… the leading Mexican theater company Teatro Línea de Sombra vividly maps the human tribulations of those who attempt to enter this country illegally, and perish, or simply vanish, en route.”
–Seattle Times

“A consuming hour that navigates the human urge for migration. It is rooted, desperately rooted, in land south of the U.S. border, but it makes an appeal to the American heart, ideologies rendered narrow and cramped by the vast spaces…An astonishing amount of stagecraft is brought to bear on breaking down seemingly immutable borders like this–it’s rare that spectacle is put so fully into the service of a creative, purposeful space.”
–The SunBreak

“Amarillo is solid as rock, heartrending scenic poetry; brutal and beautiful.”
–Milenio (Mexico)

“A composition, a tragic fresco with a very dynamic rhythm, a certain ironic sadness, and a bottom that includes touches of dark humor…in short, it’s very attractive, without stridencies and with a base of great artistic value.”
–Tiempo Libre (Mexico)

“Jorge Arturo Vargas has created a strong and diverse arrangement of perceptions and visual, acoustic, tactile, and corporal experiences…it gives birth to a very dynamic and appealing show. Their creation goes from ellipsis to artistic burst to reach the heart of politics.”
–La Terrasse (France)

“A strong visual metaphor for trying to break through America’s impenetrable barriers”
–Straight (Vancouver)

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