2023-09-29 18:56:53
Like someone looking for parts to repair their car in a scrapping, the members of this Andalusian company did a genealogical task, in regards to how the history of the rape of Lucretia dating from the year 500 BC has been received, up to the present day. A reflection of this is that they have started from William Shakespeare’s version to rethink this story.
Since this “mythological” halo that has been granted as a way of minimizing what this story entails, leads us to discredit those people who have dedicated their entire company to reflecting and making visible the numerous violence with which the women in the so-called Western countries. Likewise, investing time in blaming the people who have inherited the disastrous practices and mentalities of our cisheteropatriarchal “tradition”, I believe that it would divert us from forming a cohesive society. It is not going to be that we are only talking to the “convinced”, to the “militants”…, about these causes, instead of investing efforts and resources in crystallizing a pedagogical task that, in one way or another, redeems us at the level individual and collective. Otherwise, we would continue and consolidate a war for power, aiming for hegemony in the field of discourses and practices.
Still, to this version of The Rape of Lucretia from El Teatro Clásico de Sevilla it is convenient to evaluate it from the place in which it is expressed, that is to say: the role that Lorena Ávila has adopted in her interpretation is that of a person who is doing a kind of “performance conference” in which, at the same time, she fervently defends her editorial line (being something that challenges her in every sense); She is making us, the viewers, realize that what has happened and is happening to women simply for being women, is not something that has completely “appeased,” as a series of legislation that, formally, equates them with men in the West.
Having said that, what would this work directed by Alfonso Zurro? Well, in a cry of pain and political demand that; In one way or another, it tries to update debates that have been present in “public spaces” for decades, and that have still been cleared up for us. At least, today, it is clear who we cannot count on and fight with all the democratic instruments we have, the reactionaries. That is: individuals who do not question their place in the world, and who, in the face of the greater conquest of spaces by feminisms and LGTBI+ groups, feel threatened by their privileges and the structures that have been erected in which they have operated until now. I do not blame those people who see them as the main obstacles, since they call into question things like sexist violence and all the sexual identities and ways of being in this world. That is why I defend that we must focus on how and why to confront them, to build alliances and mature together.
Along these lines, Lorena Ávila’s interpretation puts a face to what is really important: that these violences are not exercised again, and that the understanding of our cisheteropatriarchal legacy serves as a starting point for the refoundation of values, concepts and practices. This version of The Rape of Lucretia, reminds us, the viewers, that although our culture is fascinating and very rich, it is contaminated. By this I do not mean that it is not worth it, and that we must “let go” of everything that has made us possible; but in reality, that it is within our reach “messianic opportunity”, as long as we, the legal political subjects, performatively transform everything. Demonstrating that what is in force is not the “Law of Nature”, it is the result of a collective and individual exercise that, to a greater or lesser extent, depends on each of us to be consummated.
With regard to the staging and the extraordinary performance of Lorena Avila, it is worth highlighting: that the lighting design in dialogue with the projections, was masterfully put on a par with the rhythm and the changes in the roles of “lecturer”, of Lucrecia and a woman who lives today in the West, on the of this Andalusian actress. Making it possible for this work to develop in a solid block that, at times, takes its audience ahead, due to the magnetism and forcefulness in how the events happen. And this seems to me to be essential when directing a theatrical monologue. That is to say: things do not have to be put at the service of the interpreter so that he “shines.” Since his work must be understood as another member of an ensemble, which is the representation of a scenic piece.
Here I would like to focus on how its management and each of the professionals involved have managed to articulate themselves to achieve a result of great quality and height. Yes, one of those works that have made me wonder why, for example, university classes do not include projects like this to enrich their “staging” and their way of making the delivery of content to students more effective. game. Honestly, these are the moments when I regret that the performing arts are not more integrated into our society, since they go to the root of the human condition in each of its manifestations. In case there is any doubt, I am not trying to put these noble disciplines at the top, but in reality, to make it understood that this should in no case be reserved for their “fans” and professionals who are related to their conservation and development.
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