Octavio Solis

Octavio Solis (born 1958) is an American playwright and director.

Quotes

 * …The principal feature of the retablos I have seen and collected is the picture, the diorama, if you will, of someone’s earthly crisis, at which the divine is also present in the figure of a particular saint or Holy Virgin. This simple crudely drawn and painted image is wrought with drama, depicting a moment of powerful tension, pain, and transcendence. I took my cues from these images, and determined to use them as the motif for the moments in my life that defined me…
 * On being influenced by retablos in “An Interview with Octavio Solis” (Welcome to Literary Ashland; 2019 Jun 24)


 * For someone born in the US but whose parents hail from Mexico, there is always a disconnect that happens between the present culture and the one before. Sometimes, it is a flimsy synapse, and sometimes the disconnect can be a chasm…
 * On having Mexican-born parents in “An Interview with Octavio Solis” (Welcome to Literary Ashland; 2019 Jun 24)


 * …I learned to violate the rules of time and space—that they can be protracted, or that an entire war can happen in two or three lines of dialogue. I learned from movie montage, how to use language as montage. And for the scene of the judge’s assassination, I learned a lot from Julius Caesar…
 * On learning how language is implemented in different works in “Octavio Solis’s Journey to ‘Mother Road’” (American Theatre; Sept 2019)


 * I’m not a poet, but I do like heightened language that can exist in the theatre. Many plays are sounding more naturalistic these days, more like TV. I still take my cues from Shakespeare. I would rather have the story exist more in the audience’s heads than on a screen.
 * On avoiding the label of magical realism in “Octavio Solis’s Journey to ‘Mother Road’” (American Theatre; Sept 2019)