The Teatro del Barrio kicks off its new season with the performance of the comedian Pepe Viyuela, a regular at this theatre, who returns once again on 5 and 6 September at 7.30 p.m. with his show Encerrona.
Laughter guaranteed in this inconic clown show in which he entangles himself with a chair and a ladder, and which he premiered on this very stage when it was still the Sala Triángulo, and then toured theatres and television stations for decades. A proposal that challenges the idea of success: we start from failure, from the fragility of the clown who is stupefied by the competitive reality that has been imposed on us, laughs and frees us from it. In a society obsessed with success, the clown is seen as the loser. As a failed, clumsy person. Overwhelmed by so many demands for productivity. So his presence humanises us, vindicates our fragility, moves us. It is to be very much in his favour.
Encerrona is a reflection on the everyday from the perspective of the clown. The character lives the experience of being trapped on stage. When he enters the stage he doesn’t know where he is going. He is a deceived character who has arrived there because he has been told that this is the way, and suddenly he finds himself in front of an audience that looks at him and seems to demand something from him: he has not come to perform but he is forced to do so. The terror provoked by the stares of the audience makes him want to escape, to look for a way out. There is only one, but there is ‘someone invisible’ who won’t let him leave, and forces him to stay on stage, facing those eyes that won’t leave him.
And so, for an hour and fifty minutes, he is forced to perform for the audience watching him. His only companions on his journey are a series of everyday objects with which he tries to get by: a guitar, a chair, a jacket, a newspaper and a ladder. They are his shield, with them he plays and improvises, he suffers and enjoys himself. Objects become in his hands great friends or terrible enemies, because he has forgotten their use, or perhaps he has never known it. Like a child, he is confronted for the first time with objects, for us everyday objects, and for him absolutely mysterious and surprising. Climbing up a ladder or putting on a jacket are almost impossible tasks for him. Tickets can be purchased here.
