“Boris is a master of the sinister. What happens before the spectator is real. He does, of course, have a team of admirable actors. They embody their creatures in such a fashion that it is impossible to think of it as fiction. The theatre of Sergio Boris is a must-see. No commentary could explain what occurs onstage. Antonin Artaud himself would applaud this Artaud”.

Otra Trama - Canal 7, Osvaldo Quiroga

Considered one of the most essential creators of Buenos Aires, the director, playwright and actor Sergio Boris makes his first visit to the Autumn Festival with his show Artaud in 2019, after a roaring success that lasted five seasons in the Teatro Beckett in Buenos Aires. His first play La Bohemia won the first Premio Nacional de las Artes in Argentina. Since then, he has staged plays such as El Syndrome, El sabor de la derrota and the much lauded Viejo, solo y puto, which have made the rounds of some of the most representative festivals and stages of Latin America and Europe.

In Artaud which arrives at Sala Cuarta Pared by virtue of the 37th Autumn Festival at the end of November, Boris takes as reference the letters written by the French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud to his doctor from the sanatorium in Rodez.

He explores, from a narrative somewhat closer to our times, the reality of an old psychiatric hospital in decay, now converted into a parking lot. "We wanted to avoid all references to Artaud. We just stole certain signs from his life. And we began to improvise, to develop connections in the search for an autonomous world that could move between pain and ridicule", states Boris.

During the show, in keeping with dramatic comedy, the audience follows the heart-wrenching decay of a psychiatric institution located in front of a party hall, with a series of characters that co-exist within a mad, sordid and violent context. They are confronted both with the uncertain future of the asylum and police violence as well as nostalgia for electroshock therapy in a sort of interminable party.

The newspaper Clarín praised it in the following terms: "Sergio Boris transports us into a world at the edge of madness, with characters who are completely alienated and expelled from the system, and who create their own rules. A work that compels us to ask ourselves as viewers, at what moment does the human being abandon sanity to forever live outside reality?" As Boris himself states: "we're interested in building a new lie on top of the lie that's imposed on us. With the desire that comes of resentment. To speak of a world where the insane are suppressed and given up for dead".

Practical information

• Sala Cuarta Pared
• 26, 27 & 28 November, 21.00

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