For 25 years, Tania Bruguera has actively been intervening into political power-relations through her art. Now she is staging Beckett’s ENDGAME inside an 8.5-meter-high cylinder.
The visual artist and activist uses art as a means to change the world. She, for example, founded a political party for migrants, an institute for “artivism” in Havana, petitioned the Pope to give the world’s migrants Vatican citizenship and announced that she would run as candidate for president of Cuba in 2018. Her works have asked recipients to see themselves as political subjects and often brought the artist into conflict with state powers. Thus the Cuba native has become an expert on political and personal power relations, which is powerfully reflected in her first theatrical production. Sixty years after its premiere and 19 years after Bruguera read Samuel Beckett’s ENDGAME for the first time, she has Brian Mendes and Jess Barbagallo perform the one-act play as a concentrated chamber piece for 82 viewers. The scaffolding structure only offers a view of the play, which takes place on the floor of the clinically white cylinder, through holes in a fabric wall. The faces of the audience members thus become part of the impressive set and they sway above the endless power-game between Hamm and Clov as active observers.
Evening Sheet (PDF) available for downlad here.
production BoCA Biennial production management Ana Rita Osório executive producer Francisca Aires. co-production São João National Theatre, Colectivo 84, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Festival d‘Automne à Paris supported by fondation d’entreprise Hermès im Rahmen des Programmes „New Settings“, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Internationales Sommerfestival Kampnagel, Estudio Bruguera.
Acknowledgements: John Romão, Christophe Slagmuylder, Philippe Quesne, The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Harvard College TDM, James Stanley, Achy Obejas, Tricia Van Eyck and the MCA Chicago, Bob Wilson and The Watermill Center, Estudio Bruguera, New York City Players, Nicholas Elliot, Katiana Rangel, Regina Vorria, Alessandra Saviotti.
Funded by the alliance of International production houses by the federal government's representative for culture and the media
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