Here are my picks for this year's theatre festival. Despite the concerns raised by a number of cancellations, it looks like there will be an interesting selection of performances this year. I have the appointment to swap my "bono" for tickets this Saturday 4 February, so if there is anything you'd like to see with me, drop me a line.
When possible I have included outside reviews, as well as the theatre festival blurb, and video clips to provide a feel for what the performance will be like.
Cayetana, su pasión
País: España
Compañía: Ballet Flamenco de Cecilia Gómez
Dirección, coreografía y baile: Cecilia Gómez
Duración: 1 hora 30 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Danza Flamenca
Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo
Del 23 al 26 de marzo.
$130.000, $100.000, $75.000, $50.000 y $30.000
Esta pieza, de la bailarina Cecilia Gómez, constituye un homenaje a la figura y esencia artística de la Duquesa de Alba, marcado por la majestuosidad de los vestidos y la sensualidad de movimientos de flamenco contemporáneo. Los primeros seis actos de la obra giran alrededor de sus numerosas aficiones: el baile flamenco, la pintura, la poesía, los caballos, sus amistades y los toros. En el séptimo acto trasciende el título nobiliario para mostrarla como mujer y fuente de inspiración. Con músicos en vivo, para las presentaciones en Colombia contamos con la participación especial de Antonio Canales.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NycWUiWnPYc&feature=related
Vistaar
País: India
Compañía: Madhavi Mudgal
Dirección y coreografía: Madhavi Mudgal
Duración: 1 hora 10 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Danza Odissi
Teatro Gimnasio Moderno
Del 23 al 26 de marzo
$120.000 y $75.000
La consagración al arte es, literalmente, una premisa del grupo de bailarinas Odissi que representa esta pieza teatral. El estilo de vida ascético de sus participantes, en el que se entregan no solo a la enseñanza sino a los cuidados de su maestra (Madhavi Mudgal) conservando tradiciones milenarias de la India, les permite profundizar en su espiritualidad en una forma única, a través de la que son capaces de ejecutar, con genuina solemnidad, una balanceada mezcla de movimientos tradicionales con sofisticados giros, gracia y sensualidad, adornadas con majestuosos y tradicionales vestuarios y accesorios.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izvre3sfEts&feature=related
Gemelos
País: Chile
Compañía: Santiago a Mil y Teatro Cinema
Basado en la novela: El gran Cuaderno
De: Agota Kristof
Dirección: Juan Carlos Zagal y Laura Pizarro
Duración: 1 hora 50 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Teatro cinematográfico
Idioma: Español
Teatro Nacional Fanny Mikey
Del 23 al 26 de marzo
$120.000 y $70.000
Nestled within this year’s Lincoln Center Festival is a celebration of Spanish-language theater that features productions from Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Spain. The first entry in this festival within a festival is “Gemelos,” a haunting, theatrically novel story of endurance in the face of want and neglect, from the Chilean troupe Compañía Teatro Cinema.
The show, which plays through Saturday at the Pope Auditorium at Fordham University, is performed by a trio of actors on a miniature stage that resembles an unusually grand puppet theater made of carved wood, with a plush red curtain. The company’s name suggests its desire to fuse a solid bond between techniques used in theater and in film. The smaller dimensions of the stage in “Gemelos” (the title means “twins”) help smooth the way for the blending of effects from both mediums.
Miniature sets and props are easily manipulated to create changes in perspective, so that a character seen in a sort of long shot, profiled against the horizon, reappears in close-up almost instantly. Or an iris effect that recalls silent movies is used to whisk us briskly between scenes.
The narrative of “Gemelos,” which follows the hard fortunes of twin boys growing up in an unnamed country in war-torn Europe, would require a huge (or minimalist) production if it were staged full scale. The reduced size allows the designers to retain atmosphere without compromising narrative complexity. The boys can catch fish, work in the fields, blackmail a pedophile priest and give succor to an army deserter without major scenery changes.
But the shrunken dimensions of the production are apt too for a tale told largely from the point of view of two boys caught up in the brutalizing march of history. The well-known horrors of World War II blend with disarming ease into the other gothic nightmares the twins must survive in “Gemelos,” which manages the unusual feat of allowing us to experience familiar sorrows from a distinctive, slightly disorienting new perspective.
First performed in 1999, “Gemelos” was adapted by Laura Pizarro, Juan Carlos Zagal and Jaime Lorca (founders of the precursor to Compañía Teatro Cinema) from the 1986 novel “The Notebook” by the Hungarian writer Agota Kristof. Ms. Pizarro and Mr. Zagal direct the current production and appear in it with Diego Fontecilla. Mr. Zagal has also composed the melancholy, highly effective musical score.
For all the inventiveness of the staging, it is really the actors’ precise, stylized performances that capture and hold the attention. They wear half-masks that recall commedia dell’arte, and move in an angular, mechanized style that makes them resemble eerily ambulatory marionettes who have somehow escaped their string-pulling masters. Mr. Fontecilla and Mr. Zagal, as the twins, speak in contrasting voices, often in unison, to suggest their deeply entrenched emotional interdependence.
