For Billy’s Violence, Victor Lauwers researched the ten tragedies of Shakespeare and rewrote them into violently loving, intimate dialogues in which the woman is the central focus, stripped of any historical reference or anecdotal content.

 

Shakespeare is the most read and performed writer the world has ever known. And yet many of the bard’s plays are virtually unperformable due to their violence, gruesomeness, racism and misogyny. What does violence in art mean in today’s world? Why do we enjoy watching it so much? Is violence viewed differently today than it was in the 16th-17th century?

Malditas plumas explores the different episodes in the life of a character, performed by Sol Picó, on a journey that shifts between tenderness and decline. In this story, the audience learns about this vedette of El Paral·lel and shares her memories and experiences... But what if she never was a performer and this is only her dreams, her lifelong hopes, her unfulfilled desires? Perhaps all is merely delirium, which, although transporting us to a very specific place and time, also connects us with the most human and, therefore, universal of feelings: fear of death, of decline, of loss... of ceasing to be.

Inspired by the genre of the Spanish revue and its picaresque style, this show plays with transformation, audience interaction and the blurring between fiction and reality, always with the irony and sense of humour that characterise the language of Sol Picó.