Title: La Siesta
Creation: La Petite Producciones
Performers: Celia Sako, Silvia López, Andreu Riquelme
What can I say about La siesta that isn’t already said by this piece which makes everyone laugh out loud?
The performance, directed by Silvia López and choreographed by Celia Sako, puts in the center of the scene (literally but also dramatically) a couch with three cushions for the three family members: the mom, the son and the grandmother. The theme of the performance seems to be: who gets to take a precious nap on the couch by the end of the afternoon – but this allows the company to show us how many different ways of moving and being moved this ordinary furniture has.
They give us an effective piece that works on every communicative level, with a solid characterization of the three protagonists and an alliance between the sense and the poetics of the movement. This effectivity also works through the empathy that we share with the mom – who represents the law – or the amazing things that they do to the couch, and the couch does to them. For example, it provides them the opportunity to disappear and reappear as if by magic, and it gives them a platform to explore the three-dimensionality of the couch, the bodies and the space.
The work is notably attentive to every single detail of the performance: the colors of the clothes that match the colors in the furniture (something about this brings «kitsch» to my mind), and the way that the space is balanced with the telephone table on the right and the kitchen table on the left leave us, the audience, the opportunity to take a picture of the entire family portrait.
Elías Míguez
(Foto: Ángel Araujo)