Brief history of the Spanish railway - Centro Dramático Nacional

Brief history of the Spanish railway

Text Joan Yago Direction Beatriz Jaén

19 APR – 26 MAY 2024
Tuesday to Sunday at 18:00 | 

Meeting with the artistic team: 25 APR 2024 Matinee: 30 APR 2024

FIRST WEEK DISCOUNT(50% discount): #Tuesday 23 and Thursday 25 APR

María Guerrero Theatre | Sala de la Princesa

Please arrive well in advance as the auditorium will be closed once the performance has begun.
To collect your tickets, our ticket offices will be open from Monday to Sunday from 14:30 to 20:30.

Strobe lights are used during the performance. Smoke is produced by vaping.

TEAM

Text

Joan Yago

Directing

Beatriz Jaén

Cast

Paloma Córdoba and Esther Isla

Set designer

Pablo Menor Palomo

Lighting

Enrique Chueca

Costume designer

Leonora Lax

Sound designer

Pepe Alacid

Video staging

Elvira Ruiz Zurita

Dance consultancy

Natalia Fernandes

Assistant director

Fernando Lorenzana

Wardrobe assistant

Laura Cosar

Poster design

Team SOPA

Producer

Centro Dramático Nacional

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico, Teatro de la Zarzuela and RENFE

Producer

Text written as part of the Centro Dramático Nacional’s Dramatic Residencies programme during the 2021-2022 season

This show premiered last season and ran from 14 October to 13 November 2022.

 

Synopsis

Just because you don’t have a passion for trains, you’re not interested in them at all, you hate them, or are even disgusted by them, that doesn’t mean you don’t need to know their history.

Whether we like them or not, they are part of the landscape in which we live. And their presence in this landscape, like that of churches and swamps, like huge rapeseed fields or semi-deserted housing estates, is not of an arbitrary nature.

That is why tonight we will try to do an exercise in memory, in the hope of doing at the same time an exercise in justice.


Writer’s note

A brief history of the Spanish railway is a look at the origin of capitalism in Spain and its close relationship with the royal family. It is a mocking and, of course, political look at the railways but, above all, it is a fascinated, incredulous and even scandalized one. Almost two centuries separate the first journey of the Madrid-Aranjuez railway and the opening of the AVE to Mecca; almost two hundred years in which everything has changed and at the same time everything is still the same.

Joan Yago

Director’s note

To delve into the history of Spain, you have to be something of an adventurer, a caver. It is like entering a great mountain. A mountain that, in the distance, seen from the seat of a train, with your head resting on the window and music playing in your earphones, seems friendly and accessible to you; but that, up close, when you get lost among its massifs and canyons, reveals its true nature; furious, scary and, at the same time, liberating.

A Brief history of the Spanish railway is the journey through that mountain. A brave and carefree trip to the 19th century, where capitalism had just been inaugurated in Spain and with Isabel II as queen, it brings us closer to the close relationship that has existed between those who run the halls of power and the profitable benefits of ‘development’.

And in the face of this panorama of negotiations, corruption and endless parties, which are a true tradition in this country, I wonder: how many scandals are necessary for none of us to bare our teeth? Is it still possible to shock us?

The philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle says that the scandal ensues, tearing us apart completely and knocking down any reference or point of support. I like the idea that the scandal can tear us apart, because it is there, in the disruption it causes, that the possibility of something new happening appears. Let’s hope then that this work is staged in praise of the scandal.

Beatriz Jaén

TEAM

Text

Joan Yago

Directing

Beatriz Jaén

Cast

Paloma Córdoba and Esther Isla

Set designer

Pablo Menor Palomo

Lighting

Enrique Chueca

Costume designer

Leonora Lax

Sound designer

Pepe Alacid

Video staging

Elvira Ruiz Zurita

Dance consultancy

Natalia Fernandes

Assistant director

Fernando Lorenzana

Wardrobe assistant

Laura Cosar

Poster design

Team SOPA

Producer

Centro Dramático Nacional

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico, Teatro de la Zarzuela and RENFE

Biography

Beatriz Jaén

Beatriz Jaén

(Madrid, 1988) She holds a degree in Stage Management from RESAD and a degree in Advertising and PR from the Complutense University of Madrid. She has directed plays such as Yellow Moon. La balada de Leila y Lee by the Scottish author David Greig, Noches lúgubres by José Cadalso, Madame de Sade by Yukio Mishima, Casada_44 and Así habla el amor, of which she is also the author.

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For Breve historia del ferrocarril español she was awarded the Asociación de Directores de Escena (ADE) prize for emerging directors 2022. 

She has also worked as an assistant director to Alfredo Sanzol from La ternura premiered at the Teatro de La Abadía in 2017. Her latest productions with him include Fundamentalmente fantasías para la resistencia, El bar que se tragó a todos los españoles, La dama boba,  La valentía and El barberillo de Lavapiés. As an actress she has premiered plays such as El último romántico, written and directed by Denise Despeyroux, within the pedagogical project of the company Ventrículo veloz; and Cluster, written by Fernando Delgado-Hierro and directed by Juan Ceacero (La compañía exlímite).

Joan Yago

Joan Yago

(Barcelona, 1987) She has a degree in Directing and Playwriting from the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona (Theatre Institute of Barcelona). She has written and premiered plays such as De què parlem mentre no parlem de tota aquesta merda (Butaca Award for Best Text 2021), Feísima enfermedad y muy triste muerte de la Reina Isabel I, Las aves, Fairfly (Max Award for Best New Playwriting 2018, Butaca Award for Best Text 2017).

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Sis personatges – Homenatge a Tomàs Giner (Critics Award 2018), You say tomato (Serra d’Or Award for best theatrical text, 2016, Un lloc comú (Ciutat d’Alzira Award 2014), Bluf (Quim Masó Award 2014), Sobre el fenómeno de los Trabajos de mierda, La nau dels bojos and l’Editto Bulugaro, among others.

She is a founding member of the independent theatre company La Calòrica and professor of dramatic writing at the Sala Beckett Dramaturgical Workshop. She is the creator and scriptwriter of the series Mai neva a Ciutat for IB3 Televisió.

 © May Circus_TNC

Producer