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“Works by Carlota Gaviño and Íñigo Rodríguez-Claro are always luminous, they have a spectacular sense of staging and they play with the movements of actors in a hypnotic fashion”.

Luis Muñoz Díez, Revista Tarántula

Based on the text by Valle-Inclan, La lámpara maravillosa (The Lamp of Marvels), grumelot blends physical and virtual experiences: a car driven by an actor and occupied by a limited number of viewers begins a six-hour journey from Teatro de La Abadía to the hills of Madrid. Simultaneously an audiovisual team transforms this journey into a digital experience for 90 viewers that experience this movement from stillness in their homes. The original music composed by José Pablo Polo and Valle-Inclan’s text map the show in time while the car moves through space and makes occasional stops: in an open-air space with sound installation, in a hermitage where an actress awaits us, in a theatre where an actor explores the possibilities of language.

grumelot thus creates two shows in one: a travelling show through the cultural heritage of the Region of Madrid and a livestreamed virtual experience that uses digital platforms to establish an intimate and personal contact with each viewer who connects by means of their screen, who are offered the chance to travel without leaving their home.

In any case, The Lamp of Marvels is a journey: a spiritual road trip through the dusk and towards night in a tour of the cultural heritage of the area: a mystical road that -in the words of Cage- “leaves enough space and time for contemplation”. grumelot carries out an intervention on the landscape and silence to generate a serene reflection in these hyper-accelerated times through Valle-Inclan’s Lamp of Marvels.

According to the company: “this project was born out of our fascination with Valle-Inclan’s text. It’s one of those masterpieces that we revisit again and again, and every time it gives us different readings that are directly linked to our present. The Lamp of Marvels is an iconic work, a worthy successor to the great mystics ranging from those of the medieval age to the avant-garde theosophists, where the author reflects on the capacity of language and therefore also on his inability to reveal reality. From this crossroads of life and art, Valle-Inclan offers us an aesthetic ideal that appears to speak of a remote place, from another time and yet it may appear more relevant, more necessary to us. Through his words, Valle-Inclan invites us to stop, to be quiet, to quiet ourselves, to quiet ourselves together. Or at least to hear the music of words, their sounds, to hear the sounds of our reality, of the nature that surrounds us”.

They continue: “The Lamp of Marvels is a lighted book, a continuation of the ideas of the great mystics, relevant and pertinent in these fleeting times when time and words are the currency of exchange. For us, this work is an opportunity to pause, a beautiful opportunity shared between the actors and viewers in a moment where perhaps more than ever we desire contact, proximity and the communion that theatre can offer”.

Practical information

• Travelling theatre
  Departure from el Teatro de La Abadía
• 14, 15, 21, 22, 28 and 29 November, 12:00 – 18:30

Full information on the show Ticket sales

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