Euripides writes about the myth of Hippolytus on two occasions. The first work, Hippolytus Veiled, scandalizes the Athenian spectators with a very sensual and sexual proposal, in which Phaedra does not hide her desire for Hippolytus, her stepson, and the latter covers his face with a veil embarrassed by his stepmother’s words. Later, encouraged by the success of his contemporary Sophocles’ Phaedra, he rewrites Hippolytus, a much craftier proposal more in line with the taste of the times. Hippolytus is a contemporary classic, extremely interesting to us nowadays. The confrontation between the love Phaedra feels for Hippolytus will lead her to suicide driven by Hippolytus’ intolerance and what will people say. The defeat of a woman embarrassed for loving, as opposed to the intolerance of a man who says “I wish all you women would die”, clearly expresses the man-woman struggle, in which the woman is always at a disadvantage. Common sense is provided by the nurse, a woman representing unconditional love, and who could not be further away from those goddesses whose sons and daughters’ happiness matters much less than the dispute they hold between one another to prove which of the two is more powerful. In our proposal tragedy falls on Phaedra. She cannot resist loving Hippolytus. She assumes her tragic mistake and commits suicide. Taking a look at the titles of the dramas by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, we will come to the conclusion they are all either collective (Persian, Trojan…), or individual (Oedipus, Medea…) heroes/heroines. The version written by Isidro Timón and I was inspired by the two compositions by Euripides, the failed and the successful versions, bearing in mind Sophocles’ Phaedra and rationalizing the passionate, emotional and sexual relationship between a man and a woman who, beyond their social relationship, stepmother-stepson, were two young people of similar ages. Always from the immense respect inspired by an author who has been able to withstand the test of time so well. Emilio del Valle

A greedy millionaire, a sly servant, a halfwit son in love and a couple of usury, or banking, professionals (which are more or less the same) plan to take a booty that goes from hand to hand, like false currency. Real estate schemes, slush fund keys, sales, economic interests and… ghosts, terrible ghosts… anything can happen… In whose pocket will the money turn up? Do ghosts exist? Are the people appearing on the accounting papers ghosts? Mostellaria or The Ghost comedy is a character play (in the purest Theophrastus style) consisting of embroiled intrigues through very dynamic and well-conceived characters. Plautus develops a simple storyline, but craftily and skilfully in his way of conceiving the dramatic structure. The great confusion reaches its apogee and is finally resolved when everyone, starting with the father, admits that the lie is hidden behind the façades of bravery or virtue that they show. Theophrastus gives rise to a play that, even though time may have made it seem old, allows us to see it from a perspective that is respectful and affectionate, but close to the times in which we live. This perspective will help us to understand Plautus, the Greek-Latin people, but above all allow us to laugh at ourselves to understand each other.

The Amazons, legend or reality? We don’t really know, and little does it matter. They have passed through history with the force of one of their sharpest spears, being a source of ongoing inspiration. In Homer’s Iliad; in the comic strip universe; in music, operas such as Schoeck’s Penthesilea; in the theatre with Heinrich Von Kleist’s Penthesilea; in the film world with the recent Wonder Woman… They continue present in our universe. The myth of these warrior women still fascinates us. Women who, by force of arms, rebel against the physical abuse of men. Fed up of being subjugated, they create a new man-less state and a new law. They will only copulate with men they have defeated and hunted with a sole aim: procreate to maintain their female lineage. If males are born, they will die. Possessive love is prohibited. Falling in love is dangerous. A-Mazons. Breastless women. With only one breast. Female warriors trained in extreme hardship who decide to amputate themselves to be more effective. Role reversal is possible. And Penthesilea appears transgressing the order, falling in love at Achilles’ feet. The High Priestess’ warnings carried away by the wind. Passion is ignited. And so tragedy breaks out. Thus, against a background of music, roaring elephants and howling packs of dogs, war songs and dances, here we have, in Mérida, Penthesilea and her three princesses, Asteria, Meroe, Prothoe, and the High Priestess with her choir of Amazons, and Achilles, with his two accomplice kings, Odysseus, King of Ithaca and Diomedes, king of Aetolia. The Warrior Women’s army taking by storm a heart, theirs and ours, a heart full of contradictions, flooded by a torrent of questions. Is love an insatiable tiger that poisons reason? Can we escape its voracity? Magüi Mira

