To love or not to love monsters

Theater usually tells stories, but there is theater that also asks questions, that demands the spectator to define themselves in front of what they are seeing or have just seen. This is the case of Don't look, the new production by the performing arts and audiovisual collective Cultura i Conflicte. Once the performance is over, spectators can access a cubicle installed in the lobby of the Gothic hall of the Biblioteca de Catalunya and answer the questions that have emerged throughout the proposal. Would you continue to love your father if you found out he had been a torturer and murderer? Would you tolerate someone's torture to save your child?

It is not easy to put oneself in the shoes of Camila, the daughter of Fanta, a former member of the Chilean Communist Party who, to save his own skin, not only denounced his brother and wife, also members of the party, but joined the machine of denunciation, torture, and murder of the Pinochet regime. It is not easy to approach her cousin Verónica, daughter of the uncles who were tortured and later exiled to Mexico. Verónica, a professor at the University of Paris, is determined to fill the void of silence in which she has grown up regarding what happened and how it happened. It will not be easy for her to confront her uncle in prison and ask him why.

All of this is the true story of Camila and Verónica Estay, turned into a striking documentary theater performance under the direction of Joan Arqué and with the phenomenal research work of journalist Teresa Turiera-Puigbò, co-responsible with Arqué and Anna Maria Ricart Codina for There is still someone in the woods, a proposal premiered at the TNC in 2021 about women survivors of sexual violence in the Balkan War.

In the end, Don't look is a fiction about a terrifying reality to bring us closer to the humanity of the monster, very well performed by a brilliant Marta Marco, who gives life to this professor who wants to lift the veil of history and face the darkest zones of the human being, and with an unappealing Pep Cruz as a cynical torturer. Gemma Martínez and Erol Ileri complete the cast in an interesting proposal somewhat weighed down by excessive slowness. In any case, a highly recommended performance.