When the boys’ father goes off to war, their mother, unable to support them, takes them to live with their bitter, cruel grandmother in the countryside. Played with mesmerizing witchiness by Ms. Pizarro, her voice a shrill snarl, this crone starves and beats the boys. They react against her abuse by conducting their own course of self-discipline, re-educating their hearts and minds to ignore physical hardship and remain staunchly indifferent to the ridicule and abuse they receive from the locals. As the ugly truths of the war slowly impinge on their lives, however, the boys gradually worm their way into their grandmother’s heart, eventually learning to manipulate and even dominate her.
At nearly two hours without an intermission, “Gemelos” would probably be more effective if it were a good 20 minutes shorter. The grueling nature of the story eventually wears you down. Moments of redemption or simple pastoral beauty — a lovely sequence in which the boys learn to catch fish, for example — are relatively few. But the production’s sheer theatrical charm goes some way toward softening the harshness of its story. Memorable too is its depiction of neglected children whose instinctive love for each other allows them to retain their resilience and innate wisdom and to acquire a measure of moral maturity that their elders have somehow lost.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys89C_Luz8s
Mirjana
País: Serbia
Compañía: Jugoslovensko Dramsko Pozoriste
Dirección: Iva Milosevic
Duración: 1 hora 35 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Teatro contemporáneo
Idioma: Serbio con subtítulos en español
Teatro Nacional La Castellana
Del 23 al 27 de marzo
$120.000, $100.000 y $70.000
A PLAY ABOUT MIRJANA AND PEOPLE AROUND HER
Mirjana Karanović as Mirjana was completely alienated from the Others, who are on the verge of being emblematic. They are intruders in her life. The others are characters reduced to marionettes, characterized by their impossibility of communication. They are flat, and they are the products of the context in which they live. (...) The Man has long time ago become the consumer and the good, unable to be alone, out by himself. The importance of this play lies in its unobtrusive intention to disclose the dreadfulness of the abyss behind the images of illusion.
Ana Isaković, Danas
Play about Mirjana and people around her is a realistic picture of lives of ordinary people, who, no matter how trivial that might seem at first sight, represent an inner journey into our personality and points to silent emptiness of the man whose potentials are tamed and who has long time ago forgotten why he exists. (...) While enjoying in this, in a way, tragicomical drama, we can recognize a part of our life so often imprisoned in everyday routine. This colorful confession about Mirjana and people around her actually represents a serious analytical representation of our trivial reality which touches, shapes, impedes or even occupies our life. This play is important because it sees the things in a clear way and calls a spade a spade, but also because it invites us to personally search for sense and self determination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gsx0T0hw3Q&feature=related
Tom Tom Crew
País: Australia
Compañía: Strut & Fret
Dirección: Scott Maidment
Dirección musical: Ben Walsh
Duración: 1 hora
Género: Teatro musical acrobático
Coliseo El Campín
$90.000, $75.000, $50.000 y $25.000
Del 23 de marzo al 1 de abril
Esta pieza cargada de energía y que mezcla acrobacias de circo con llamativos ritmos musicales atraerá sin duda la atención del público colombiano. El vértigo de los movimientos de grandes acróbatas australianos se funde maravillosamente con técnicas de beat-box ejecutadas por uno de los más grandes exponentes de esa técnica vocal, Tom Thum, así como con las fantásticas mezclas del DJ Luke Dubbs y con la genial y recursiva percusión de Ben Walsh. Puro talento australiano combinado en un solo espectáculo que rescata los valores de la cultura musical urbana y entusiasmará a la
audiencia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9cI-oKVfmE
El dictador de Copenhague
Compañía: Proyecto El dictador de Copenhague
Dirección: Martha Márquez
Género: Drama
Duración: 1 hora 40 minutos
Teatro Libre del Centro
27 y 28 de marzo
$35.000 y $20.000
Este conmovedor trabajo ha sido destacado con el Premio Nacional de Dramaturgia
del Festival de Teatro de Cali en 2010 y constituye una reflexión sobre la impunidad, la justicia y la fragilidad de la raza humana. En esta historia un maestro de escuela pública de un pueblo llamado Copenhage se ve envuelto en un difícil dilema moral (entre la posibilidad de hacer justicia por mano propia o dejarlo todo en manos del destino) cuando tiene que enfrentar la llegada al pueblo del asesino de su hijo, un violador de jóvenes
que no pudo ser capturado por falta de pruebas.
La cosmética del enemigo
Compañía: Casa Ensamble
Basado en el libro de Amélie Nothomb
Dirección: Ricardo Vélez
Género: Thriller sicológico
Duración: 1 hora 20 minutos
Sala Buenaventura – Multiplex Casa
Ensamble
Del 28 al 31 de marzo
$30.000
Esta intrigante trama sucede en la sala de espera de un aeropuerto y convierte al espectador en un pasajero más. Aquí, los personajes se ven envueltos en un thriller psicológico, que desvelará poco a poco, a través de pequeñas historias y detalles que no dejan de lado el humor y la ironía, el lado oscuro de la psiquis masculina. Basada en la novela de Amélie Nothomb que se convirtió en un gran acontecimiento de la literatura francesa en 2001.
