'An Alaskan Boy': A Pinter Between Reality and Fiction

Harold Pinter (London, 1930-2008) said in the 1950s that there was not much difference between reality and fiction, between truth and lies, although, as he stated in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature (2005), it is up to us to ask the questions.

And I am sure that A species from Alaska will generate a few. It is a short work (about 50 minutes) that is usually presented in conjunction with others, as Xicu Masó did in 2009 in Alaska and other deserts, premiered in Temporada Alta. It is a text that takes as its starting point the research of neurologist Oliver Sacks collected in You woke up (a book that was made into a 1990 film directed by Penny Marshall). These investigations revolve around a teenage girl suffering from lethargic encephalitis that kept her bedridden for 29 years, until Sacks woke her up with a medicine used for Parkinson's patients.

Ivan Benet He saw it differently and, instead of adding other texts, he wrapped the proposal with Andrés Corchero's ethereal dance and a few piano notes. The dance Butoh Corchero opens the performance and the questions. His will be an almost constant presence that will also close the performance.

Time and memory are two axes of Pinter's dramatic work in general and of this type of Alaska in particular. Alaska as an empty space in a time that is not the same for all the protagonists. Deborah (Mireia Aixalà) wakes up with a child's voice and unable to recognize the doctor (Carles Martínez) who, she tells us, has been treating her all this time. Nor does she identify her sister Paulin (Aida Oset). The text makes us doubt whether all this is happening in Deborah's head or if she has actually woken up. And Benet accentuates this dilemma by delving into the silences, with the presence of the soul (Andrés Cochero) and with choreographic movements far removed from the realism suggested by the stage space (Silvia Delagneau). The film, beautifully lit (Jaume Ventura), is interesting and boasts superb performances, despite the excessive tragic quality that permeates Benet's vision.