By Guilherme Meletti Yazbek
This one-act play by multidisciplinary artist and actress Moire del Carmen is the result of a creative process developed during the Freshworks artist residency at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Baquiné is theater, Baquiné is tragedy, Baquiné is comedy—it is clownish, absurd, dramatic, sincere, vital, alive, transformative, and transdisciplinary. Baquiné is trans; it is a theatrical flow in a constant process of becoming.
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| Moire del Carmen (Image Credit: Courtesy of Moire del Carmen) |
The term baquiné, which gives the piece its title, refers to a unique Puerto Rican funeral ritual—rooted in the African diaspora—that marks the death of a small child. It is a joyful, festive celebration that, through Carmen’s artistic gesture and her collaborators both on and off stage, intertwines with queer joy. The baquiné we witness and share is a poetic exercise that negotiates life and death, and all that lies in the thresholds, the connections, the in-betweens. To celebrate life by celebrating death seems to be the work’s underlying intention. And although we perceive in it the pain of mourning—and a mourning process that unfolds not only for the audience but with us—this mourning is charged with joy: a joy with teary eyes, a joy that makes us believe, as we hear more than once on stage, that “everything works out in the end”. A joy that believes in and brings forth a queer futurity, as José Esteban Muñoz taught us.
In terms of its theatrical form, Baquiné is a piece of performative theater—fiction and reality overlap, collide, and blur—and its structure and aesthetic are unmistakably postmodern. That is to say, while Baquiné offers narrative threads and a clear scenic construction, it also dismantles and deconstructs itself before our eyes. Not only because we see scenes (it’s props, musical instruments, costumes, etc.) being assembled without the dramatic artifice of verisimilitude, but also because there is no intention to resolve every force or line of meaning introduced. The logic here is not dramatic but postdramatic and metalinguistic. It reflects Moire’s desire to write, as she put it, “a love letter to theater”.
Dramaturgically, the piece stands in the interstices between life and death. Moire del Carmen is a transgender actress who—as she noted in the talkback after the show—believes that trans people are obsessed with how they will be rememberedafter they die. This statement carries historical and political weight: in a cis-heteronormative world, trans lives continue to be targets of physical and structural violence, producing profound psychic suffering across the community. The starting point for the dramaturgical path, then, seems to be death. What we see on stage is both a poetic and political act of mourning.
The most striking image, to me, is the scene (or perhaps tableau or moment, since “scene” sounds too aligned with dramatic theater, which this is not) of Moire del Carmen’s funeral. We hear testimonies from her friends on stage—and performativity pulses through the space, since most of the cast and crew are indeed close friends of the artist beyond this collaboration. A funeral wreath metonymically establishes the space of celebration in death, and—as in many other moments—life reemerges with force and humor: “She tried her best”, reads the ribbon attached to the flowers.
The work is not organized according to dramatic logic. Moments unfold one after another in a sequence of dialogues, musical acts, set-building actions, video projections of text and imagery, and voice recordings of Moire herself. All of this coexists on the same plane, presented diachronically—following the passing of time in performance—but the work’s temporal dimension feels synchronic, even circular. Life and death unfold like a Möbius strip: life commenting on death, death informing life. The construction of memory here reverses what we might consider the natural order: first comes memory, then action. This play is pure invention—the creation of a reality still in the making.
Perhaps the key to the performance revealed itself to me after the show, during the audience talkback: we only begin to truly reflect on what comes after death when we lose someone we love—someone close enough that their absence tightens the chest, clouds the eyes, and makes everything seem senseless. Life then becomes a search for meaning. That’s how I see Baquiné: as a scenic search for meaning, a constant reaching for life through theatrical language—understood here as the convergence of body, voice, space, text, video, and music. The performance is a continuous becoming: always in motion, always seeking. Nothing stands still, nothing settles, because the goal is not ontological—there is no fixed answer to what theater, life, or death is. Baquiné is pure impulse: it matters less what it is than what it is becoming. Baquiné is transformation. Baquiné is trans—I repeat.
Indeed, Baquiné is a work in progress—one that has been developing in Moire del Carmen’s mind (and body) for years, finding scenic form only now through this two-month artistic residency. As such, it still carries the beautiful vulnerabilities of an unfinished work. On one hand, this openness resonates deeply with its metatheatrical dimension and the artist’s love letter to the act of making theater—it sometimes feels like a technical rehearsal, and that works beautifully. On the other hand, some moments could benefit from further rehearsal and exploration—both the comic ones, grounded in clowning techniques, and the more dramatic sequences, such as the powerful duets with multidisciplinary artist Pó Rodil.
That said, Moire del Carmen is a remarkable actress. She demonstrates striking versatility, moving fluidly between modes and levels of presence across the broad performative spectrum between the real (whatever that means) and the fictional. She is joined by a vibrant ensemble, each performer bringing vitality and queer joy to the stage. What we see are artists truly enjoying what they do, how they do it, and with whom they do it—and that bliss is profoundly powerful.
Near the end, we hear the line: “I feel like there’s nothing out there for me.” Oh, but the whole world is out there for you, Moire del Carmen! And I’m certain that those who shared this experience with me last night at the Alloy Studios of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater would agree. Baquiné carries both theatrical and therapeutic power (without being therapy). I hope this creative process finds new stages, new audiences, new cities.
The work vibrates with queer joy and offers a path of hope and communion to those who have lost someone dear—and above all, it reaffirms the existence, dignity, and beauty of trans life.
And to you, reader, who has followed this reflection in words—just one among many possible readings of this powerful work—don’t hesitate: this iteration of Baquiné has one final performance tonight. Go!
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Baquiné at Kelly Strayhorn Theater’s Alloy Studios has performances October 3 – 4, 2025 | https://kellystrayhorntheater.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/events/a0SVO000003SyYz2AK
Guilherme is a Brazilian theater practitioner and scholar, currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Reviews
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