Neva
Chile
Director: Guillermo Calderón
Cast: Paula Zúñiga, Trinidad González and Jorge Eduardo Becker
With the collaboration of Festival Santiago a Mil
Duration: 80 min.
19 Jun 2010 - 21:30 | 20 Jun 2010 - 21:30
Grande Auditório
Chilean theatre is, together with Argentinean theatre, one of the most creative forces on the Latin American scene, having also created a vocal technique that is peculiar to it alone. It is mainly a theatre of words and text, being largely based on the work of the actor, with little attention being paid to scenographic mannerisms, and still living very much from its constant revisiting of Chile’s recent political history.
Yet its approaches can also demonstrate a unique sophistication. One of the best examples of this is the work "Neva", staged by Guillermo Calderón and probably the best new play to be premièred in South America in 2008. On a winter’s evening in 1905, in a city overlooking the River Neva, three actors are to be found rehearsing in a ring measuring 4 square metres. One of them is the famous actress Olga Knipper, the widow of the recently deceased Chekhov. Olga blames herself for having left the playwright alone far too often during his illness, and the other actors help her to rehearse his play, The Cherry Orchard. They talk at length about the techniques and the beauty of the theatre, while at the same time “Bloody Sunday” is taking place around them, a day when the Tsar’s forces killed hundreds of workers. In the year when the 150th anniversary of the birth of Anton Chekhov is being celebrated, we can appreciate the way in which Chilean theatre has appropriated one of the cult European stage directors.