Theater premieres. The fitness club, a gym where you discover your own and other people’s secrets
Authorship and direction: Lissy Garcia Teppa. interpreters: Flora Auruccio, Fernando Cantora, Yaz Garrido, Nicky Ribers and Klei Labrador. aesthetic advice: Valentina Ortiz Guevara. sports advice: Yaz Garrido. Hall: The Opal, Junín 380. functions: Friday, at 21. Duration: 60 minutes. Tickets: $2,000 per www.alternativateatral.com
Anyone who regularly goes to a gym knows that “cell phone” is not easily abandoned, even if we are about to start a functional training class. But from there to someone locking themselves in the locker room, to connecting with a client to close a deal, through the screen of their tablet, there is perhaps a difference. In the fitness club that happens. And not only that is what causes some fights, which never get older. But the discussion, it is true, also helps to distract and avoid following the teacher in those positions that are more difficult for us. Until, logically, the teacher –a Central American with an enviable body– gets tired and tries to put things in their place, through exaggerated indications in which he reminds his students that there is a large poster on the wall, in which indicates “forbidden to use the cell phone”.
That small device that already seems like an extension of our body, is still a problem and as indicated in a impasse of the class, it’s an addiction. But is this just an addiction in our lives? Or there are many others that hide fears, cowardice, fear of being rejected, or of not wanting to face our emotions, or more feared shortcomings.
Lissy García Teppa, director and author of this proposal, which resembles a fun ping-pong of “I tell you” / “you tell me”, has extensive experience in theater in her country of origin: Venezuela (among other groups, various works years in the ’80 Actoral Group, founded by Juan Carlos Gené, during his Central American exile) and he also trained in our country, with Carlos Ianni, Juan Coulasso, at the Timbre 4 school and much more. This piece that makes her known is sparkling, at times it seems like a game of artifices that make sparks and then evaporate without leaving a trace, or maybe it does. Because that is the game that she proposed to her actors, who, as if they really attended a real fitness club, never sit still on stage. And these entertaining and curious characters fight, seduce each other, look at each other as if they were just going to fight in a boxing match, but nothing gets worse.
The essential thing is to look for the accurate effect of a text, which has its original surprises, such as when the author uses the content of a podcast to put together a sequence, or when it is discovered that one of the boys always tries to be the first in everything, then it will be known why. In the same way that one of the girls seems to be addicted to sex without commitment, while she shows off her statuesquely trained body. And she tries to make another of the boys understand that she is not the one to be her girlfriend, but rather to experience something as simple as having a night of sex with him. Slowly the man doesn’t get the message until he realizes it and ridiculously ends up fainting. But the class must go on. Because the teacher seems to be always plugged into showing different positions so that they copy him, while he does not stop drinking water, another addiction? No, the “sculptural” coach keeps other secrets that will be revealed at the end, like the majority, and they will not fail to take the audience by surprise.
Immersed in a simple scenery that is as practical as it is colorful – a rug made up of small square mosaics – this allows the lighting to bounce off the bodies and faces of these performers, who were very well chosen to give identity to those characters who played them. in luck. The truth is that each one responds with great successes to the characterology of these creatures that, on that board, move as if they were chess pieces. Throughout her narration, the director achieves a dynamic in which the rhythm does not drop at any time, the musical fragments also help a lot. Only at the end, there is a small hint of the game stopping, but that happens because it is at that moment when each one of these characters confesses to the others, what is their addiction, the one that perhaps they did not come to cure. the fitness club, but yes, sharing with others allowed them to become more aware. A self-help proposal? It is not known. The truth is that this is a light piece that entertains and invites you to smile. That is the result of this mischievous proposal by the Venezuelan author and director Lissy García Teppa and her valuable team of interpreters.
