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Manda patibularia (1997)
  • Title: Manda patibularia
  • Holdings: photo gallery, video (HIDVL)
  • Duration: 01:32:03
  • Date: 1997
  • Location: Teatro La Candelaria, Bogotá, Colombia.
  • Type-Format: play, performance
  • Cast: César Badillo, Fernando Peñuela, Rafael Giraldo, Fanny Baena, Nohora Ayala, Francisco Martínez, Hernando Forero, Fernando Mendoza, Patricia Ariza, Liliana Ruiz, Fabio Velazco, Santiago García.
  • Credits: Santiago García, writer, director ; Teatro La Candelaria, producer, collective creation ; Freddy Vargas, videographer ; Hernando Rodríguez, graphic design, set design, props, costumes ; Carlos Robledo, lighting design ; Hernando Forero, music.

Manda patibularia (1997)

Inspired by Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Invitation to a Beheading", Teatro La Candelaria's play follows the last moments of a man condemned to death penalty. He is going to be beheaded but he does not know when. The prisoner is obsessed with the date of his execution and asks every visitor about this. Everybody, including the warden, hides this information from him. The prisoner is alternatively visited by the warden's daughter, his own mother, a new inmate, and by the warden; even a group of ghosts or visions haunts him. Amidst the nightmarish, carnivalesque ebbs and flows of visitors, the protagonist acts as a deluded philosopher. He alternates obsessive references to the date of his execution with deep (albeit weird) philosophical reflections. Faithful to their traditional exploration of marginal subjects, La Candelaria chooses as main character a true anti-hero, an underdog trapped in the power games of society.


Video