Los Ciegos. The blind
País: Polonia
Compañía: Teatro KTO
Inspirado en la obra de José Saramago
Director: Jerzy Zon
Duración: 1 hora. Sin intermedio
Género: Teatro físico
Palacio de los Deportes
Del 28 de marzo al 1 de abril
$60.000 y $40.000
Basada en Ensayo sobre la ceguera, de José Saramago, esta obra plantea una gran puesta en escena llena de sorpresas, música y efectos impactantes, pero en su esencia se mantiene fiel a la novela que la inspira: no contiene diálogos y gira, enteramente, alrededor de la expression corporal de la danza y de los gestos. Transcurre en un pueblo en el que una extraña epidemia deja a su población ciega y en donde un grupo de personas establece su propio orden. Esta pequeña sociedad termina revelando las tendencies bárbaras y salvajes de sus miembros. No obstante, sus esperanzas reposan sobre una única persona que puede ver y que sabe la verdad: que no todos han perdido la vista.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMemqr2-aDM
Macbeth
País: Georgia
Compañía: Teatro Estatal
de Música y Drama Tbilisi Vaso Abashidze
Director: David Doiashvili
Duración: 2 horas 25 minutos. Con intermedio
Género: Teatro clásico en versión contemporánea
Idioma: Georgiano con subtítulos en español
Teatro Libre de Chapinero
Del 29 de marzo al 1 de abril
$120.000, $75.000 y $40.000
The last night of the showcase saw a clash between Robert Sturua’s fine Rustaveli Hamlet and the premiere of a Macbeth directed by David Doiashvili. Those like me who chose the Scottish Play were rewarded with a spectacular production, making the most creative use of light and sound and foregrounding the witches in a manner which I think the great Sturua himself would have appreciated, leaving them on stage for most of the play and using them for some surprising doubling, from the Porter to Lady Macduff. The Macbeths played off one another superbly, and one quickly forgot that the actor playing the husband was still a student at the Academy. Yet for all the production’s showy acrobatics, video projections and amazing moving lights – even real fireworks to show the fall of Dunsinane – one can’t help feeling that a director who closes the play with the murderous couple in an amorous dying clinch may not have completely grasped its meaning. Still, the fact that this technically complex production had to be played in the foyer of Tbilisi’s Music and Comedy Theatre, while the main house is under reconstruction, is a tribute to Georgian persistence and ingenuity – as indeed was the whole festival, which may have made a shaky start but gives promise of developing into a major event in the European festival calendar. And there is always the legendary Georgian hospitality, which was much in evidence throughout.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd7LQdLhx-s
Donka, una carta a Chejov
País: Suiza
Compañía: Compagnia Finzi Pasca y Chekhov
International Theatre Festival
Dirección: Daniele Finzi Pasca
Duración: 1 hora 30 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Circo contemporáneo
Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Del 29 de marzo al 8 de abril
$120,000, $100,000, $60,000 y $30,000
Donka: A Letter to Chekhov is precisely what it claims to be: a theatrical letter to Anton Chekhov. (Reflecting Chekhov's passion for fishing, "donka" is the Russian word for a small bell attached to a fishing rod, which rings when there is a bite.) Writer/director Daniele Finzi Pasca glances off almost all of Chekhov's writing, including his sojourn to the penal colony of Sakhalin, where he took the first census of the convict population and campaigned for education for the many children born there, but the key here is lightness.
The Chekhov summoned here is more the letter writer than the tragedian. Donka leaps from the playfulness and surreality that shines in some of his earlier, lesser known short stories, or the love of absurdity and wicked sense of humour of his letters, which must be among the most enjoyable authorial correspondence ever published, and which reveal a man who is a far cry from the melancholic Russian depressive his name commonly summons. Chekhov the sensualist was, for a long time, edited out of the biographies: but a sensualist he was.
He was a man of the theatre, with passionate relationships with actors and directors (among many others, the avant garde director Vsevolod Meyerhold and Chekhov were regular correspondents). And he also shared the love of his peers for circus, which in early 20th century Russia entered the theatre as an art form. The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky remains, at least to my knowledge, the only person to have written literary works for circus. It's this tradition of circus which is summoned in this show.
Rolando Tarquini, in a white summer suit based on a famous photograph of Chekhov, represents the writer, although he doesn't, as it were, play Chekhov: Donka is an exercise in metatheatrics as much as anything else. Rather, he and his fellow clowns present a show in which various images are introduced - skating, fishing, hospital beds - that become symbolic of different aspects of Chekhov's life. These in turn become occasions for some sublimely lyrical circus acts. Using standard circus tropes - aerial acts, juggling, the wheel, shadow play - the company creates visual fantasias that quicken into an imaginative life that is purely their own.
The performers are as skilled as any I've seen, but what is most breath-taking is how the choreography and design lifts circus into poetic performance. There are moments of joyous wit, as when two acrobats lying on the ground are projected onto a curtain front-stage, so we see their vertical images as they move on the horizontal plane. The vertical image shows an apparent chair act, in which the performers appear to be - quite literally - defying gravity. At the same time, the performers on the ground are perfectly visible. We are in on the joke, and enjoy its ingenuity: at the same, we catch that childlike astonishment - look, she is walking on his fingertips! - that is something like wonder. Then there are others, as in a set piece where an ice chandelier descends on the stage and is smashed to pieces by the cast, which aside from their compellingly strange beauty, foreground the sense of transience that is the emotional timbre of the show.
