The Cuban Cultural Center of New York and La MaMa join forces to present the NYC premiere of Victor Varela’s The Abyss of the Birds.

The legendary founder of Teatro Obstáculo returns with a new production that oscillates between Cuba and the world, playing to multiple associations based on a dominant idea: Does the concentration camp, as a paradigm of extermination, remain relevant? Perhaps the extreme events of humanity–war, starvation, ethnic groups’ struggles, the exodus of refugees, racism, and discrimination remind us of those past events as non-worn-out circumstances, despite the excessive weight of history.

Varela pursues the theme further: How about more subtle situations, like the dominant networks of production and consumer trade, the linear economy, or the social networks? Is the totem of our superimposed screens (the TV, the computer, the cell phone) what sets our dehumanization in the name of progress? Are we, recruited by globalization, sold a world without borders, while the control devices increase so that nobody moves from one place to another?

In a power play between the two main characters in the play, Lady Macbeth and The Coma-ander, Varela sets out to prove that both Executioner and Victim are equally ignoble. Both crave power, but neither has learned to manage it. It’s a reiteration of the history of humanity. And it’s the one play that ought to be seen by those who believe that there’s nothing left to say about totalitarianism.

Come experience The Abyss of the Birds...
AN UNAUTHORIZED VIEW OF HISTORY
OR THE WORLD AS A CONCENTRATION CAMP.

La MaMa
The Downstairs
66 East 4th Street
(bet. Bowery & 2nd Ave.), NYC

Tickets:
General Admission: $25
Students, Seniors & CCCNY Members: $20
Available at: (212) 352-3101
Or Online at: http://BUY TICKETS ABYSS OF THE BIRDS

ABOUT TEATRO OBSTÁCULO:
Teatro Obstáculo, now based in New York, emerged in 1985 in Havana, Cuba, when
Victor Varela (pictured below) emptied the living room of his house to work in a space where each actor had one square meter and an audience of 8 spectators every night. A play that began as an underground theater event soon became a domestic and international success. The work of the company focuses primarily on the investigation of formal and conceptual elements of experimental theatre work, a practice of risk, innovation and theatrical language renewal in all fields. The obstacle is not only the raw material with which Teatro Obstáculo makes the difference with other forms of creation through history. It is also the foundation that justifies its existence and a catalyst that allows an iconoclast sui generis praxis. Teatro Obstáculo has been a nomadic and touring troupe which has had headquarters in several countries: Cuba, Argentina, and the United States. A theater of vertigo, of the aporia, of the aesthetics of difficulty, since its founding in 1985, it has adhered to the same mission: to explore the possibilities of theater as a medium. The company encounters different cultures in search of creativity which has expanded the field work of its very own poetics, one that is essentially concerned with problematizing conventional theater to burden it with a strategy of resistance and invention.

This play is presented in association with

 

 

 

And is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

    

With the promotional collaboration of