"Mala," by Melinda Lopez

Mala is a one-woman play written and performed by Melinda Lopez.  The play is about aging and dying, with a particular focus on Lopez's mother and father.  Lopez also intersperses stories from friends and family who have lost loved ones.

I received this play for free as an, "Audible Original," for the month of February as a part of my Audible Membership.

Pros:

• The play is an emotional powerhouse, and nearly brought me to tears on several occasions.  The book strikes me as something Atul Gawande might write, if he was trained in the humanities instead of as a medical doctor.
• Lopez's presentation of the play is top-notch; the range of her performance matches the emotional rollercoaster of the work. 

Cons:

• (nit-pick) The story is presented primarily in English, with Spanish occasionally peppered in.  The struggle is that a translation for the Spanish was rarely provided.  I could generally figure out what was being said via context clues, but I felt like I could not fully experience and engage with the play without the translation. 

Conclusion
I completed this work in a single sitting, and it was definitely worth my time.  I found the play to be both authentic and expertly told.  While the play could reasonably be described as, "a downer," it's message is both important and resonant.  There is no lesson in dying, it is simply an inevitable part of life.

Final Score:
9/10