Maybe the key phrase is a quote from The Seagull: "Life should be represented, not as it is, not as it should be, but as it appears in a dream": this is a performer's dream of Chekhov. Underlying its lightness is a preoccupation with death, a search for what vanishes (where is the soul?) and what remains behind. A recurring image is Chekhov's death bed, and close to the end is an absurd representation of a duel, where the duellists spray endless bottles of sparkling stage blood all over the stage. As the show unfolded, I began to find it almost unbearably moving: as each act succeeded the other, its images created and dismantled before my eyes, Donka's transparency, ingenuity and beauty began cumulatively to reveal something about the fragility of the act of making theatre.
Donka strikes me very much as a recognition of and tribute to Chekhov's delight in the serious play and illusion of theatre. To represent death on stage is an absurdity: Donka allows us recognise this, and then, by exposing its artifice, reminds how it is theatre itself that is mortal, a gesture drawn on the air that shines for a moment and then vanishes forever, to exist only in the memories of those who saw it. Chekhov understood this as well as Beckett did. Yes, it's a show about pleasure, and is a crowd-pleasing, sensuous riot notable for the beauty of its design and lighting. But it reminded me how profound pleasure can be.
http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2011/02/perth-festival-donka-letter-to-chekhov.html
http://donkashow.com/donka.html#/video/
Cantina
País: Australia
Compañía: Strut & Fret y el Festival de Brisbane
Dirección: Scott Maidment
Duración: 1 hora y 10 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Cabaret circo
Teatro Faenza
$130.000 y $75.000
Del 31 de marzo al 7 de abril
Cantina is a darkly funny, vintage-inspired circus cabaret show that has gathered significant interest in the lead-up to this years Fringe.
Hyped as The Garden’s “must see” show for 2011, it follows a recent trend of popularity for modern vaudevillian circus-cabaret shows led by La Clique and Smoke & Mirrors. Polished, professional and incredibly entertaining, these offer a programme that goes above and beyond the standard set of circus acrobatics and trickery.
Managing to fuse coy, sexy, intense and comedic, Cantina delivers on expectations, earning its stripes amongst this class. Taking its inspiration from violence and passion of 1950’s Paris, the cast performs solo and in company to enact the theme through dance, movement, music, acrobatics and contortion.
The show opens with an elevated meeting between lovers, with Chelsea McGuffin (La Clique, Circa) showing that women really can do it better as she walks the tightrope in heels.
Finland’s Henna Kaikula (Cirkus Cirkor) performs a ‘rag doll’ act that will shock and delight. Her sickening displays of disjointedness had the audience gasping and cringing in disbelief, and its conclusion was met with much relieved laughter.
Mozes (La Clique, Acrobat) captivates the hushed audience with a dark and dangerous aerial swinging performance that is visually powerful.
In the occasional weak point, the drama of the show is overplayed but this is a small criticism in an otherwise well-directed piece. It is technically and physically challenging, with beautiful choreography and costuming. The show is backed by a fittingly manic soundtrack of pianola, and music from Nara Demasson(Vulgargrad), who performs ukele, guitar and vocals.
The cast is talented and experienced; no one artist is just an acrobat, just a strongman, or just a dancer. Perhaps the only exception to this is contortionist Kaikula, who appears noticeably one-dimensional within the group. However, she is so exceptionally good at what she does that all is forgiven.
Cantina is a must-see, though comes with a warning for the easily offended - it does contain a moment of full frontal male nudity.
For those not put off by this, note that the show contains a lot of floor work, particularly in the first half, so if you want a clear view of the stage without having to crane your neck or rise from your seat, it’s highly recommended that you arrive early to get a front row position. Now sit back and enjoy!
http://www.stagewhispers.com.au/reviews/adelaide-fringe-2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r45c7XRcPo&feature=related
Inventarios
Compañía: Colectivo inventarios
Duración: 1 hora 15 minutos
Género: Performance
Teatro R101
Abril 2
$30.000
Esta segunda iniciativa del colectivo promete ser una experiencia inolvidable para el espectador. El montaje no convencional invita al público a hacer un recorrido en la privacidad de tres mujeres a través del contacto directo con elementos de su cotidianidad, en su propia casa. Entre recuerdos personales y objetos acumulados, los invitados en esta
“casa tomada” podrán hacer parte de una ingeniosa puesta en escena que involucra
diferentes lenguajes escénicos tales como la performance y el happening. Un
inventario que pone al desnudo íntimos secretos y los rastros del paso del tiempo.
Vertical Road
País: Gran Bretaña
Compañía: Akram Khan Company
Dirección y Coreografía: Akram Khan
Duración: 1 hora 10 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Danza contemporánea
Precauciones: El espectáculo utiliza luces estroboscópicas.
Auditorio León de Greiff, U. Nacional
Del 4 al 8 de abril
$120.000, $75.000 y $40.000
Vertical Road is Akram Khan's latest contemporary ensemble work. Khan has assembled a cast of very special performers from across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. With a specially commissioned score by long-term collaborator composer, Nitin Sawhney, Vertical Road draws inspiration from the Sufi tradition and the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi. Exploring man's earthly nature, his rituals and the consequences of human actions, Vertical Road becomes a meditation on the journey from gravity to grace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfflMh2BBqo
By Sarah Crompton
There are nights when I wonder why I spent so much of my life watching dance – and other nights so visceral and original that I have no doubts.
Akram Khan’s new work Vertical Road definitely falls in the latter camp. Created for a wonderful company of eight, it is a meditation on spirituality, on the difficulty of pursuing the “vertical road” towards truth and enlightenment when engrossed and in thrall to the “horizontal path” of contemporary life.
