Toni Acosta: "As a mother, I am learning to let go"

BarcelonaWhen Toni Acosta's (La Laguna, 1972) children started spending nights away from home, the actress felt a deep sense of emptiness she didn't know where it came from. "I have a very social job, I'm surrounded by people, I have many friends, and I spend my days attending many events. If my life is full of things, why do I feel this emptiness?" the performer often asked herself. Convinced that it was a shared feeling with other women, Acosta proposed to playwright and director Juan Carlos Rubio that he write a monologue for her. A Movie-Like Mother arrives this Thursday at the Teatre Romea, where it will be performed until June 14. The show has previously been in Madrid and toured the country with a good reception. "Many mothers identify with it and feel that we share an experience as a community," notes the actress.

To heighten the drama, but also the comedy, the protagonist of the monologue shares characteristics with Acosta, but she is not exactly her. Eva María has only one son – the actress has two, aged 22 and 17 – and has dedicated her entire existence to the boy's life. "She goes through a complex mental process, because when the boy leaves, she feels abandoned," explains Rubio. He is not a father, but to write the text, he drew on his experience as a son: "I have five siblings, I'm the youngest, and when I left home at 19, my parents were left alone for good," he says.

Another source of inspiration has been Acosta's diaries and reflections on motherhood, as well as materials from her novel A Snail in My Closet (HarperCollins, 2025). "When you start from the most intimate experiences, everything becomes universal. It was important that I was going through it. As a mother, I am quite overbearing and protective. Now I'm learning to let go," emphasizes the actress. To delve into the empty nest syndrome, both the performer and the playwright believed it was necessary to trace a journey around the protagonist's motherhood. "She begins to explain it from the desire to have a child. We've sought to capture the essence of the mother's experience to understand why she feels abandoned," highlights Rubio.

References to classic cinema

During the hour and twenty minutes that the monologue lasts, Eva María's character is locked inside her son's room, who has asked her by phone to photograph a document for him, send him the photo, and leave the room without touching anything. She doesn't pay attention to him and plunges into a sleepless night with all her memories, which are strongly marked by the films she has seen. "The protagonist makes many cinematographic references, especially to classic cinema films she saw as a child," explains the performer.

Humor is a key element in the show, because for Acosta it was essential to address this issue from comedy. "Working on this show has been a beautiful learning process about how to inhabit the fear of the void in my life – reflects the actress–. I wanted it to have a sense of humor, because it's the healthiest way to deal with serious topics. The monologue has served me to say: 'Girls, I've been through this too. We can laugh about it.'"