Trust begins in a small theater as a group of teenage actors receive a standing ovation, then takes us back to the beginning, when Marlin, an 18-year-old Hondureña tells a traumatic story about her life to the company. Amazing things unfold as the young members of Chicago’s Albany Park Theater Project transform the story into a daring, original play. APTP is a neighborhood theater project located in one of America's most diverse communities, and is dedicated to helping young people reimagine their experiences on stage. Marlin’s is one of incredible struggle and pain, from enduring rape as young girl, to surviving a harrowing immigration to the U.S., to further abuse at the hands of her own brother, and finally to emancipation and overcoming substance addiction.
On a warm summer afternoon, Marlin sits in a circle with about 25 young APTP members, takes a deep breath and says “I don’t want you to remember me like this.” And then she begins. At age twelve, she was raped by two men in the bathroom of her grandmother’s church in Honduras. She told no one. Two years later, she immigrated with her older brother Carlos to live with their mother in Chicago, where Carlos repeatedly raped her. She didn’t resist – she felt she’d already lost everything – but keeping those secrets weighed heavily on her and she drank, took drugs, cut herself, ran away from home and attempted suicide. Her mother committed Marlin to a psychiatric hospital, where she spent nearly 200 nights. Finally she confided her secrets to a counselor who helped her and recommended the Albany Park Theater Project (APTP), a neighborhood teen theater company that creates original plays from members’ real life stories. TRUST follows Marlin and APTP as they take her story from the personal to the public and the APTP ensemble as they overcome their shame about the subject of rape and incest and invite family, friends, teachers, and classmates to see the play, Remember Me Like This, during its seven weekend run.
One young woman's bravery affects an entire community and helps bring to light an epidemic that is cross-economic, cross-cultural and found in every community.
The Trust DVD is not to be used in any situation where admission is charged, or for fundraising in any form without the explicit permission of the filmmakers and a separate financial agreement.