VEGETARIAN OFELIA
SYNOPSIS
Ofelia Vegetariana (Vegetarian Ofelia) takes the female character of Hamlet (presented by Shakespeare as an innocent and submissive woman) reinterpreting her from the present: Ofelia is a broken princess, dead in life. Fragments her body in constant trance, allowing the monster that also inhabits her to emerge. Also, the character is immersed in the past, losing herself in a present limbo. She is Ofelia and all the women who precede her, with the root that inhabits that body. In this proposal, she rescues her ancestors: the gypsy, the muslim, the carnivorous. It´s in this sense that meat is recovered (a constant element in the work of the english playwright) and transposed to vegetarianism as conflict and anxiety in today´s Ofelia.
ABOUT THE PLAY
This story is developed in the course of the protagonist by limbo. After drowning in the river, Ofelia wanders between life and death. During this trip, she will search without hope form Hamlet while her father Polonius and her brother Laertes resound in her conscience. Trapped in an eternal autumn, Ofelia rites make her travel through love, passion and authority. Ofelia can stop doing, she doesn´t want to stop being. A lost character, devoured by elements, digging in her own grave to find the reason for her existence.
DATA SHEET
Direction and Performer: Carlota Berzal
Direction and Dramaturgy Assistance: Ricardo Mena
Choreographic Assistance: Rhea Volij
Music: Carlos Lecaros
Illumination Design: Lamberto Arévalo
Costume: Mariana C.R. Suárez
Production: La Turba Company
TRAJECTORY
Artistic Residence 2015. Chevi Muraday´s Losdedae (Alcalá de Henares, Spain)
Artistic Residence 2016. BROTE in Paco Urondo (Buenos Aires).
FAUNA 2017 Argentine Escénika Festival Concepción 2018 Chile
Nuevas Tendencias Festival Mendoza 2018 Argentine
Clasicoff Festival Madrid 2019 Spain
Ciudad Real International Theater, Circus and Dance Festival 2020 Spain
FAKI Festival 2021 Croatia
PRESS
«This artist, trained in contemporary dance, theatre and performing arts, leaves her skin as the only actress of the show in this transformation in the Shakespearean Ophelia, in an interpretation that leads the viewer to feel tear, fury, vindication but, at the same time, fragility, exhaustion and, on some occasion, fear of others and of what may come out of oneself.»
Sonia López- Proyecto Duas
«The protagonist is on stage throughout the play and her body language makes it almost impossible to take her eyes off her. Incidental music, Spanish guitars with flamenco style and also contemporary electronic music, is effective and dynamic as well as the play of light that brings color and strength to the scenes. But ultimately it all comes down to working with the body, highlighting Carlota Berzal’s interesting performance in such a complex and different piece. The rhythm of the work is dizzying and extreme as is Ofelia’s journey through the other world, a non-world, from which she cannot escape and where the denial of death is the only thing she can hold on to.»
Patricia Vázquez – Espectáculos de acá
«In just over forty minutes, Berzal makes us fall in love, we are moved, she takes us wherever she wants, she transmits joy and pain, tenderness and fear. Ofelia is quite a divinity, who says goodbye with her crown of blue lights. A simple and surprising montage, whose protagonist is the body; an original proposal.»
Susana Inés Pérez – En Platea
«To express this feminine rebellion, which sometimes goes purely introspectively, the Sevillian uses all her resources, which are really commendable, starting with some intense facial work that careful lighting approximates what would be the foreground film. The voice is used in different registers, not very systematized, while dance and movement masterfully mark their intentions and the transformation of their emotions, from pain to rage and from this to catharsis.
Its admirable ability to twist and turn on itself and the rustle of its wide clothes tell us about a trip. A flight to nowhere or, perhaps, to the bottom of the chaos that surrounds it. With the mixture of languages that characterizes to his company, La Turba, created in 2014, with which he has created pieces like Filipo and Todo lo que no soy, Carlota Berzal has made a suggestive and highly applauded individual work.»
Rosalía Gómez – Diario de Sevilla
