Entrañas

Have you ever asked yourself what’s underneath all of this? All this flesh, and inside your body... That is the driving question of this delicate, fragile, poetic show by the Riojan theatre company El Patio Teatro. Since 2010, they have been bringing stories inspired in the everyday but go deeper in the search for meaning and understanding. They put on display the surprises we are blind to because of our desensitisation to ‘normality’. After having had the pleasure of enjoying the shows A mano, Conservando memoria and HUBO,you realise these are not just short stories relevant to a few, as it initially appears, but rather relevant to many. They use language and their learnings to create a piece to enjoy as they leave their artistic fingerprints in the theatre community. Izaskun Fernández and Julián Sáenz López, both from El Patio Teatro, use a language that takes refuge in the objects and bring out the life stored right in front of our eyes.

A journey to our insides. This is how they describe the journey taken through Entrañas. Who didn’t ask these questions as a kid? Where do bodies go when we die? What are we made of inside? To be is to be a body? Philosophy and religion has spent centuries spinning tales of our insides and what is stored in the heart and soul of our flesh. A mystery yet to be solved. It extracts a child’s natural curiosity about their own bodies and what goes on inside them. “Children’s bodies are the purest of them all, unblemished by sin and nesting the vitals of life.”, says Santiago Alba Rico as he recalls times playing with his own children and how their bodies were vessels of life.

Entrañas, a powerful lesson in anatomy, was the very deserving winner of the Drac D’or Award for Best Set Design at the latest Feria de Títeres de Lleida. This is a box of surprises where there are secret compartments and boxes to open all hiding the secrets to our body. Old drawings sketched by hand dating back to the days before Marie Curie and x-rays give us an insight into the questions asked throughout the performance. An infinite and complicated map to get lost in provides a blueprint to search for answers to our existence. Bones, bones, you’re just bones sewn together with a bit of flesh.

This performance will take you on a journey, but you will be left with more questions than answers. What is a human body? What are we? Who or what gives this much life to this amount of living matter? Poetic and scientific language intertwine with one another in a poetic way throughout the show giving magic and culminating in the mystical moment when the heartbeat speaks of love. A precious journey to a world of unknowns asking deep and meaningful questions about our bodies and our existence. It creates a beauty brought to life on the stage that makes one really reflect. El Patio Teatro has proven itself to be one of Spain’s best theatre companies for object theatre performances; this work is a testament to that statement. You are lucky to be able to see them once again at this year’s Festival de Otoño in the Espacio Abierto.