"I got up at four in the morning and it was worth it": Angélica Liddell causes discomfort and fainting spells on Temporada Alta

GironaIn these times of virtual queues and Tickets that disappear in a few minutesThe Temporada Alta festival experienced an unusual situation at the end of summer: tickets for the two performances of the show Seppuku. Mishima's funeral Tickets for Angélica Liddell's show sold out in just four minutes. "I thought the system was malfunctioning. It's never happened to us before," explains Narcís Puig, director of the Girona festival. The feat was even more remarkable because the artist was inviting the audience to the Salt Theatre at an unusual hour: 5:30 in the morning, both for the premiere of the work this Saturday and for the performance this Sunday.

Braving the freezing cold and the still-sleepy streets, the nearly 200 lucky people who managed to get tickets this Saturday hoped to find a unique experience behind the theater doors. "It could be fabulous, or maybe he's just pulling our leg." Terebrant I didn't like it at all, but Voodoo (3318) Blixen "I was fascinated. With Liddell, everything is like that. I want to see what he's proposing and if it's justified," said Cristina Martínez before the performance, adding, "I don't know if there's a romantic element to creating that atmosphere at that specific time or if he's simply playing with all of us." The anticipation surrounding Liddell is evident in the numbers—there are more than 50 people—like the three young people who, bundled up against the cold, approached the box office at 5:15 in the morning to see if they could snag tickets.

Two bags of human blood

On stage, Liddell erects a liturgy of veneration and poetry towards the Japanese writer Yukio MishimaThe artist uses her persona to reclaim death and glorify suicide. She does so with powerful imagery, such as when she dresses in the clothes of the dead and reads their life stories, and with three profound and incisive monologues about art and human depravity. But in Seppuku There is also provocation and discomfort. In one of the most unpleasant moments of the performance, two nurses draw blood from Liddell and one of the performers accompanying him, Kazan Tachimoto. The blood is then used in the staging. This has caused discomfort in the audience and two people to faint.

As is often the case with the artist's work, there was neither a verdict nor unanimity upon leaving the theater, but there was a strong desire among the audience to share their impressions. Abril Buñuel and Carmen Izquierdo, two of the youngest spectators in the room, had come from Barcelona to see Liddell perform live for the first time. "I had read some things about it, and when I found out the tickets were going on sale, I kept refreshing the website until I got them," Buñuel explained. Just a few minutes after leaving the theater, they were still struggling to put words to the experience they had just had. "It was an incredibly powerful, very impactful journey. It's the first time I've seen death from a different perspective," she added.

Among the audience this Saturday were also loyal fans of the artist, such as Íñigo Muñoz, who traveled all the way from Berlin to attend the premiere. "I was already a fan before, and now I'm even more so. I loved it. I saw everything from the front row, looking her in the eyes. I'm thrilled," explained an enthusiastic Muñoz. Cristina Martínez, who hadn't been entirely convinced when she arrived, also left very happy. "We got up at four in the morning, and it was worth it. They should put on more shows at these hours. Now we've got our day sorted," she said, before heading off for the weekend with her partner.

"He's someone who gets his feet wet."

But not everyone left the premiere satisfied. In fact, during the blood scene, some audience members decided to leave the theater. "One of Liddell's strengths is precisely that she doesn't try to please the public. She presents viewpoints that differ from what's politically correct, from what most of society has accepted. She's someone who takes a stand. Sometimes people might feel offended, but that's what art is," Puig points out. Temporada Alta has a long-standing relationship with Angélica Liddell and already knows, from previous experiences, that her projects are unconventional, not only in form and content but also regarding the conditions the artist requests—with Terebrant, For example, he asked for two women with long hair as extras, willing to cut it on stage, while they walked around holding hands with two small children—.

This time, the extras were easy to find (the artist needed four boys between 16 and 19 years old), but the performance schedule meant radically changing the workday for the theater staff (especially the ushers and box office) and, above all, modifying the bar's operations. "We had to ask them to make coffee and breakfast at six in the morning, both before and after the performance," notes the director, who adds that "within the framework of the festival, we already like to have proposals that take us out of the ordinary."

Seppuku. Mishima's funeral It is a co-production of Temporada Alta, the Théâtre national de Strasbourg, the Wiener Festwochen Free Republic of Vienna, and the Grec Festival. The connection with the latter guarantees that there will be at least one more opportunity to see the production in Catalonia. It will be in July, during the next edition of the festival, in Barcelona.