Text & direction: Guillermo Calderón / Music & assistant direction: Ximena Sánchez / Artistic production management: María Paz González Durney, Aranzazu Ispizua / Stage, lighting & costume: Manuela Mege / Casting: Camila Brito, Leonardo Hertzberg, Francisca Lewin / Tour Management: Aranzazu Ispizua / Co-Produktion: Fundación Teatro a Mil, ArtsEmerson
Guillermo Calderón
VACA
- Theatre
with German and English surtitles /
Spanish /
75 mins.
In 2019, the progressive world looked optimistically to Chile when mass demonstrations during the “Estallido Social” called for fundamental systemic change across broad sections of society. Today, more than five years later, with the process of drafting a new progressive constitution having failed, there is little prospect of comprehensive social change.
Guillermo Calderón addresses this situation in his latest work – a play “that does not seek to spread hope. Because if we wait for hope, optimism or any kind of inspiration, it will never come,” says the author and director.
Three friends who organise their precarious survival as pizza delivery drivers on the streets of Santiago de Chile (or elsewhere) are confronted with a world of social decay and violence. At the centre of the parable is a cow, but the cow is sick and produces too much milk. So what to do? The discussion about its fate becomes an exercise in justifying cruelty.
A series of monologues describe the tragic and comical life of the cow. This drama of absurd ideas increasingly resembles a degenerate political television discussion. It is about marginalised theatre, which has become socially ineffective, cheap television reduced to dull talk shows, and the struggle for survival of people living on the breadline.
“VACA” is a biting social and media satire that has long since become reality in many places. According to Calderón, the basic idea behind the project is to show “how people become fascists without realising it”. He condenses the various levels of his urban parable with text inserts and sound to create a dystopian portrait of society.
Team
Dates
Past
After the performance on 14.10.: Artist Talk moderated by Mariana Hausdorf Andrade
Credits
Production: Fundación Teatro a Mil, ArtsEmerson. Co-production: Goethe-Institut, Noorderzon / Grand Theatre Groningen, Kunstfest Weimar.
Location
HAU1
Stresemannstr. 29, 10963 BerlinThere are two marked parking spots in front of the building. Access to the Parkett by means of a separate entrance with lift when necessary. Barrier-free restroom facilities are available.
