When Luis Mario Moncada first handed over the Spanish script for the Royal Shakespeare Company's new co-production, director Roxana Silbert knew it was going to "an incredible, epic work."
Silbert, an Associate Director of the RSC, has a long-standing working relationship with Moncada, stretching back to when she worked at London's Royal Court Theatre - which champions new writing - on a showcase for young Mexican playwrights in 2005.
Moncada was then the director of the Teatro Hellenico in Mexico City – “Mexico’s Royal Court," says Silbert who describes herself as British but whose understanding of Latin American theatre and culture comes from her Argentine roots - she was born in La Plata, Argentina and came to live permanently in the UK when she was six.
"Luis had originally written a trilogy about three kings, and what we have now is a play in three parts - although with just one interval,” she explains.
The cast includes RSC company members as well as six Mexican actors from the Compania Nacional de Teatro as well as a Mexican set and costume designer.
Rehearsals have been an "amazing process", says Silbert, with the actors coming from very different theatre traditions: "the Mexicans are much more physical than we are, so we started with movement on the first day to make them feel at home. The British cast and creatives have delighted in the Mexican input. They brought instruments we just don't have, types of flutes and conch shells."
Produced under the auspices of the World Shakespeare Festival, itself part of the Cultural Olympiad, the idea was to commission a work to be staged in both countries with a brief of looking at the world through the Shakespearean form.
Using the theme of the Aztec’s (also know as Mexica) rise to power in Tenochtitlan ( present day Mexico City) prior to and around the time of the Spanish conquest, the play covers a series of power struggles and internecine conflicts.
"Luis has actually written a play about contemporary Mexico, investigating his country's past in order to understand his country's present, " says Silbert. The timing of the world premiere at the RSC's home in Stratford Upon - it opens tomorrow on June 29 - comes just three days before the Mexican general election on July 1.
"Ancestral corruption and the inability to reach agreements" are just a couple of the issues addressed in the work which Silbert is well aware will be all too familiar to Mexican audiences. But she also hopes that British - and international - audiences who will have a chance to see the work when it is shown at the Festival Cervantino (the annual Arts extravaganza which is one of the largest in Latin America) in the Mexican city of Guanajuato, will appreciate Moncada's message.
"Democracy can be such a fragile thing and not just in Mexico. We ( in the UK) are risking it really badly at this time, legally, economically - Our democracy is at risk - suggests Silbert who cites Argentina as a country that lost its way, especially during the Guerra Sucia ( Dirty War) of the 1970s and 1980s when her own family had to leave the country because of her father's political views.
"We need to treasure what we've got. The play makes a good argument for what happens when it fails."
A Soldier In Every Son, June 29th until July 28th 2012 at Stratford Upon Avon. Box Office 0844 800 1110 (10 - 6pm)
