The History of Ronald, the clown of McDonald's

He could have ended up a butcher like his father, but Rodrigo García chose instead the theatre of the flesh. Rodrigo García grew up in the suburbs of Buenos Aries and left Argentina for Madrid where, since 1989, he's been exploring stage writing, cutting through the consumer society with a scalpel. With his radical way of approaching the stage, of provoking the public without gratuitousness, of generating tension with humour and humanity, the head of the La Carnicería Teatro (The Butcher's Shop Theatre) has rapidly become one of the most widely performed authors in Europe. His drama is not however based on literature, but on the bodies of the actors which are placed in dangerous situations in order to transform and question the existence of consumer objects which shape our daily lives. Rodrigo García was present at the Avignon Festival in 2002 with After Sun and Je crois que vous m'avez mal compris (I Think You Have Misunderstood Me).

L'Histoire de Ronald, le clown de McDonald's (The Story of Ronald, The McDonald's Clown)

Recognizing the weirdness of foodstuffs churned out by the industry of leisure and artifical pleasures. Exposing the harmful side-effects of the sort of education that dulls the sensitivities of young people plunged in a perpetual present time. Reviving the poetry of matter and flesh. In a ritual that is punctuated with angry words, the bodies of the actors fling themselves in the unctuosness of milk, pools of wine and cola, like fish out of water, like birds caught in an oil-slick. Symbol of frenzied consumerism and the bulimia of a world that's hard to digest, the McDonald's clown appears to be an attractive figure who laughs at his misdeeds and his auto-da-fés. The double language of advertising, cheap sentiment, the civilizing propaganda of political power, the tattooing of food and clothing brand names which entrap the children and sap the confidence of the individual in society. Three bragging actors let rip and commentate images of Tom and Jerry or Margaret Thatcher on a stage transformed into a parlour, an over-flow, into a “vomitorium.“ A thousand miles from stage entertainment, this critical and visual performance uses all the tricks of the art of diversion to create sudden surprise or shock in order to escape from a world that has become alien to us.

a proposition of : Rodrigo García
stage direction Rodrigo García
performed by : Rubén Ametllie, Juan Loriente, Juan Navarro
with the participation by : Candela, Nieves, Yago et de la fanfare le Fraisier
lighting : Carlos Marquerie
music : Juan Navarro, Panasonic
costumes : Mireia Andreu
t-shirts : Jaume Martinez et Mecánica.com
video : Javier Marquerie (Buonafedes) after an idea by Rodrigo García
projections : Ramón Diage et Maelstrom.com

coproduction : Citemor 2002 (Montemor-o-Velho, Portugal), La Carnicería Teatro (Madrid), INAEM, Ville de Madrid
avec le soutien de : l'Onda pour les surtitres
texte français publié par : les Solitaires Intempestifs