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IDOMENEO


July 2018
GAM
Santiago, Chile

Coproduced byCentro Gabriela Mistral (GAM)

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@JorgeSánchez

Manuela Infante stages Roland Schimmelpfennig´s Idomeneus. An electronic spoken concert staring Paulina García, that explores the ideas of sacrifice, power, and tragedy. 

According to Greek myth, Idomeneus, king of Crete, was sailing home after 10 years at war in Troy when he found himself in a terrible storm. To save himself, he promised to sacrifice the first living being he encountered on land. Seventy-nine boats sunk and he was the only survivor. However, the first human he met when he got to dry land was his own son.

Acclaimed director Manuela Infante, one of the most important voices in Chilean theater, brings this version by German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig to the stage, in a production that stands somewhere between a theatrical story telling and an electronic music concert. “The actress is not a choir, because she is only one person, but she acts like one: she is here to voice an event, to sing it. Like a front woman”, says Infante.

The piece recalls the idea that tragedy evolved from ancestral sacrificial rites. In them, feelings of horror, guilt and remorse crystalized in symbolic acts by means of which human beings tried, over and over again, to restore the broken balance caused by bloodshed. This form of ritualized killing articulated the fear of death and the frenzy of killing, in a shared experience of commotion and guilt that strived to reestablish a deep respect for death, preventing humans from destroying one another in autocratic ways.

Inspired by Nietzsche’s idea that the origin of tragedy is found in music, Infante puts Paulina García and musician Diego Noguera on stage, to invoke –by means of this ‘spoken concert’- notions of tragedy, sacrifice, war and power. Who must die? By the hands of whom? And, who has the right to kill, or to dispose of another's life? To administer another’s death?




Credits


Director 
Manuela Infante.

Dramaturgy
Roland Schimmelpfennig.

Cast 
Paulina García.

Sound Design and Music 
Diego Noguera.

Complete Design 
Claudia Yolín.
Lighting Programming Advisor 
Pablo Mois.

Technical Advisor 
Carlos Mangas.

Executive Production 
Paulina García.

Production Director
Carmina Infante.
Co-producción: Centro Gabriela Mistral (GAM)

With the support of: Goethe Institut - Santiago, Deustch - Chilenischen Bund, Oxiluz, Tada.



Trailer


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