Esta Breve Tragedia de la Carne by Angélica Liddell

In this play, Angélica Liddell immerses herself in Emily Dickinson, and puts herself and her performers through intense physical challenges to explore politics and the human condition.

With Esta Breve Tragedia de la Carne (This Brief Tragedy of the Flesh), Montclair State University’s Peak Performances program introduces audiences to the singular work of the confrontational Spanish writer, director and performance artist Angélica Liddell. All the major European festivals – d’Avignon and d’Automne in France, Vie in Italy, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne in Switzerland – have embraced Liddell with the admiration usually reserved for Romeo Castellucci and Robert Wilson.

Esta Breve Tragedia epitomizes her willingness to put herself and her performers through intense physical challenges to explore politics and the human condition. Here she immerses herself in Emily Dickinson, who spent much of her life secluded in a room in her father’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts. Having studied psychology as well as theater, Liddell fearlessly addresses sensitive issues such as intimacy and pain.

Showtimes

• On Thursday, April 19 at 7:30 pm.
• On Friday, April 20 at 7:30 pm.
• On Saturday, April 21 at 8 pm.
• On Sunday, April 22 at 3 pm.

About Angélica Liddell

Angélica Liddell was born in Figueres, Girona, in 1966. In 1993, she founded her theater company, Atra Bilis Teatro, with which she has staged twenty-two works. Her plays have been translated into French, English, Russian, German, Portuguese, Polish, and Greek, and she has won several awards, including the 2003 Casa de América Award for Innovative Drama for her play Nubila Wahlheim; the 2004 SGAE Theatre Award for Mi relación con la comida (My Relationship with Food); the 2005 Premio Ojo Crítico Segundo Milenio Award; the 2007 Notodo del Público Award for best performance for her play Perro muerto en tintorería: los fuertes (Dead Dog in the Dry Cleaner’s: The Strong Ones), the 2008 Valle Inclán Award for El año de Ricardo (The Year of Ricardo), and the 2011 Sebastiá Gasch Award.

Her latest works –El año de Ricardo, La casa de la fuerza, Maldito sea el hombre que confía en el hombre, and Todo el cielo sobre la tierra (El síndrome de Wendy)– have premiered at Festival d’Avignon, Wiener Festwochen, and Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris. Recently, Liddell received the 2012 National Prize for Dramatic Literature from the Spanish Ministry of Culture for La casa de la fuerza and the 2013 Leone d’Argento (Silver Lion) of Theatre from La Biennale di Venezia. In 2015, Berliner Festspiele – Foreign Affairs Festival presented a recent series of her plays grouped under the title, Cycle of the Resurrections.

Esta breve tragedia de la carne, the first part of the project Trilogía del infinito (Trilogy of the infinite), premiered at Festival d’Avignon in 2016.