IATI THEATER Presents
Los Columpios
(The Swings)
As part of the Fall 2015 Season
“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.”
“ A play you can’t talk your way out of.”
Performances November 6-29, 2015
LOS COLUMPIOS is IATI Theater’s fall 2015 production; an absurdist tragicomedy about a man and a woman avoiding what they must do: talk about themselves. Presented in Spanish with English supertitles, the show will run from Thursday, November 7th to Sunday, November 29th. Performances are at 8 PM and 3PM and will take place at IATI THEATER (64 East 4th Street, Manhattan). The regular ticket price is $30 general, $25 for students and senior citizens with ID. For tickets and more information, visit www.iatitheater.org.
LOS COLUMPIOS was part of IATI’s Cimientos 2014 Play Developing Series. It was then chosen to be produced because it represents the imaginative and creative minds of the IATI mission. A man and a woman meet in a playground. What might seem like a chance meeting soon becomes fragmented dialogue of two people who know one another too well and who fear getting hurt. So they talk about everything and nothing in particular, anything to avoid talking about themselves or each other. Los Columpios is an absurdist tragicomedy that delves into romantic relationships from a different perspective.
“By writing Los Columpios I wanted to investigate the seemingly unavoidable silences in a couple. The importance of the words they don’t dare to say to each other and, at the same time, the hidden truths behind the words they choose to utter,” states Roger Simeon, the playwright from Barcelona, Spain.
“There is a great deal of humor in the interaction between the two main characters as well with their interaction with the surrounding world. While avoiding to have the conversation they are supposed to have, they talk about everything (and I really mean everything) following the paths of Ionesco, Beckett and Pinter. Which is no other than the path of real life, full of its absurdities and its odd connections of ideas,” declared Winston Estevez, IATI’s Artistic Director.
“The play takes as its basis, the conflict of language. How can something that is essentially made purely out of difference be able to conjure and assume the duty of holding together the most essential parts of who we are? The short answer is they can’t, and it’s this play that essentially explores that failure. Two people, an ex-married couple, using the power of words to have a conversation that even they are not aware they are having,” said Julián J. Mesri, director of the piece.
BIOS
Roger Simeon | Playwright
Winner of several playwriting contests in Catalan and Spanish, in 2011 Roger Simeon staged his first full play, Tu i Jo which toured around Barcelona for almost two years. After that, followed You and Me (English version of Tu i Jo) produced by Little Soldier Productions, Economia fàcil: entrevista al senyor Rocamora (play about the economical recession affecting Spain, its origins and consequences.) and Els Convidats, both produced by Teatre Clavé. He worked as director’s assistant for the play Avui és gairebé mai. And now he is involved in the production of his third full-length play, Illusions. Besides these professional staging of his plays, he has also been awarded several prizes and recognition for his texts, mainly short stories, but also for plays (both in Catalan and Spanish) like Premi Boira, Textos Vila de Gràcia, Teatre Breu Inicia’t, Dramaturgo José Moreno Arenas. http://rogersimeon.com
JULIÁN J. MESRI | Director
New York-based Argentinean-American director, playwright and composer. His pieces are fresh and funny philosophical laboratories that explore the challenges modern life and the slipperiness of historical memory by refracting them through a stylistic and musical lens, encouraging the audience to enter into a multi-faceted relationship with the work. His production of Lope de Vega’s “Fuenteovejuna” at Repertorio Español won the 2013 Gilberto Saldivar Outstanding Production HOLA Award and two ACE Award nominations for Classical Theatre productions. Other recent work includes a production of Mar Gomez Glez’s 39 Defaults and an adaptation of “The Weavers” with Pace University’s International Performance Ensemble, showing in May 2014 at the Accidental Festival in the UK.
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