You are my destiny (Lo stupro di Lucrezia)

Whenever The rape of Lucrece is represented in theatre it is done from the most plain and simple perspective; from a political viewpoint, either as a symbol of the fall of the tyrants or as a symbol of the abuse suffered by women in the hands of man. The figure of Lucrece is used to talk about the just and the unjust, but the convulsions of the soul have nothing to do with justice.  Justice defines social order, but weakness defines human nature, and in this sense this Lucrece is a recognition of the weakness of human beings beyond the just and the unjust. I am not interested in social order, but in the disarray of feelings, in understanding the relationship between desire and pain.

Something we cannot yet manage to explain happened in Venice. Maybe destiny gathered us there to stab the same body. Each had his own motives to stick the knife in. We were strangers murdering one body, piercing the same corpse, each willing to keep silence on the other’s stab, accomplices of a crime; in silence, respecting each thrust of the knife. We had a corpse at our feet and a beautiful secret in our hearts. Even if I knew with certainty that any of these men have one hundred severed heads in their conscious, I would never judge him, and I would keep the secret by cutting one more head off with my sword, adding my decapitated to his decapitated. It was in this way how Tarquin’s pardon came about. A man debilitated by beauty and the weight of the world. I forgave Tarquin through my love towards my men.

This Lucrece remains standing thanks to two simple movements, heirs of Empedocles, love and strife. Or thanks to Democritus, who supported that in the very beginning there were numerous human and animal body parts haphazardly distributed: legs, eyes, arms, mouths. Random combinations were formed with these roots through love or attraction, spawning abhorrent and unviable creatures which would never survive.  In this way neither Lucrece nor Tarquin survived the attraction. Fate becomes once more destiny. The abhorrent and unviable becomes the truth facing the hypocrisy of social order.  “The wars between divinities and between men, fate, fatality, natural disasters. All these obstacles affect the total and profound man.  They brush aside the false dilemmas of the civilized man” says Nanaqui. 
Angélica Liddell

Ukrainian Choir:  Free Voice (Anatolii Landar, Oleksii Ievdokimov, Mykhailo Lytvynenko)
Text, Set, Costumes and Direction: Angélica Liddell
Italian Text translated by: Marilena de Chiara
French Translation: Christilla Vasserot
Lightning: Carlos Marquerie
Sound: Antonio Navarro
Lighting Technician: Octavio Gómez
Technical Director: Marc Bartoló
Stage Manager: África Rodríguez
Direction Assistant: Julio Provencio
Production Manager: Gumersindo Puche

With: Joele Anastasi, Ugo Giacomazzi, Fabián Augusto Gómez Bohórquez, Julian Isenia, Lola Jiménez, Andrea Lanciotti, Angélica Liddell, Antonio L. Pedraza, Borja López, Emilio Marchese, Antonio Pauletta, Isaac Torres, Roberto de Sarno, Antonio Veneziano 

Executive Producer: Iaquinandi, S.L.
Associate Producer: Prospero (Théâtre National de Bretagne – Rennes, Théâtre de Liège, Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Göteborgs Stadsteater, World Theatre Festival Zagreb, Festival of Athens and Epidaurus)
Co-Produced by: Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Festival d’Automne à Paris, deSingel Internationale Kunstcampus, Le-Parvis Scène Nationale Tarbes Pyrénées, Comédie de Valence - Centre dramatique national Drôme-Ardèche

With the Collaboration of Festival de Otoño a Primavera de la Comunidad de Madrid
Supported by Comunidad de Madrid, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte – INAEM
Acknowledgements: Heartfelt thanks to Àlex Rigola and Biennale di Venezia for making the meeting with the actors possible. This play would have never existed without them.