Synopsis
El Viejo celebrates his birthday and decided to celebrate it with everything. What's better than doing it in your neighborhood club, with friends and the love of the whole family? In the toast he will make big announcements that have to do with the advancement of the inheritance to his daughters. He is eager to surprise them, to show them their love and to see how they react to so much love. The Old man celebrates his birthday and they are all invited to celebrate with him.
Fernando Ferrer: about the play
I worked from the works of "KING LEAR" by W. Shakespeare and "RAN" by Kurosawa. From there and under those influences create THE OLD MAN'S PARTY. The Kingdom of our Lear is located today and its territory is a neighborhood club and a family party. All the disputes that occur have to do with the material and symbolic goods of those territories: The heritage and the values of the club as well as the affective relationships and their distortions within the family.
Cast
Moyra Agrelo, Agustina Benedettelli, Julieta Cayetina, Helkjær Engen, Demián Gallitelli, Ezequiel Gelbaum, Clarisa Hernandez, Gonzalo Ruiz, Julian Smud, Ezequiel Tronconi, Abian Vainstein
Original Music: Stine Helkjaer Engen
Costume: Peta Moreno Marina Claypole
Light design: Sebastián Francia
Art and Space: Romina Giorno
Director's assistant: Marisol Scagni
Production: Laura Quevedo
Dramaturgy and direction: Fernando Ferrer
Audience: adults
Length: 100 minutes
Premiere Feb 2017
SCHEDULE 2019
Feb 25, Maratón Abasto - Espacio Callejón - FIBA 2019, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Oct 25, Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Cadiz, Spain
SCHEDULE 2018
Season @ Espacio Callejón, Buenos Aires, Argentina
July 4 & 5 - Festival de Teatro Clásicos en Alcala, Alcala de Henares, Spain
July 14 & 15 - III Ciclo de Teatro Argentino en Madrid, Spain
July 22 - Festival de Clasicos de Olite, Spain
July 28 - Gdanks Shakespeare Festival, Poland
Sept 15 & 16, Muestra Iberoamericana de Teatro, Montevideo, Uruguay
SCHEDULE 2017
Season @ Espacio Callejón, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Shakespeare Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina
MICA 2017, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Press release
La Nación / Jazmín Carbonell -n“VERY GOOD. A Beautiful Sunday noon stage Ritual. Unmissable re-writing of the classic “King Lear.”
Pagína 12 / Cecilia Hopkins - “UNMISSABLE. The family dining table could be a battle field where each one brings their truth to the forefront.”
Tiempo Argentino / Juliana Corbelli - “VERY GOOD. Russian vodka for an old Polish man on his family Sunday where the audience will be welcomed with potato Knishes, wine and birthday cake.”
TimesNew York / SusanBerardini - “La fiesta del viejo offers the audience a uniquely captivating, sensorial experience. Ferrer´s skillful implementation of precision timing among the actors, together with his ability to attain the physical and emotional crescendo of the play, are critical in achievement the jolting, apocalyptic ending that leaves spectators stunned.”
Jorge Dubatti/Escuela de Espectadores - “UNMISSABLE. A very Argentine Shakespeare. Ferrer has taken Shakespeare’s King Lear in a very original manner to implement changes to it of both diverse level and quality and he transforms it into a new text. Very good acting from the whole of the large cast. “
Osvaldo Quiroga/ TV Pública - “UNMISSABLE. Thank you for so much theatre. It’s fantastic to find a group of young people doing this free version of “LEAR” by Shakespeare. The Old Man’s Birthday. Accomplished staging and scriptwriting. Very powerful. Bravo!”
Sobre BUE / Oscar Damico - “MAGNIFICENT. The celebration is carried out on Sundays at midday with a ram-packed audience at the Espacio Callejón and which cannot be missed. Instead of going to mass on Sunday, head to the Callejón to see this local LEAR…”
Hugo Mujica - “Shakespeare, his King Lear, his classic, it’s not a past that still lasts, it’s a birth that never stops. I saw that last night in The Old Man’s Birthday, so much before as now: the gains, the blood, that stronger one and that crueler one and, in the end, the grand finale of all Shakespeare: the death with just an intake of breath that comes before it, the one that shows the loss of all that could have been. Last night I saw that being born.”