If that sounds dull and difficult, any doubts are dispelled by an opening in which, to the sound of running water, the huge figure of Salah El Brogy butts his head against a membrane-like skin of silk that hides the back wall. As he moves his arm, ripples spread through the fabric, like waves. In front of him crouch the other seven dancers, bent double and still. In the next scene, they stand with heads bowed.
When El Brogy appears among them, they finally move, pounding clouds of white dust from their draperies, like statutes from some lost world coming to life. To the relentless beat of Nitin Sawhney’s powerful score, they twitch and whirl in ritualised movement, their legs heavy, arms fierce and fast. They look other-worldly and mystical, interacting with El Brogy, who seems to take the role of a searcher for truth, both teacher and taught. The dance is relentless, thrilling and compelling.
It is sometimes hard to follow and slightly loses momentum about two-thirds of the way through. But its quality lies in the way Khan and his committed performers have embodied in dance the thought he is pursuing. And the end, where El Brogy is again in a spotlight, convulsively reaching up to heaven as his body roots him to the floor, is incredibly moving.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/8049131/Vertical-Road-Sadlers-Wells-review.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVwDKx1wdiQ
Electra
Compañía: Teatro Nacional Radu Stanca de Rumania contemporánea.
Sibiu
Dirección: Mihai Maniutiu
Duración: 1 hora 20 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Teatro clásico en versión contemporánea
Idioma: Rumano con subtítulos en español
Teatro Nacional La Castellana
Del 4 al 8 de abril
$120.000, $100.000 y $70.000
Măniuţiu’s Electra premiered at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, and won several awards, including best directing and dramaturgy, at the Marida Festival in Spain.
Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, seeks the aid of her brother Orestes to avenge the murder of her father by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon for his sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia to the gods during the Trojan War.
Mihai Măniuţiu graduated from the National Institute of Theatre Art and Cinema in Bucharest, he describes his style as an “ars combinatorica”, which can be seen in the current fusion of two classical Greek texts with a contemporary arrangement of Romanian folk music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cYB20hyOPU&feature=related
Cocorico
País: Francia
Compañía: Productions Illimitées y Compagnie
des Indes
Dirección: Michéle Guigon, Sury Firth y Patrice
Thibaud
Duración: 1 hora 20 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Teatro gestual
Teatro Gimnasio Moderno
Del 4 al 8 de abril
$120.000 y $75.000
When a show starts off with peals of uproarious laughter, where can it go from there? Well, in the case of the two man French comic mime show,Cocorico, it set the standard for the remaining 74 minutes.
Running for just 60 minutes may have sufficed, but the audience was surprised, charmed, delighted and intrigued by the timing and the miming of Patrice Thibaud and his partner, contortionist musician, Philippe Leygnac throughout. Their boundless invention at showing human dynamics and interaction through keenly observed and beautifully interpreted body language was hugely absorbing.
They go through a gamut of the rejected lover to cowboy to de Gaulle to a full brass band to James Bond to clown, to name only a fraction of what was on offer.
It is all done seamlessly, with Thibaud morphing skilfully from one to the other. Their imagination created the show, but their skill allows the audience to use their own imagination in Thibaud’s words ‘...to complete the proposition...’
This show is a delightful blend of adult and childhood; playfulness and thoughtfulness. Their versatility is also shown in their clever shadow shows that intersperse the act.
A visual treat of mime, mockery and music that transcends language with sophisticated innocence.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa04vy_cocorico-patrice-thibaud-english_fun
Julio CesarPaís: Francia
Compañía: Centro Dramático Nacional de Orleans
Dirección: Arthur Nauzyciel
Duración: 3 horas 10 minutos. Con intermedio
Género: Teatro clásico en versión contemporánea
Idioma: Inglés con subtítulos en español
Teatro William Shakespeare
Del 4 al 8 de abril
$120.000 y $75.000
Esta adaptación del clásico shakesperiano, ambientada en el contexto de la alta burguesía
norteamericana de la década del 60, destaca no solo por su refinamiento, su elegancia y el estupendo desempeño de sus actores (del American Repertory Theater de Boston), sino por la impactante forma en la que se resuelve una escena cuyo montaje siempre ha sido complejo. Gracias a un magnífico recurso de escenario, el público se ve envuelto en el asesinato de Julio César, casi como en un coliseo romano, donde el crimen pasa a convertirse en un solemne entretenimiento y en un desgarrador testimonio del comportamiento humano. La obra está acompañada por un trío de jazz.
http://www.francetv.fr/culturebox/le-jules-cesar-darthur-nauzyciel-fait-fureur-au-centre-dramatique-national-dorleans-17041
Leonardo – Trabajo Practico No.1País: Argentina
Compañía: La Arena Circo
Dirección: Gerardo Hochman
Duración: 1 hora 10 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Nuevo Circo
Idioma: Español
Palacio de los Deportes
Del 4 al 8 de abril
$60.000 y $40.000
Inspirado en la intrigante vida y obra de Leonardo da Vinci, este espectáculo utiliza
la animación de objetos, el video, las ilustraciones animadas, la música en vivo, la destreza de ocho actores-acróbatas y, como hilo conductor, el libro de recetas del maestro. Todo empieza cuando un grupo de estudiantes prepara una investigación sobre Da Vinci y son atrapados por la personalidad del genio; así toman vida las reflexiones, descubrimientos, obras pictóricas y escultóricas, inventos fallidos y no realizados, estudios anatómicos y hasta la magnífica máquina de volar que aparece en el escenario.
