ALICANTE MAIN THEATER
½
Authorship and direction: Juan Cavestany. Distribution: Javier Gutierrez and Luis Bermejo.
January is a peak month for store traffic, and the opening day can feel overwhelming. In a scenario where a man and an older woman with little physical presence in the back room become central to the action, security staff and a questioner form the backdrop for a tense exchange. The scene unfolds with a palpable sense of pressure as the narrative shifts from routine to outage, setting the stage for what follows.
Javier Gutiérrez and Luis Bermejo engage in an interpretive duel. It becomes a test of wits and restraint to see who will prevail. The dynamic serves as a bold entry point for writer and director Juan Cavestany, who crafts a black comedy that leans on a tragicomic mood and a vision that can feel both sharp and provocative. The ending arrives with a twist of fate that is both ironic and compelling.
Strands of meaning emerge from the crowd as the characters move, propelled by a relationship that grows more intense as the exchanges become more reflexive. What is the guard seeking with this unexpected attitude? Cavestany aims to provoke the audience with a blend of humor and tension, inviting reflection on whether the actions observed are driven by necessity, habit, or something more fragile in human nature. The piece suggests that suits, and the rituals around them, can reveal loneliness and the need for companionship, often in moments that feel almost childish in their simplicities.
Is the established system greed driving people toward predatory behavior at the expense of humanity? The protagonists encounter moments of opportunity to display their best and worst sides, maintaining a rhythm that teeters between intensity and irrelevance. The staging emphasizes how credibility is conveyed through performance, with the humor intensifying as the situation grows increasingly ridiculous. The careful body language of the two leads anchors both the comedy and the drama, guiding the audience through a space that feels real even when its logic is playful or exaggerated. The piece relies on deliberate iterations within a gray, closed space, and it introduces real-time shifts that keep the tension alive. The play, now a decade removed from its premiere, has toured and found resonance in multiple theaters, inviting comparisons to broader themes of political corruption and the exchange of favors that persist in contemporary contexts [Citation: Cavestany].