Banal

“Words are useless when they are not accompanied by the right outfit and purse,” say a group of good women who are on the street on stage, while they debate the importance of the figure and heels.

Banal, or what were you thinking while they demolished you is the latest work by the philosopher, playwright and academic, Mauricio Barría (El ínfimo suspiro, El peso de la puridad) who wrote this play thanks to a scholarship support of the Book and Reading Promotion Fund.

The montage portrays a fascist and patriarchal society, where women are for sale to the highest bidder.  They are characters that could be possible prostitutes, television entertainers competing for a better position, or women obsessed with operating on their bodies to climb the ranks in society.

The work does not intend to tell any story. Each scene or painting is a different moment where the three actresses are supported by singers from the female citizen choir. 

Banality, in this case, has to do with the justifications that women make for their situation for an hour.  It is a miscellany of topics about them, a kind of Chilean morning show, where nothing matters and where the subject dissolves. 

For the playwright Mauricio Barría, "violence against women in our society does not respond only to direct force against bodies (femicide and rape). Perhaps the most common violence is the one that unfolds silently and that ends up seeming extremely natural and obvious to all of us. A case of this is the reduction of the female subject to its condition of pure body," he comments.

"I was interested in directing this play because of its form and its freedom. to interpret it. It is perhaps the most complex work that I have had to direct, it is a demanding job for a different work. It invites us to listen, not to a story, but to texts, concepts, ideas, words and through that each one will be able to make their own journey," says director Heidrun Breier.

Dramaturgy and production Mauricio Barría
Direction Heidrun Breier
Cast Soledad Henríquez, Ana Laura Racz and Emilia Cadenasso
Sound/music design Pablo Aranda
Lighting and set design Andrés Poirot
Costume design Chino González
Graphic Eduardo Cerón
Choir Constanza Guarda, Gabriela Hidalgo, Wendy Sarah Taylor, Cecilia Saavedra, Carola Giesen, Edith Díaz, Patricia Ulloa, María Ignacia Parra, Tamara Zapata, Ángela Ramirez, Luna Jadue, Mariela Lira.