Interview with Carlos Lacamara

The Road Theatre Co is proud to present the premiere of Nowhere on the Border by Carlos Lacámara and directed by Stewart J. Zully. The play concerns itself with the question Why do people cross borders? Two working class men, an Anglo on border watch and a Mexican, face off in the desert. What is discovered is that border crossings are both physical and emotional. The play opened January 17 at the Road on Magnolia and will play through March 8. Playwright Carlos Lacámara, who also plays a role in the alternate cast, took time out of a busy schedule to discuss the play in detail.

Is the play Nowhere on the Border autobiographical?

CL: The play is not autobiographical, but as a refugee to this country, I have great empathy for those who tear themselves away from their homes and families to search for a better life.

What actual event(s) inspired you to write it?

CL: Two different ideas inspired Nowhere on the Border. First, both my wife and I come from working class families. I find that working men (and I am specifically referring to men) often blame their difficulties on other working men of different races or ethnicities rather than on the upper classes that have more control over their fate. A working man from Pennsylvania and one from Mexico have much more in common with each other than they do with Bill Gates or David Koch, so I decided to let two working men from different nations battle out their differences along the southern U.S. border. My other inspiration came from a Los Angeles Times article that followed a father who spent weeks looking for his missing daughter in the desert. Along the way, he found many other dead bodies, and each time he did, he called the Border Patrol and waited for them to take the corpse away. I combined these two ideas to create Nowhere on the Border.

What is the play's intent?

CL: I want this play to remind us that we are all one.

What is it like also playing a character in your own play?

CL: It’s wonderful to get to portray a character in my own story. Theatre is story telling. Playing a character gives me the wonderful opportunity to live the story I created, and it’s easier to memorize lines that I wrote myself.

What would you like audiences to take away from seeing the play?

CL: I would love for audiences to see themselves in the characters, and to understand that any of us could easily have found ourselves walking across a burning desert, fleeing danger and poverty, were it not for an accident of birth. Immigrants and refugees are as good and smart and deserving as any of us, maybe more so when you consider the courage it takes to do what they do.

Nowhere on the Border plays on Fridays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 8 pm and Sunday matinees at 2 pm at the Road in The NoHo Senior Arts Colony that is located at 10747 Magnolia Blvd. in NoHo. There is plenty of street parking but arrive early. For tickets call 818-761-8838.