Phaedra, the queen of Volcano Island, is sick: she doesn’t eat, speak or sleep. The doctors are unable to find the reason for her illness and the whole country is concerned about her state of health. Some say that she has gone mad. Others, that the long absences of her husband, the king of the island, have completely devastated and ravaged her heart, but no one knows the truth, and they are all wrong. What is really responsible for her illness is no other than a passion that has tormented her for some time now and that she can no longer suppress; an immoral and unchaste eroticism, a violent and indomitable desire, a captive and indecent love.   Dare to love Love, in many cases, is synonymous with joy and happiness, but, in others, it can also mean agony and great condemnation (especially when you fall in love with the wrong person). But how do we act when reason and desire come into conflict? Should we follow our head or our heart? Which ought to prevail? Thinking or feeling? Traditionally, this is the internal conflict Phaedra has always had to deal with, a character who, caught up in the nets of tragedy, struggles and cannot decide. And this is what has brought her to her end, turning her into a rather inactive character, someone who, unable to choose, decides to embrace death as the best option. What we wanted with this Phaedra is to awaken the character from that lethargy in which she has always been immersed to create a more combative and less fearful woman; someone who, fleeing from tragedy, will immerse herself in it and fight face-to-face; a guilt-free woman, capable of fighting for what she wants, and who, above all, dares to love. That’s why the set chosen is an emotional place, as large as a volcano in the middle of an island surrounded by an ancient sea. A space that is a fissure in our protagonist’s chest, out of which her heart has sprung. A mise-en-scène where visual arts and music will transmit this violent history. A contemporary Phaedra that will openly and fearlessly speak of the freedom to love. Understand the reasons of one’s heart to learn to respect each other and, in this way, love each other better. Turn the great Roman theatre of Mérida into Phaedra’s chest and take refuge in it. The volcano is about to erupt. Luis Luque & Paco Bezerra

According to legend, Philoctetes, one of the Greek heroes on the expedition to Troy, was bitten on a foot by a snake. It is said that his infected wound poisoned the air and his piercing screams of pain tormented his companions. So the hero was cruelly abandoned to his fate by the Greeks on the desert island of Lemnos. Ten years later the Greek army still hasn’t conquered Troy. As the Greek warlords knew, according to the old prophecy, it was not possible to conquer Troy without the help of the most powerful weapon: Philoctetes’ bow, inherited from Heracles, and they decide to recover it by returning to the island where the tragedy hero had been abandoned. This is where Sophocles’ text begins, his last tragedy, a work of intrigue, bloodless, with a perfect dramatic construction where suspense grows as the plot thickens. A Hitchcock-like Sophocles. In the Archaic period the cry for justice emerged at the religious, ethical and political levels. The equality of human destinies was defended, in the sense that everybody’s life is balanced in terms of good and bad luck. In this tragedy we are presented with a character who seems to have been cruelly mistreated by destiny. The injustice of Philoctetes’ fate puts the audience on his side. He is the scapegoat, the outcast, the pariah, treated with merciless cruelty. It hurts because, what’s more, this character is far more morally superior to his peer executioners, who are real rogues. The play will refer today’s audience to the impunity with which certain people can use justice and power to their own advantage, without ceremony. “The end justifies the means”, whatever the cost.

