Latin American Theatre Review

Abstract:

This essay analyzes Mapa Teatro’s rewritings of Greek myth in Colombia: Orestea Ex Machina (1995), based on the story of the House of Atreus, and C’úndua (2001–2005), on Prometheus. Orestea combines Aeschylus’s tragedy with the country’s violent policies. In the C’úndua cycle, the myth of the philanthropic titan fuses with the stories of the inhabitants of El Cartucho, a neighborhood that was demolished in the name of urban “renewal” in the center of Bogotá. Both rewritings are based on a radical deconstruction of Greek tragedy and marked by the presence of reality and the connection with politics. In their reinterpretation of myth, Mapa Teatro draws freely from the dramaturgy of Heiner Müller and his transgressive aesthetic of fragmentation. Intertwining Greek myth with the tragedy of the present, Mapa Teatro enacts the social and political trauma caused by the propagation of violence in the context of Colombia. With an interdisciplinary theatrical perspective, this study poses intersecting theories on performance, anthropology, politics, and trauma studies.