The Country of the Blind

Eduardo, a poor farmer in a South American village, dreams of being in love. Frustrated by his poverty and disability of being blind in one eye, he turns his back on his own world and risks his life to find a mythical village high in the Andes mountains where everyone is blind and the streets are paved in gold. When he stumbles upon the village and realizes that the people who live there have no knowledge of the outside world, he fantasizes that "in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king." However, he learns that the people have skills that he does not and that his presence is thought by the high priestess to be an infection that must be destroyed. He becomes friends with Medina, a beautiful girl who does not know that she is beautiful, whose job it is to determine whether he should live or die. When Medina and Eduardo fall in love, the leader decides that Eduardo can live, as long as the source of his crazy behavior—the tumors Eduardo calls "eyes"—are removed. Will Eduardo give up his sight for love? Or can he convince Medina to come to his world, where she will be regarded as the one who is less than normal? Premiered at the Coterie Theatre and toured Kansas under the auspices of Accessible Arts.