After pain, comes distrust. After La Maison de la force, comes Maudit soit l'homme qui se confie en l'homme : un projet d'alphabétisation, like a consequence of the disaster. For Angélica Liddell, a "paradoxical anarchist," a "sociopath under control," as she defines herself, there is no salvation in society: the stage becomes the space where she "breaks the social pact," where solitary individuals come together to form a group united by the same hatred, the same distrust. Distrust, in its turn, causes the necessity of "renaming the world." This need coincided for Angélica Liddell with learning a new language: French. Hence a title partly taken from the Book of Jeremiah (Cursed be the man that trusteth in man) and partly written in French (un projet d'alphabétisation). The play was imagined as an alphabet primer: each letter is associated with a word that represents a hostile and destructive universe. However, this alphabet does not take us from A to Z. In fact, the play starts at the beginning of the end: "E as in Enfant [Child]." A sentence hovers over the show like a shadow: "I never knew a single child who became a good adult." The alphabet then becomes a game of massacre. Soon comes "L as in Loup [Wolf]." In a pretty forest in painted wood, the little girls who open the show will learn at their cost to enter adulthood. As time passes, the forest becomes peopled with lifeless animals; we discover inert, wounded bodies sculpted by the visual artist Enrique Marty. In Cria cuervos, the film by Carlos Saura, little girls, orphans of their childhood, dressed up as adults, played at pretending to be dead. In Angélica Liddell's show, once they are adults, they play again the killing of their childhood. "He who understands something of the cries of a child knows that fearsome forces lie dormant there," Wittgenstein says in the play. E as in Enfant, L as in Loup, M as in Méfiance [Distrust]. CV
Distribution
text, direction, scenography and costumes Angélica Liddell
sculptures Enrique Marty
lighting Carlos Marquerie
sound Felix Magalhães
choregraphy of tai-chi Angel Martín Costalago
with Fabián Augusto Gómez, Lola Jiménez, Angélica Liddell, Carmen Menager, Gumersindo Puche
and acrobats Xiaoliang Cao, Jihang Guo, Sichen Hou, Haibo Liu, Changsheng Tian
voice over Christilla Vasserot
Production
production Atra Bilis Teatro/Iaquinandi SL
coproduction Festival d\'Avignon, Festival de Otoño en Primavera (Madrid)
avec le soutien du Gouvernement régional de Madrid et de l\'INAEM du Ministère de la Culture espagnol