Maisha Baton - Mitote

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Mitote by Maisha Baton

Mitote

MITOTE is a one act historically based drama set in New Mexico around the turn of the 20th century. The setting for the play is the back porch of Miss Yolanda house. It is there that the three women come together to exchange greetings and indulge in a bit of ‘Mitote” or woman talk as they have done so often as neighbors and friends.

Each of the women's stories is based on a different incident in New Mexico’s history, i.e, Miss Yolanda’s story includes the tale of Estaban (Estabanico), the Spanish Moor who came with Cabaza de Baca to the New World and was the first non-indigenous person to set foot in what is currently New Mexico and Arizona; Miss Ruth’s story centers on the exoduster migrants who, after slavery, made their way from the eastern United States across the Mississippi into Kansas and Missouri and later pioneered parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado, and Miss Kate’s story is taken from the only documented account of a woman serving in the regular U.S. Army of the West, Cathy Williams.

Cast_1 Woman talk, or MITO, as the Mexican men have called it, is an energy, a force that breathes fresh life into the world of a
male-centered history.

MITOTE has been performed in Pittsburgh, PA at the Famous Rider Theatre, in New York and North Carolina by Yaffe Productions of New York; at the Borderlands Theater Co. of Tucson, The Original California Theatre Co. of Sacramento, CA, the Hayti Heritage Center in Durham, NC, the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kentucky and by Out Ch’Yonder of Albuquerque, NM.

Critic’s Commentary:

The playwright, Maisha Baton is a wonderful storyteller who gives each of her three characters (in MITOTE) a tale of adventure, love and life. Each woman has clear, lyrical lines and fresh, lively stories.
-- Pittsburgh Weekly - September 23, 1985

MITOTE directed by Teri McIntyre, comes through in the evening’s final performance as the most elaborately staged and most engagingly written of the three plays. What is most enthralling about MITOTE, is that the title referring to talk of women” is exactly that. Their stories, their remembrances, their dreams...their talk is so full of life, revealing a too often forgotten chapter of history. The mixture of reality and romance draws the audience effectively and deeply into the world of these forsaken women.
-- Pitt News, September, 1985, Leslie Bennett

For Production information contact Maisha Baton at mbaton@unm.edu.