MULTICANCHA
October 2010
Matucana 100 Esplanade
Santiago, Chile
Produced by Teatro de Chile
with the support of Ministerio de las Culturas, las Artes y el Patrimonio de Chile
@JoséAlvear
Why does the weightlifter lift tons of weight every day, training for no pay, while the coalman doesn't even drag an extra sack? Why does rubberizing bags work, and climbing the Mont Blanc sport? Why are millions of dollars invested in cutting-edge technology to raise Olympic records by mere thousandths of a second? What is the point of this useless combat that is sport?
In sport, man experiences the fatal struggle of life, but that struggle is distanced by spectacle, reduced to its forms, freed from its effects, its dangers, and its shame. The sporting struggle is detached from normal life, just as the theatrical struggle is, and for that very reason it stands purely as a symbol.
The sports hero seems to celebrate having defeated his rivals, but he has conquered something much greater. He has defied gravity by climbing the mountain, he has controlled the unpredictable movement of the ball, he has challenged the capabilities of the machine that is his body by jumping higher, throwing farther, running faster: he has overcome the resistance of things. What emerges victorious, in reality, is a certain idea of man and the world, or rather, a certain idea of man in the world. Sport is the spectacle of the body par excellence, and modern sport is the spectacle of performance: it is the ultimate sign of a modern, Cartesian, industrialized idea of man.
For the past few months, Teatro de Chile has been training and competing in a creative process where the actor is merely a player, where the action is play, where creativity is solely tactical and strategic. The players are fixated on the objective, and their bodies form, deform, and reform in pursuit of it. Sport reveals itself as an empty drama whose catharsis promotes efficiency, rejecting the useless, the unproductive, the ambiguous, or the ineffective.
So, from the panting and exhausted player, the question inevitably arises: What would become of me and all this if I let myself lose? What if I throw in the towel? What if I quit, what if I give up, what if I don't perform? What profound rebellion would there be in that?
Credits
Director
Manuela Infante.
Set, Light, and Costume Design
Claudia Yolin.
Sound Design
Cristobal Carvajal.
Manuela Infante.
Set, Light, and Costume Design
Claudia Yolin.
Sound Design
Cristobal Carvajal.
Cast
Jorge Arecheta, Ariel Hermosilla, Deby Kaufmann, Yasna Kusanovic, Daniel Marabolí, María José Parga, Juan Pablo Peragallo, Nicole Senerman, and Nicolai Stifel.
Jorge Arecheta, Ariel Hermosilla, Deby Kaufmann, Yasna Kusanovic, Daniel Marabolí, María José Parga, Juan Pablo Peragallo, Nicole Senerman, and Nicolai Stifel.
Production
Cristián Carvajal, Héctor Morales, and Constanza Moreno.
Graphic Design
Javier Pañella.
Cristián Carvajal, Héctor Morales, and Constanza Moreno.
Graphic Design
Javier Pañella.
Production
Teatro de Chile.
With the support of
Chilean Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage.
Teatro de Chile.
With the support of
Chilean Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage.
Trailer