Honor

Honor (Solange Lackington) and George (Bastián Bodenhöfer) have been married for 32 years. She is a successful writer, and he is a renowned columnist. They understand each other perfectly well and apparently everything is going well between them, until one day he announces that he is going to leave her for another younger woman (Magdalena Müller). 

This is how Honor begins, the disturbing work by Australian playwright Joanna Murray–Smith, originally premiered in 1995 at the Playbox Theater in Melbourne, which comes to GAM for the first time, after being presented as a production of the Zoco Center for the Arts.  

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald in 2003, the author commented that Honor was born from her need to explore the tensions that arise when women make sacrifices to be true to themselves and those they love. “It is a work about the search for identity and the struggle of women to maintain their sense of self in a world that often defines them only by their family roles,” she commented. 

“The play is an emotional journey that confronts the audience with their own beliefs about loyalty and love,” the playwright told Australian media The Age. The British newspaper The Guardian added that "Murray-Smith's writing is sharp and insightful, capturing the friction of modern relationships."

Almost 20 years after its world premiere, the text continues to offer a powerful reflection on female empowerment. For director Jesús Urqueta, the challenge was to build a stage proposal that generates links with the questions that the text raises about love, desire, fidelity and the passage of time, taking them to an intimate, ethical and honest place in relation to acting work and the bond with the public.

“The work stresses concepts such as fidelity, freedom and loyalty, from the intimate experience of a couple of many years faced with an unexpected breakup. In a present where certainties have become fragile and traditional models of love are in crisis, it seems urgent to put these questions on stage without seeking answers, but rather opening a space of discomfort, doubt and sensitivity," comments the director.

Bastián Bodenhöfer, in an interview in Culturizarte, commented: "It is a realistic play, but not everything is served. There are many things that are between the lines. First, the actor has to understand those between the lines, so that the audience also understands and discovers those between the lines. So it is an exercise that one does with the audience, and that makes the play interesting as well."

The translation of the text was carried out by Rodrigo Olavarría, Tamara Figueroa AS in the set design and Loreto Monsalve in costumes. The visual atmosphere is enhanced by lighting by Andrés Poirot and original music by Marcello Martínez.

"It is a work that is built from the human, from the real, without artifice. The public will witness a bond that is transformed — and perhaps, in that process, they can also confront their own ways of loving," concludes Urqueta.

Dramaturgy: Joanna Murray–Smith | Translation: Rodrigo Olavarría | Director: Jesús Urqueta | Cast: Solange Lackington, Bastián Bodenhöfer, Magdalena Müller, Octavia Bernasconi. | Set design: Tamara Figueroa AS | Costume design: Loreto Monsalve | Lighting: Andrés Poirot | Music: Marcello Martínez

A production of the Zoco Center for the Arts