TOT

Teatro Niño Proletario (Chile) - El Otro

Is it possible for love to blossom and endure inside the walls of a psychiatric institution? With that

question in mind, director Luis Guenel Soto and the actors of Teatro Niño Proletario visited several

Chilean ‘loony bins’. They had already gained an initial impression of such places after studying

the impressive book El infarto del Alma (‘Heart Attack of the Soul’) by photographer Paz Errazuriz:

distressing images of a dismal existence in cold, cheerless surroundings and inhumane conditions.

In El otro (‘The Other’), a varied company of seven actors – young, old, tall, short, heavyset, thin –

presents a theatrical version of that life, full of seemingly uncontrolled impulses, but actually according

to very tight stage directions. Distorted postures, groaning, nervous squirming, resigned lethargy,

feverish, incomprehensible actions, vacant or downright possessed expressions, and sometimes, like

a bright light in the darkness, the consolation of love.

Guenel, who is considered to be one of the greatest talents of Chilean theatre, thus seems to be a

soulmate of the Fleming Alain Platel. The latter’s language of movement (‘’bastard dance’, as Platel

himself calls it) is also based on the motorics of psychiatric patients. And just like Platel, Guenel too

explores the theme of emotional survival in a cold and tough world. In previous works as well, Teatro

Niño Proletario, co-founded by Guenel, has demonstrated social and political engagement, with

performances about the position of social outcasts.

Photos