Sinopsis de la obra
Un grupo de jóvenes universitarios prepara un trabajo de investigación sobre Leonardo da Vinci.
Buscando información en libros, se van zambullendo en el universo “Leonardesco” y casi sin darse cuenta se ven envueltos en los temas, las reflexiones, la producción y aspectos de la personalidad del Genio del Renacimiento, convirtiendo todo lo que descubren en escenas de gran carga visual atravesadas por un inquietante y poético contenido expresivo que funde los dos lenguajes.
Sus estudios anatómicos, su obra pictórica, sus notas sobre cocina, sus reflexiones sobre el ser humano, la relación con sus maestros, colegas, discípulos y sus métodos compositivos son algunos de los aspectos que se abordan en esta puesta en escena que visita la época de los hechos, pero desde una perspectiva actual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeWPOt6Gtvg
Translunar Paradise
País: Gran Bretaña
Compañía: Teatro Ad infinitum
Dirección: George Mann
Duración: 1 hora 10 minutos. Sin intermedio
Género: Teatro gestual
Teatro Nacional Fanny Mikey
Del 5 al 8 de abril
$120.000 y $70.000
An old man, recently bereaved, sits and sits, the minutes ticking by with painful slowness. He makes tea, and out of habit pours two cups, one for him and one for his dead wife. And still he sits. Watching him in anguish is the spirit of his wife, desperate to help, to tell him that it is OK to let her go. She tries to move ‘her’ cup away; she flutters round him in the house they have shared together for so many years. He makes a desolate attempt to sort through her belongings. A small case contains all her most treasured possessions – her favourite necklace, a bundle of letters – and these he lingers over sorrowfully. Each object becomes a conduit for a milestone memory from their shared life: their courtship and marriage; a baby that doesn’t survive infancy; the relived trauma of wartime injury after he is demobilised; the difficult patch in their marriage when she is given the opportunity to study or to forge her own career path. And eventually the inevitable as one partner (she) dies after a long illness and the other (he) is left to grieve.
It is a simple, universal story. Interview anyone over the age of seventy, speak to your parents (or grandparents, depending on your age!), and some version of the story above will emerge. That, for me, is a positive not a negative. At the heart of the success of this piece is the universality of the story, and the beauty with which it is executed.
There is not a second of Translunar Paradise that hasn’t been plotted with infinite care, nor performed with immaculate craft and precision. George Mann as the widower and Deborah Pugh as the spirit wife are a perfect match, their wordless storytelling exhibiting the expertise in mime and physical performance that a Lecoq training gives you, yet going way beyond the technical into a really gifted subtlety and expressiveness. Handheld masks are used beautifully to represent the characters in old age, the masks flying away as memories unfold and the characters become their younger selves. Each moment of transformation is seamless, and there are some particularly lovely sections where a removed mask takes on a puppetesque quality, the older character observing a younger self or partner. Objects are manipulated with tender care: a cup fought over between the real and spirit worlds; a necklace that dances with exquisite joy; the little suitcase that has its own narrative in the play, representing the one thing that she (when younger) has to hang on to, and that he (when older) has to let go of.
The physical action is supported by an onstage, visible accordionist (Kim Heron) who provides the perfectly-pitched soundtrack – playing or whistling snatches of songs that have accompanied the couple’s life journey, from ‘We’ll Meet Again’ to ‘Girl From Ipanema’; tapping out the interminable ticking of a clock with the accordion buttons; providing the labouring breath of a dying woman with the instrument’s bellows.
A word also about the audience. I don’t think I have ever seen a more attentive audience, at the Edinburgh Fringe or elsewhere. From the opening image of the widower sat at his kitchen table to a closing ‘life flashes by’ whirlwind of reprised memories as the ghost departs, the whole audience is almost holding its collective breath, and as the lights come up to rapturous applause, it is clear that there is hardly a dry eye in the house.
A near-perfect example of contemporary wordless theatre – and proof (should anyone need it) that theatre without words can engage the head, touch the heart, and nourish the soul just as effectively as any other form. A little taste of paradise on earth!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w5DUdKaL_E
Leonce y Lena
Compañía: Teatro Cluj. Dirección: Gábor Tompa.
Duración: 1 hora 30 minutos. Sin intermedio.
Género: Comedia clásica.
Idioma: Rumano con subtítulos en español.
Teatro de Bellas Artes de Bogotá
Del 5 al 8 de abril
$120.000, $90.000 y $60.000
Con una alucinante puesta en escena que se mueve entre la estética rococó y
la pintura expresionista alemana, maquillajes recargados, suntuosos vestuarios
y coreografías, este montaje nos cuenta la historia de Leonce, el príncipe de
Popo, y Lena, la princesa de Pipi, los dos monarcas que huyendo de matrimonios
obligados, se conocen, enamoran y casan en el camino, sin saber que el uno era el
prometido del otro. Esta obra, una de las menos representadas de su autor, Georg
Büchner, precursor del teatro moderno, está catalogada como obra maestra den-
Compañía: Teatro Cluj. tro del género de teatro farsa.
