sheep story, Fabio Rubiano’s comedy about land theft and the forced eviction of peasants was the most exciting production scheduled for Madrid in 2024. Most of the Matadero audience ended up crying instead of laughing. rabbit lips, The work, written and directed by the Colombian writer in 2015, was performed last November 1 at the Ibero-American Festival in Cadiz, and now at the Madrid Autumn Festival, and tells the story of the relationship between paramilitary commanders and the memories of their victims.
Ten years after the film’s premiere, Salvatore Mancuso, a counterinsurgent under investigation for 75,000 crimes committed under his command in Colombia’s agricultural sector, has returned home after serving a prison term in the United States (he said he was extradited in 2008 to avoid disclosing possible links between Uribe’s government and other presidents and paramilitary groups). This work has a second reading. Many are holding out hope that gyrfalcons like Mancuso will be turned into peacekeepers by the current government and uncover the full truth of the fight against the guerrillas, identifying as many victims, mass graves and stolen property as possible so that peace can be built through justice and reconciliation.
The main character of this work is, to be precise, a victim in exile who is plagued by a succession of victims. At first he tries to deny them, but the chorus of the murdered peasants and their animals, not dark at all, but funny, bright, and wonderful, dissuades him that it is a hallucination. Among those who asked not to be named to avoid appearing on the list is a heart-wrenching mother portrayed energetically by Marcela Valencia, co-founder with Mr. Rubiano of Teatro Petra, the production company behind both films.
The writer and actor who plays Salvo Castello uses Mancuso’s actual speech in his fiction, and his character’s proper name alludes to it. There is a healthy and extremely dark humor running through his works, and behind it there is an urgent need to repair the damage that has been done. There is a sense of familiarity between this work and coast and fire, Wajdi Mouawad, Poetics of the Text, Final Analysis, Against the naturalness in which relations between the living and the dead arise.
“Rabbit lip.” Words and direction: Fabio Rubiano. Madrid. Canal Theatre, November 14th and 15th.
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