Fernando Arrabal: The Burial of the Sardine

Ash Wednesday, the last day of carnival festivities. The Burial of the Sardine takes place. Anything is possible today.   

He stands by the window in his room. While being tied by a chain sunken into the wall, he is speaking of Altagora and Lis. He narrates about their visits, how they took care of him, taught him and also tortured him. Neither the circumstances nor the reason of his imprisonment is revealed, just like his identity. In a repetitive rhythm, we are merely looking into the individual episodes featuring various relations in which psychic violence and sexual sadism establish a peculiar comic. His infantile mentality guides us to questions on freedom and condemnation. Yet the dialogue only provides limited answers. Dramatic tension creates contrast between the private world of erotic slavery and the minimal need for escape. The escalated instinctive fantasies are depicted as a form of love.   

Arrabal's text cannot be perceived as a reality somehow distanced from our world. We search for a reality merely extending our lives. At the moment of its emergence, every thought and every vision becomes just as genuine as the world system we have generally agreed upon as humans. The traditional world can become just as unrealistic as any other fantasy. We become fascinated with the innocent character of the main hero who deals even with the most devious situations with a lucid simplicity and offers surprising perspectives on how to perceive things around us. His crystal-clear unbiased view expands the perception surpassing our vigilance and dreaming. For this very reason, the artistic ensemble is not only consisting of theater-makers, but to the same extent also of performers, artists, and musicians who bring various ways of perception of time and space into play.   

The carnival festivities end. “Two skeleton creatures pass right under my window. Each one carries a coffin: Altagora – seemingly lifeless – lies in one; Lis is smiling at me from the other one.” The world ended upside down. Together with the sardine, human past had been buried. The Lent period begins with faith that the world may become a better place.

director: Apolena Vanišová 
stage design: Klára Syrůčková, Zuzana Sceranková
movement supervision: Jan Bárta 
music: Petr Skala 
light design: Petr Krusha 
dramaturgy: Matěj Samec 
production: Magda Juránková 

cast: Dora Bouzková, Jakub Gottwald, Petr Krusha, Adriana Kubištová Máčiková, Johana Schmidtmajerová, Petr Skala

opening: September 19, 2017 at MeetFactory

Tickets:  
200 CZK
120 CZK students 

Tickets reservation via rezervace.divadlo@meetfactory.cz 

MeetFactory is supported in 2017 by a grant from the City of Prague amounting to 10.000.000 CZK.