Of the few performances of Leonce and Lena I have seen in my life, all of them treated Leonce and Lena as nothing more than additional material in relation to authors such as Arthur Rimbaud and Jean Genet as if Büchner’s text itself was insufficient to catch and hold the public’s attention for an hour and a half. As a result I had some very unclear images and suspicions about the theatrical value of the text itself. I had never clearly heard the voices of Leonce and Lena on the stage and, to be honest, never understood what it was all about. It was sabotaged by other noises all the time.
Then suddenly, at a time when in Romania everything is analysed through the notion of money, economic crisis, immediate profit and the necessary cut-off from the cultural budget, the Hungarian State Theatre of Cluj and the director Gábor Tompa opposed the ésprit du temps, shook the dust off Leonce and Lena and gave them time, silence and attention. Carmencita Brojboiu (costumes and set design) gave them an abandoned, closed and quiet space. It looks like a found space, though it is a set built in a theatre studio.
Silent groups of individuals in classical, aristocratic suits first look timidly through broken windows, gently and silently stepping into this ruined, perhaps once splendid palace. These silent ghosts stay inside the shadow and look at us.
Suddenly white light and gentle music offer them shelter. With a lot of sensitiveness Gábor Tompa asks the characters to open their lips and try to speak again. After a moment of concentration and recalling the words, these fairy-tale puppets enter the light and start to talk. First with hesitation, then with ever-increasing self-confidence, they recalled their old play – an exaggerated eloquence from times gone by, a senseless rhetoric of dolce far niente.
And we had the pleasure of discovering the beauty of the text, the humour and poetical imagination of Büchner, the forgotten taste for fairy tales from our childhood where the princess always finds the right prince (as it is supposed to happen), and we admired the majesty of theatre, executed as a divine ritual by an excellent team of actors. They reminded us that a good performance has the power to change human lives, minds, directions and destinies; it reminded me of how I fell in love with theatre in my adolescence and why I have chosen the difficult position of a theatre critic. I have to confess that after almost 20 years of practising theatre criticism, I most often hate theatre and only sometimes I love it (an adaptation of one of my favourite Artaud quotations: ‘Theatre is more often terrible and only sometimes magnificent’).
They simply reminded me of why I love theatre, by showing me the pure power of theatre. This performance was a ritual revealing of the substantial motivation of existence in art and for art – a declaration of love made to theatre. The last line of the performance is added by Gábor Tompa and it says, literally: ‘Let’s build a theatre, let’s build a theatre’. The actors sing it in an oratory way, with airy voices that are joyful and light-hearted. Incidentally, this oratory element fits the spirit of Büchner’s masterpiece excellently.
The music composed by Vasile Şirli gives a happy artistic perspective to the whole concept: each character presents himself in an oratorio style, through melodic song and some key words describing his situation: ‘I’m lazy, I’m not doing anything’ is the refrain of the servant Valerio. These short melodies label the characters as a set of figures from a luxury musical box. The characters are sweet, joyful, predictable and controllable. They also dance in an elegant, old-fashioned way, carefully moving their feet as if they might break (choreography by Florin Fieroiu).
The satirical line of the play is still there, but it is not aggressive and it is not connected to any actual fact or real figure (although we have had a lot of them in Romania lately).
Valerio (Gábor Viola) and the Governess (Csilla Varga) represent some burlesque elements such as big noses in their appearance. Still, their expressiveness is not exaggerated to mimics. Their faces remain almost like masks under the heavy make-up – serious and self-confident. It is interesting to note that all the characters play and execute their destiny model without looking into the eyes of the others. This confirms they are mechanical dolls, each of them on their predetermined trajectory. In the excellent scene of recognition when several masks fall down one after another (masks with sleepy or even deadly calm faces), all the characters are facing the public. They speak directly to us and do not look at each other. They recognise it is a play for “cartoon mannequins and clockwork mechanism.” Still, the performance is not an apology of alienation and loneliness. Gabor Tompa’s performance is full of emotion, tenderness and forgiveness.
A happy coincidence of artistic inspiration and skills, original thinking and attentive reading of the literary material, admiration of the classics, and also the necessity to impart some important contemporary messages to the public gave life to this strong, compelling performance. Gábor Tompa’s Leonce and Lena is a poetical piece, a romantic story in which the satirical element is tired and lightweight, non-offensive, even disappearing at the end of performance, offering room for the mysterious notions of love and destiny, and letting the old King Peter (Loránd Váta) have 24 hours of party time, as he had previously ordered.
Leonce and Lena from Cluj (excellent, detailed work of Balázs Bodolai and Enikő Györgyjakab) are two images that have escaped from a child’s imagination or from a tiny book with colourful pictures. They are silly and funny, useless and sweet; precious mechanical dolls with empty porcelain heads in which, suddenly, the mechanism of love has just been started.
The senile King Peter and his entourage also seem funny and distractive, because they look too ancient to be harmful to anybody. This out-of-time satire with no anger and revenge, with no aggressive meanings, is the main quality of the performance
“In my opinion, Leonce and Lena is an ideological play about the stagnation of a revolution; a situation that I see not only in the events of the past 20 years, but also in many other aspects. And I feel the same desperation that Büchner may have felt. What is attractive in the whole story is that I could not express myself about those 20 years after the 1989 through political theatre. I can talk about this period only if the show somehow contains moments of hope, something we call love”, says Gábor Tompa.
