The actress Andrea Jiménez stars, together with Juan Paños, in the play Casting Lear, which will be performed at the Sala José Luis Alonso of the Teatro de La Abadía (calle Fernández de los Ríos, 42) until 28 April.
Along with Úrsula Martínez, the play’s protagonist, she also directs it, and each evening a different actor will come to perform in the show, as if it were a real casting. José Luis Alcobendas, Ernesto Arias, Leo Bassi, Jaroslaw Bielski, Miguel del Arco, Alfonso Delgado, Adolfo Fernández, Juan Fernández, Daniel Freire, Vicente León, Andrés Lima, Mariano Llorente, Jesús Noguero, Rafael Núñez, Carlos Olalla and Alberto San Juan will be the actors appearing at the Teatro de La Abadía.
“My father is Lear, but he has never been in a theatre. I am Cordelia. And I am a theatre director. Like her, I’m going to look for Lear, I’m going to dare to look at him and I’m going to try to forgive. And I’m going to do it from a stage. Every night, a different actor will be Lear, he will be my father, he will be a possible father, one who does want to sit in a theatre and talk,” says Andrea Jiménez.
This simulacrum-version of King Lear aspires to be an open door to think about how we relate to our fathers, the biological ones, but also the metaphorical ones, including William Shakespeare himself. It is either an autofiction from a classic or an autofictionalised classic, and hopefully neither. It is a piece about origin, about how what came before haunts us even if we want to ignore it. About how we are constructed by those who came before us. About how to invent a life that belongs to you without forgetting the past. About how to imagine other possible endings. Tickets can be purchased at this link.
