Author's Note

The air is mild; in the distance, I hear Andrea dancing. I let myself be lulled by the music coming from the car stopped at the red light. It’s 2014, and it’s summer in Buenos Aires. I’ve been living there for several years and have started working on a documentary. Who are these people who’ve come from all over the world? What have they come to Argentina for? I interview them, film them, and listen to their stories. I listen to the beauty, the cruelty, the pain at times, the modesty, and the difficulty of speaking. There is no desire to please, no costumes, no artifice. Only the desire to tell who they truly are. Life is a perpetual succession of encounters, of chance meetings, or of rendezvous, as Paul Éluard so aptly puts it. I had a rendezvous with stories that would leave a mark on my life.

March 2015, La Vega, a favela in Caracas, Venezuela. I live there with my in-laws. The country is going through an unprecedented crisis. Supermarket shelves are nearly empty, there are no more medicines, water is rationed, and inflation is hitting record highs. My father-in-law supports the Maduro government; the other family members do not. The discussions are deep and complex. Soon, brothers and sisters, parents, and cousins will be separated. The youngest will have to leave, go earn a living in neighboring countries, and send money to their elders. For me, this will be followed by years of living in Colombia. An encounter with the beautiful, the ugly, the marvelous, the sometimes unthinkable, and so many stories to tell. The documentary format no longer seemed appropriate to me. All these destinies I wanted to speak of could not intersect in this life, but theatrical writing allowed for their meeting. The one who, at the end of the world, cultivates the land will never meet the one whose stomach he feeds; but if they were to meet, what would they tell each other?

Thus the idea for the project was born. The writing style was inspired by the Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu and his film Babel. We discover countries and characters whose connections to one another we only understand later. Everything comes together as the story unfolds.

I am no one’s spokesperson; I have not been tasked with anything, but ever since I was a child, I have loved stories. Telling them, inventing them, or acting them out. I love writing, theater, and music because they convey emotions. Holding one’s breath, hearing hearts beat in unison, laughing, and sometimes crying as well. My Skin Is Made of Leather tells a story of self-discovery, identity, the unknown, doubt, loneliness, laughter, solidarity, and hope. These feelings run through the characters, shake them to their core, and lead them to question themselves and the world. The characters in this story are real and are aware of the project’s existence. Through video, they sent messages to the actors. An invisible bond that comes to light. This is not merely about their own lives; they are universal because they are human, complex, multifaceted—what it means to be human in all our diversity.

Practical Information

A show for all ages, ages 10 and up.

Number of actors
: 6