Does protecting the most vulnerable justify the application of violence? She wonders, a teacher who is faced with a moral dilemma at the end of a long career. Amor mundi is the new creation of an author who is used to exploring uncertainty in her works.
Aurèlia, an long experienced teacher is about to retire but precisely when the time arrives when she would be able to stop working and rest, she will have to face a common situation in the class: a girls bullies another and so as to protect the most vulnerable one, the teacher ends up hitting the bully. Indeed, she believes she’s done the right thing, while at the same time she is aware that nothing justifies violence against children. Have I done the right thing or not? She actually gets quite obsessed with this dilema to the extent that she questions the values and principles that have ruled her life and the practice of her profession. For a start, the school has fired her and now at home with a degenerative disease stealing her vision, she is surrounded by physical and moral darkness. Only a young teacher who visits her and her niece will connect her with a reality that is increasingly alien to her.
It is a new text by Victoria Szpunberg, a dramaturgist and director who studied in the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona and Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona and currently a teacher at the very same Institut del Teatre and at Obrador de la Sala Beckett, amont others. Author of performances like Esthetic Paradise (Grec 2004), Boys don't cry (Grec 2012), L'onzena plaga (2015) o Balena blava (2018) among others. Szpunberg makes a theatre connected to the contemporary world where she is confronted with political and social dilemmas and tells us about her feelings of displacement and disorientation by using humor and applying as critical as poetical perspective to characters and situations.
A co-production of 2019 Grec Festival of Barcelona and Sala Beckett.
Text written within the framework of the programme “Author in residence” of Sala Beckett during the 2018/19 season.
Author and direction: Victoria Szpunberg Interpretation: Marta Angelat, Aina Calpe, Blanca Garcia-Lladó With the participation of: Sofía Szpunberg, Ana Barrero, Sofía Brenchley Scenography: Max Glaenzel Lighting: Paula Miranda Sound space: Lucas Ariel Video: Joan Rodón Masks and costume: Sílvia Delagneau Movement: Constanza Brncic Linguistic advice: Miquel Cabal Assistant to direction: Iban Beltran Photography: Kiku Piñol
