Si el rio hablara (If the river talked): Note in English
Last night I saw Si el río hablara (If the river talked), at the Teatro La Candelaria, on the opening night of Festa 2018, the Festival de Teatro Alternativo. Directed by César Badillo, a long-time company member, and a remarkable actor. Four human cast members and maybe a dozen muñecos, dolls or mannequins, corpses, bodies.
A poetic meditation on all the bodies thrown into Colombia’s rivers, especially the Magdalena and the Cauca, during all the years of violence. It takes place mostly underwater, in a kind of junkshop purgatory full of drifting detritus, a chaotic place given a little bit of order and care through the efforts of women who live near the rivers and try to recover the bodies and treat them with dignity.
Si el río hablara was originally produced in 2013, a collaborative creation by the company, based on its investigations into the idea of the body in theatre and into the history of bodies in the rivers of Colombia. It’s now one of the eight productions in Teatro Candelaria’s repertory.
