Have you been to Madrid? You’ll certainly want to once you’ve dipped into some of the theatrical tapas being served up at London’s home of Spanish drama, the Cervantes Theatre in March.
In March, the Cervantes Theatre presents a mini-season of imports from the Spanish capital under the title Madrid is a Female Name, sponsored by Madrid Destino.
Over the next four successive Saturdays – 2, 9, 17 and 23 March 2019 – the Cervantes will host four solo plays written and performed by women: Maria Folguera‘s La Blanca, Laila Ripoli‘s Descarriadas, Noelia Adanez and Valeria Alonso‘s Gloria and Una Habitación Propia, Maria Ruiz‘s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.
Each of the four plays is performed in Spanish and for one night only by, respectively, Anahi Beholi, Luna Paredes, Ana Rayo and Clara Sanchis. Season artwork created by Javier de Juan.
Cervantes Theatre associate director and co-founder Paula Paz, who is also from Madrid, commented:
“Madrid’s cultural scene is alive, just like the city itself, and we want to offer an international platform for our female artists and creators to show their work in London, a city where culture and entrepreneurship are part of the DNA.
“March is the month chosen by the Cervantes Theater to showcase the cultural excellence of female creators who work and live in Madrid. We have the pleasure of welcoming four companies from Madrid to perform four plays written and performed by women as part of our Madrid is a Female Name season, generously sponsored by Madrid Destino.”
How well do you know Madrid?
Madrid is the capital of Spain and the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, with a population of 3.2 million.
The cultural, as well as the political and economic, centre of the country, its many landmarks and top tourist attractions include the Royal Palace, the Prado and Reina Sofia Museums, the National Library, Buen Retiro Park, the Cibeles Palace and Fountain, the Sun Gate and the El Rastro street market. For more information on the city, visit Madrid Destino.
Programme
Written by Maria Folguera, performed by Anahi Beholi
Anahí Beholi asks herself: What happens when your parents are hippies from Ibiza, your grandmothers, one is Guinean and the other is Catalan, your grandfather is a German landowner and you are an actress whom nobody knows how to define?
La Blanca is theatre disguised as a chat, with aspirations to be a monologue and a desire for confession. On stage, a heroine and a choir, tragedy with true perspective, comedy.
Written by Laila Ripoli, performed by Luna Paredes
A rock concert, a woman and her memories. Memories of a time, not too long ago, where this woman was driven to cloak herself in guilt. She was stigmatised by the rest, punished by the moral of the time, robbed by her own carers and subjected to silence. A silence that now becomes a scream.
The show is born from that need to talk about that part of recent history that has been silenced in Spain: The abuses by the Woman Protection Board.
Written by Noelia Adanez & Valeria Alonso, performed by Ana Rayo
Gloria enters her dressing room overwhelmed by the noise made by her young fans who terrify her. Someone else follows her in with whom the poet starts a dialogue, full of memories, tenderness and fun. Among her dream-like memories, she recalls her first day of class on Spanish poetry at a North American university in 1961: Gloria was at her intellectual zenith, ready to start teaching, writing and loving…This is theatre about women, written, directed and performed by women.
adapted from Virginia Woolf by Maria Ruiz, performed by Clara Sanchis
“…There is no gate, no lock, no padlock that you can impose on my freedom of thought.”
A writer gives a lecture to her young students in 1928. Her ironic and sharp words are the vivid account of a discovery: if a woman wants to devote herself to literature, she needs money and a room of her own. Only nine years before women were granted the right to vote.