Very delicately, Tompa introduces two burlesque policemen in the play, who pass through the stage only once, looking for a dangerous criminal. Their appearance is so funny and absurd and fits into Büchner’s world so well that it is immediately integrated as something logical. The scenography of Carmencita Brojboiu, an open/closed no-man’s-land, was able to support even these intruders who were once probably in the Securitate and are now merely clowns.
Leonce and Lena from Cluj offer us therapeutic laughter, and are light, happy and optimistic. And when, at the end, Leonce announces with a mechanical voice: “Tomorrow we start all over again. Goodbye”, we wish to come back..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJLZVvYXT2g&feature=related
Shows to look out for after the festival
País de bicicletas
Nilo Cruz, el primer latinoamericano ganador del premio Pulitzer, escribió esta
obra que cuenta en su reparto con dos actores y un director colombianos. El eje
de la historia es un triángulo amoroso entre tres cubanos que huyen en una balsa.
Con toques de realismo mágico, este viaje esconde mucho más que las dificultades
propias de una aventura transoceánica a la intemperie. Amistad, erotismo, conflictos,
diferencias sociales y sabor caribeño en una puesta en escena que destaca el uso de multimedia, para darnos a conocer a través de flashbacks, el pasado y el futuro de sus protagonistas.
Cruce sobre el Niágara
Esta historia, escrita por el peruano Alonso Alegría, se desarrolla en 1859. El Gran
Blondin, un acróbata que ha caminado en la cuerda floja sobre las cataratas del Niágara
en catorce oportunidades, se destaca por haber ejecutado un acto peligroso a mitad de camino en cada una de esas ocasiones. La obra explora el desarrollo de una inusual amistad entre el artista y un aficionado, Carlo, que desemboca en la participación de éste en una más de esas peligrosas caminatas. Esta vez, el Gran Blondin cruzará las cataratas mientras carga a Carlo en sus hombros.
El Club del Tropel
El Club del Tropel es una joven e irónica mirada al espectáculo del coliseo romano
y lo traslada a un ring de boxeo. Animado por una banda de rock, el público podrá
presenciar diferentes combates que parten de la improvisación y las espontáneas
propuestas del réferi, quien ejercerá como director de orquesta a lo largo del espectáculo, marcando la pauta de los personajes y retando su imaginación a través de sus juegos y reglas. Esta puesta en escena cuenta con la participación de más de 30 actores, que encontrarán en este Festival el espacio ideal para participar en un show donde “todo vale”.
Compañía: Casa Ensamble
Dirección: Beto Urrea
Género: Improvisación
Duración: 1 hora 10 minutos
Teatro Arlequín-Multiplex Casa Ensamble
Del 2 al 8 de abril
$40.000
Él solo
Compañía: La Compañía Teatro Danza
Dirección: Carlos Ramírez
Género: Danza Teatro
Duración 1 hora
Teatro R101
4 de abril
$30.000
Como su nombre lo indica, esta pieza está enfocada en una sola persona. Se dejan
de lado las pretensiones estéticas de escenografía o vestuario: lo importante es
el proceso de creación como un trabajo espiritual y dinámico. El público podrá
seguir al actor y bailarín Carlos Ramírez en dicho trabajo, donde las palabras no
son tan importantes como la actuación y la gestualidad. La particular propuesta,
que ya ha sido presentada con éxito en grandes escenarios como el Teater Exit
de Croacia, es un ejemplo del desarrollo de nueva dramaturgia colombiana en la
innovación de lenguaje teatral.
Las listas
Compañía: Los Históricos (Colombia / España)
Dramaturgia: Julio Wallovicz
Director: Marc Caellas
Género: Comedia negra
Duración: 1 hora 20 minutos
Teatro Estudio Julio Mario Santo Domingo
26 y 27 de marzo
$50.000
Este montaje de la obra escrita por Julio Wallovicz y dirigida por Marc Caellas, define con una gran carga sarcástica una nueva perspectiva para el papel del artista en la sociedad, en la que éste deja de cumplir un rol marginal para convertirse en una especie de moda. El arte como tal se democratiza, el mundo se llena de creadores y pierde el sustento de la clase trabajadora; ahora todos se ocupan de participar en la vida bohemia, se dedican a soñar con la fama, y dejan de lado las labores básicas, lo que genera un caos y, eventualmente, el fin del mundo.
Zoom
Compañía: La Gata Cirko que está detrás de ellas.
Dirección: Felipe Ortiz
Género: Nuevo Circo
Duración: 1 hora 15 minutos
Teatro Estudio Julio Mario Santo Domingo
2 y 3 de abril
$50.000
Una mirada que hace zoom a cuatro historias distintas (la de un vendedor ambulante, la de una artista callejera, la de un hombre solitario y la de dos policías) en el marco de una propuesta que combina el nuevo circo con teatro, danza y poesía en un ambiente cotidiano: el de la calle, el barrio, la ciudad. Las magníficas coreografías, interpretadas por famosos artistas colombianos procedentes de las distintas ramas del arte escénico y dirigidas por Felipe Ortiz, hablan de lo habitual, son visualmente sorprendentes, y dan fe del profundo bagaje en improvisación teatral.