Many years ago I read the definition of classic art given by a famous Hellenistic scholar whose name I can’t remember now: “A work is classic, (he said) when it doesn’t bear any sign of the effort involved in the entire creative process”. In that case, I thought, only the sunset is classic, or the majestic flight of an eagle gliding through the infinite sky or the dance of the stars in the universe. In short, something always inaccessible to mortal artists. Last year on a visit to the Acropolis and the Parthenon, at the Museum I saw some Caryatids nearly four metres tall. They were perfectly carved on the front and back. The curls of their hair were beautiful, harmonic, and magnetically attracted my gaze. Later I found out the back part was designed to be placed against the wall of a temple. However, the details had been carved with the same care and beauty as on the front, in principle, the only part that would be visible. And then I remembered the Hellenistic scholar’s definition of classic art, understanding he was referring to an attitude: the work is classic when it is born of a deep respect toward what one is doing, beyond the faithful result embodied in an object. Life is art and life is classic. The process of creation is the game itself of life in motion. This innocence is what I perceived in Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound. Distant magic and tension-free rhythm. This is without any doubt a classic that is born of the same sacred innocence embodied in those Caryatids. And I fell in love with Aeschylus. And he made me hallucinate. And I invented another Aeschylus. And I played with him. I’ve bathed in the spring of Greek tragedy with the pretext of this performance. Now I’m hoping for a spring with Apollo’s flower blooming in the woods to the sound of Dionysus’ flute, which reminds me of Krishna’s, the god who plays and dances with shepherdesses; nature is art and nature is the spirit! This show is a Spanish comedian’s gaze on Greek tragedy, a comedian who has survived and survives to make his audience laugh non-stop. I don’t know what the result will be, but at the moment…I’m happy. And I hope you’ll enjoy it. Rafael Álvarez “El Brujo”

Nero went down in history as the emperor who caused the fire in Rome in order to rebuild the city in accordance with a new modern and artistic urban project. Current historical studies actually seem to indicate that Nero did not cause the Great Fire of Rome, but, once the city had burned down, he did take advantage of the chance to rebuild it again to his liking. In fact, we can consider Nero as an emperor who was an artist, a lover of culture and all the arts. However, this does not mean he wasn’t also a cruel tyrant and despot, as was usual in his time, capable of murdering his mother Agrippina, his half-brother Britannicus, his first wife, Octavia and, in a way, his second wife Poppaea. He later married a boy-slave whom he ordered to be castrated and dress as the deceased empress. He wanted to be remembered as an artist: he sang, played the lyre, composed verses, recited and performed plays. He also revived the Olympic Games in order to take part in them. In addition, he was responsible for the first major persecution of Christians, whom he blamed for the Great Fire of Rome. The play coming to Mérida shows how, throughout history, nations always make the mistake of permitting the tyranny of bloodthirsty rulers, whether by action or omission on the part of those close to the tyrant. Our Nerón is a historical drama, filled with power and passion, developed through a modern structure (several flash-backs and simultaneous scenes with various spaces ranging from the palace or the Roman theatre of Naples to the catacombs). The argument is based on Henryk Sienkiewicz’s famous novel Quo Vadis? as well as on texts by the novelist Petronius (his counsellor) and the historian Suetonius. The spectator will be reminded of the famous film starring Robert Taylor, Peter Ustinov and Deborah Kerr. A whole host of historical and fictional characters pass through the play, for example Petronius, Marcus Vinicius, Agrippina, Saint Paul, Lygia, Poppaea, Tigellinus or Sporus. Power and art, politics and ambition, madness and power all blend together in Nerón. Eduardo Galán

Ben-Hur is the theatrical adaptation of Lewis Wallace’s novel. In a Roman theatre, a 1^st-century company announces it is going to perform “The Real and Untold Story of Ben-Hur”. Faithful to the content of the novel, the play takes us through all the common places of the collective imagination: starting with the Three Wise Men following a star that will guide them to the manger in Bethlehem, the tile that falls injuring the Roman prefect, as a result of which Ben-Hur will be taken on a fabulous adventure. The appearance of Christ, who paralyzes even the Roman legionaries with his gaze, the memorable naval battle, the chariot race… and, above all, the bitter rivalry between Judah Ben-Hur and his childhood friend Messala. A bitterness that will lead them to compete to death. Or maybe not!!! Because in this story things aren’t what they seem to be. Or maybe we should say, in this story things are what they seem to be… Conceived and directed by Yllana, and written by Nancho Novo, Ben-Hur takes a fresh and original look at the mythical character from a humorous perspective. With a breakneck pace and visual wit that they have defined as: TEATROMASCOPE, a proposal that offers constant interplay between theatrical and cinematographic language, presenting this epic story to today’s audience without losing any of its grandeur. A real 3-D performance, but without the need to wear glasses. The work is full of witty gags, scathing and absurd dialogues and a curious reflection on truth, love, and the gender fight. Four actors and two actresses wittily bring to life a multitude of characters to show us once again, this time without reservation, what nobody ever dared to tell us about Ben Hur… “CHRISTMAS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN”.