Strong noises outside. The planet shaking. Wars. Obscurantisms. Growing nationalisms. Exacerbated belligerence. Systematic attacks to differences. Denial of the other. Prejudices. Religious extremisms. Public lynching. Physical violations. Exterminations. Epidemic deafness. Cultivated ignorance. Obscene accumulations. Barbarie. Human societies debating themselves meaningless. Meanwhile, each one’s life. The rituals of daily life. The birth of someone. People getting married. The work. Home duties. The neighbors. The desire to win in life. The money. The lack of it. The bills to pay. To miss someone. The friends. The reunions. The necessity to leave. To change everything. To change skin. The desire to build something. The failures. The death of someone. The pursue of happiness and of meaning.
Krum was written in the 1970’s by Hanoch Levin, a young author influenced by Tchekhov and Beckett, in a young country immersed in conflicts and contradictions. Only in the author’s life period, from 1943 to 1999, were seven wars. He started to write early and in strong opposition to the state of things. His voracious critic to the State violence and the occupation by Israel of the Palestinian territories caused scandal and strong reactions.
Krum is a play with two funerals and two weddings. There are no great achievements, everything is ordinary. Between the two ceremonies we see, in a sequence of short scenes, the painting of the habitants’ life of a remote neighborhood. We laugh at them. It is a play about people. What is at stake is the human matter. There is in the Tchekhov of the meantime, the Beckett of the post-war, the Levin of the end of the XX century and us today something in common. While the turbulent world distill its violence, people try to move on with their lives, confined in their homes, with feeding expectations, consumption dreams and hope for better days.
MARCIO ABREU
Duration: 110 min.
A production by Renata Sorrah and companhia brasileira de teatro.