Discurso de un hombre decente
Pablo Emilio Escobar, the most notorious drugs baron of all time, was shot in Medellin on 2nd December 1993. In his shirt pocket was a speech written for the day he was elected president of Colombia. Taking these mythical notes by Escobar as their inspiration, Mapa Teatro has made a paradoxical production on the legalisation of drugs. Authentic documents and witness statements become entangled with fiction. A specialist in political rhetoric and an expert in the drugs trade and its violence are flanked by a music group from Medellin. Together they put on a delirious ready-made performance.
• Mapa Teatro is a company from Bogotá. They use their productions to zoom in on the often absurd daily life of Colombia. The company was set up in 1984 by the brother and sister Rolf and Heidi Abderhalden, whose work lies on the crossroads of art and theatre. They base their productions on plays by such authors as Beckett, Müller and Shakespeare (they performed Ricardo III at the 2002 Kunstenfestivaldesarts), or else on a news item or a myth.
concept & direction Heidi Abderhalden & Rolf Abderhalden | production Ximena Vargas, José Ignacio Rincón | performers Viviane De Muynck, Francisco Thoumi, Banda Musical Marco Fidel Suárez (directed by Danilo Jiménez) | musicians Juan
Pablo Becerra (saxophone and clarinet), Rodrigo Gaviria (tuba), Andres
Mauricio Herrera (trumpet), Danilo Jiménez (kettledrum and cymbals),
Oscar Jiménez (drum) | sound design, composition, live electronics Juan Ernesto Díaz | logograph Camilo Uribe | recorded voices Pablo Escobar Andrés Castaneda | archive research Tatiana Ospina, Johnny Gallego, Pedro González | photos Kokuse Okahara, Achivo Biblioteca Piloto de Medellín | technical direction & light design Jean Francois Dubois | visual design Heidi Abderhalden, Rolf Abderhalden | scenography Pierre Henri Magnin, Raphael Rubens | costume design Elizabeth Abderhalden | Super 8 images Luis Antonio Delgado, Pilar Perdomo | video editing Luis Antonio Delgado | live-video Luis Antonio Delgado, Ximena Vargas | thanks to Joachim
Gerstmeier, Anamarta de Pizarro, Carmen Romero, Alejandro Valencia,
Marta Ruiz, Alonso Salazar, Paula Jiménez, Marcela Anzola, Lukas
Jaramillo, Matthias Pees, Museo de la Policía Nacional de Colombia | co-production Kaaitheater, Siemens Stiftung, Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogotá & Festival Santiago a Mil, Santiago de Chile