FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 22, 2017

CONTACT: Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College [email protected] 603.646.3991

Political, rambunctious South American theater has US debut at the Hop, January 5 & 6

HANOVER, NH—Dive headlong into politically outspoken, witty and uproarious Latin American theater with the US debut of one of Chile’s leading experimental companies, Teatro Sur, and the US premiere of its acclaimed original play, Inútiles (Useless), Friday and Saturday, January 5 and 6, 8 pm, in The Moore Theater of the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College.

To help “unpack” the lively and engaged political and theatrical scene Teatro Sur and Inútiles come from, there will be a free pre-show talk entitled “Orientation, Chile!,” before each show, Friday and Saturday, January 5 & 6, 7 pm, in the Top of the Hop Dramaturg and Professor of Spanish Analola Santana and Hop Director of Programming Margaret Lawrence discuss Inútiles, Chilean theater and everything you need to know before the show.

A hit in Santiago’s teeming, rambunctious theater scene and at European festivals, Inútiles mixes satire, magical realism, drag and Baroque opulence to dig into Chile’s Colonial past and the still-persistent societal attitudes it spawned—including conflicts between the government and the indigenous Mapuche people.

Set in an 18th-century frontier hacienda, Inútiles follows an effete, aristocratic family in suffocatingly lavish clothes—headed by a matriarch played in drag by esteemed Chilean actor Tito Bustamante, who won Best Actor 2016 from the Circle of Critics of Chile. Mixing broad comedy with astringent social insights, Inútiles offers a rich, satiric takedown of Colonial racism, debauchery and self-delusion—then and now. The show is in Spanish, with English supertitles, and includes adult language and subject matter and some nudity.

“Provocative, radical, and bold, this overflowing and insidious farce looks…into our past to parody with … provocative sarcasm,” wrote the Chilean publication El Mercurio. Wrote El Desconcierto, “The evening is a metaphor for the existing discrimination in the country in its various forms that have existed since colonialism, and how authoritarianism was embedded in the emergence of the republic...Sexism, classism, racism, homophobia and authoritarianism are exposed by this production…and they shame us.”

The play is also powerfully relevant to the US, past and present, said Hop Programming Director Margaret Lawrence. “The play communicates not only the inequities our two countries were founded on, but the continued issue of who gets to be at the table, and how we judge and treat one another. Through high-flying satire—with references to current events thrown in for good measure—Teatro Sur brilliantly reminds us that grabbing power at the expense of others comes at great price. “

Teatro Sur was founded in 2011 by versatile Chilean theater artist Ernesto Orellana, an actor, author, dramaturge, director and lecturer. Combining creativity with political and artistic theory, Orellana’s and Teatro Sur’s focus is Chile: its history, trauma, conflict and contradictions.

In Inútiles, Orellana purposely create an “overloaded aesthetic” of rich, heavy Spanish Baroque costumes and stage décor. In this overstuffed ambience, an aristocratic family, its servant and the local Catholic priest prepare to sit down to a lavish dinner, unaware that the legions of servants required to serve this ornate feast have run off, leaving the family helpless on their isolated estate. Orellana and Teatro Sur use comedy to expose the absurdity of the ideas that historically have made practices of inequality, racism and xenophobia part of our national identity, say critics.

MORE ABOUT…

Ernesto Orellana Orellana graduated from the University of Chile with postgraduate degrees in the semiotics of culture at the University of Chile and cinematographic screenplay at the Chilean Film School. He has a diploma in drama from the Research Center Teatro la Memoria. He currently teaches at the Universidad Mayor and at the Acting Academy of Fernando González M. He has conducted training courses both inside and outside of Chile, with the support of the Council of Culture and Arts and was a member of the Teatro la Provincia company for eight years, directed by Rodrigo Pérez. Orellana has acted, performed and assisted in several national artistic projects of great artistic success, among them the Chilean National Theater and independent companies.

Chilean Theater The boisterous, innovative and decidedly topical tone of Teatro Sur’s work is representative of the current vitality of Chilean theater. Colonized in the mid-16th century by Spain—who vanquished the Inca in northern and central Chile but failed to subdue the Mapuche in south-central Chile—the country declared independence from Spain in 1818, around the same time the first theater opened its doors in Santiago. Theatrical expression was very much a part of that emerging nationhood, and Chilean theater has been entwined with Chilean politics and history ever since.

In the 19th century Chilean theater arts were modeled after those of Europe, especially Spain and France. Entering the 20th century, however, Chile began to develop its own unique dramaturgy and playwrights, and directors and actors were able to make a living in theater as professionals. In the first half of the 20th Century, the leading edge was the so-called “Teatro Obrero” or Workers’ Theater, a leftist, working-class movement. In the 1950s and thanks to the dynamism of university theater groups, experimental theater gained momentum. Such playwrights as Luis Alberto Heiremans, Egon Wolff and Fernando Debesa incorporated social critique, the recovery of history and folklore into their plays, side by side with personal questing and transcendence. In the 1960s, as with theater in the US and Europe, radical collective creation became the dominant mode—while Chile elected Marxist Salvador Allende as president.

The brutal military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet that ousted Allende in 1973 also cracked down on theater. Theaters closed down, the number of plays performed decreased and audiences shrank as well. Theater artists and scholars were imprisoned, tortured and even assassinated, or went into exile. Productions were hampered by censorship, curfews and space restrictions, along with the dismantling of distribution channels and publicly financed support systems, and even the closing of theatres and drama schools, according to a 2015 article in Theatre Research International. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 1980s, the dictatorship faced massive protests, and had to loosen its policies. As a result, a cultural resurgence began to materialize in marginalized, almost clandestine, spaces. By the fall of the dictatorship in 1990, theater had re-emerged, and a new generation of artists were combining new vocabulary and stage art, film and even multimedia. Today, in Santiago alone, about 200 plays are performed annually, by about 50 large and small theaters ranging in size from 60 to 1,200 seats. The theaters are independently run, Chile having no national or public theaters.

Hopkins Center for the Arts Founded in 1962, “the Hop” is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, celebrating diversity and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. In addition, the Hop continues to mentor young artists, support the development of new work and provide a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.

RELEVANT LINKS http://teatrosur.cl https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/teatro-sur http://eskuelaitinerante.cl/nosotros/

CALENDAR LISTINGS Teatro Sur in Inútiles (Useless) Dive headlong into politically outspoken Latin American theater with the US debut of one of Chile’s leading experimental companies. Set in an 18th-century frontier hacienda, Inútiles follows an effete, aristocratic family—headed by a matriarch played in drag by an esteemed Chilean actor. As the family flails in the face of a servant rebellion, Inútiles offers a rich, satiric takedown of Colonial racism, debauchery and self-delusion— then and now. In Spanish, with English supertitles. Adult language and subject matter; partial nudity. Friday & Saturday, January 5 & 6, 8 pm The Moore Theater, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH $25-35, Dartmouth students $10 Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422

Pre-Show Talk: Orientation, Chile! Dramaturg and Professor of Spanish Analola Santana and Hop Director of Programming Margaret Lawrence discuss Inútiles, Chilean theater and everything you need to know before the show. Friday & Saturday, January 5 & 6, 7 pm Top of the Hop, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH Free Information: 603.646.2010. # # #