Mala at Jackie Liebergott Black Box/Paramount Center

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2. Mala

“'Mala’ means ‘bad.’ Not that you have done something bad, but that you are, in your core, bad.”

Funny, brutally honest, and ultimately cathartic, Mala puts a sharp focus on what it means to put our loved ones first, right to the very end, and what happens when we strive to be good, but don't always succeed. A world premiere production by ArtsEmerson, this powerful one-woman show by Melinda Lopez transports us into a world which is uniquely Cuban-American in its specifics, and universal in its power.

An utterly unsentimental journey to the end of life and straight out the other side, Mala is an irreverent exploration of how we live, cope, and survive right now.

Grounded in Lopez’s distinctive emotional language and sharp humor, Mala dances between doctors, work, a mother’s growing frailty, a daughter’s quest for grace, an epic Boston winter, Arctic icebergs and 911 calls. Built from notes frantically tapped out on an iPhone, Mala forces us to confront the inevitable finality of our last moments with the people who raised us