Fermín Cabal's Tejas Verdes
[site-specific] Tanner Street Warehouse (Ugly Duck) - April 2017
[site-specific] Streatham Hill Old Theatre as part of Women And War Festival - 8th - 22nd July 2017
Director: Emily Louizou
Music Composition: David Denyer
Designer: Adelaide Green
Movement: Ioli Filippakopoulou
Lighting Design: Guido Garcia Lueches
Producer: Rachel Horowitz
Translator: Robert Shaw
Stage Manager: Alex Karavia
Assistant Designer: Cara Evans
Graphics Design: Elif Tanmar
Marketing: Karima Sam
Video: Lucy Hickling
Photography: Konstantinos N. Papaoikonomou
Cast: Ava Pickett, Evelyn Lockley, Susan Hoffman, Hayley Hirsch, Frances Keyton
The most important human right is the right to life itself. And then prohibition to torture follows. No human being could argue the opposite. But what happens when the wrong people are found – or even elected – in the wrong positions?
Fermín Cabal’s play is a haunting and compelling piece of art about humanity’s brutal ability to cause pain and horror. Tejas Verdes, an idyllic seaside resort is turned into a torture camp during General Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile. The play focuses on the story of one woman, Colorina, who comes to symbolise the 3,000 who were violently killed during the Pinochet regime that lasted from 1973 to 1990.
Forty-four years after the coup, we felt the need to tell this story again. Violating vital human rights should not be acceptable. Forty-four years later, we wonder whether our world has changed much.
The time is the present – or even the future? – and the place could be any country. We invite you to join us in this old warehouse on Tanner Street as part of Ugly Duck’s new creative season to celebrate the importance of human rights and freedom.
Read more about the play on director’s blogpost here: https://collidetheatre.com/blog-2/
Read Emily Louizou’s interviews about the play at Performance Reviewed and Savage.
What the critics said:
★★★★ – LondonTheatre1
With Tejas Verdes, Collide Theatre have again put together and presented a first-rate show which works on many levels. A fascinating and thought-provoking piece!
★★★★★ – Playstosee
The acting by every cast member is phenomenal. This production’s stripped-back approach is ideal, treating the text with sensitivity and never tipping over into melodrama.Tejas Verdes was important in 2004, but it is no less important now – and this muted production, which lets Cabal’s work take centre-stage, easily lives up to its task.
★★★★ - Everything Theatre
'Excellent! The acting is impressively strong and Tejas Verdes succeeds entirely in its outcry for the respect of human rights!'
★★★★ - Performance Reviewed
An excellent, pitch-perfect production. It it both brutal and beautiful, and never maudlin. In such close quarters, Louizou and her talented cast confronts us with the pain and suffering; and pose uncomfortable questions about how, as individual and society, we forbear and acquiesce to such abhorrent deeds. A challenging experience that offers both grim portent and the hope of human perseverance – but it is up to us to decide which…
The British Theatre Guide:
The performance is intensely intimate and moving as a strong cast of actors speak from among the audience. The words are poetic, direct, and engaging. They never fail to hold our attention.
A Younger Theatre:
Director Emily Louizou has found the perfect space for Tejas Verdes… Louizou’s promenade staging works to great effect in conveying the sense of a disturbing visit to a shadowy museum of prison cells.
SAVAGE:
Watching Emily Louizou’s production, the effort undertaken to remain cognisant of the lives lost and trauma lived is almost palpable, and it is this fact that grounds the piece and makes it what it is: frankly, breath-taking."
New Version - July 2017
