What should be the role of the theatre today? According to the writer and playwright Antonin Artaud, to provoke, like the plague, a radical change in the established values. Artaud described this theory in a lecture that now takes the form of a dramatic monologue.
Known particularly for his tireless research into the function of art, and for his defence of stage works that surprised and moved the spectator, in 1933 Artaud gave a lecture at the Sorbonne about the theatre and the plague . The writer Anaïs Nin attended this shocking event and describes how the lecture was transformed into an enactment of the vivid agony of a plague victim. Artaud offered attendees the very experience of this terrible disease, terrifying them in order to awaken them from the torpor of conventional art. Jordi Coca turns Artaud’s lecture into a dramatic monologue in which the actress Esther Bové is hosting a dinner for friends – the audience – and an exquisitely set table becomes a symbol for the moral and social conventions. But we then see how everything becomes turned upside-down and the painful truth emerges. The protagonist becomes vulnerable in the extreme and gradually begins to allude to certain events that move and transform her, just as the stage itself is transformed. Conventional good manners are abandoned as the theatre, causing commotion like a veritable plague, enables the deepest, most authentic emotions to emerge.
Autoria: Antonin Artaud; Traducció: Joan Casas; Dramatúrgia i direcció: Jordi Coca ; Intèrpret: Esther Bové; Ajudant de direcció: Cristina Raventós; Escenografia: Jon Berrondo; Disseny d'il·luminació: Alberto Rodríguez; Espai sonor: Carles Puértolas; Vestuari: Marta Rafa; Caracterització: Àngels Salinas; Assessorament literari: Ricard Ripoll; Moviment: Ferran Carvajal; Producció executiva: Viqui Sanz;
Direcció artística: Mercè Managuerra; Cap de producció: Jordi Robles; Cap de comunicació: Eva Noguer; Cap de sala: Enrique Vallejo; Cap tècnic: Pol Queralt;
