Productions

Costumes: Jaanus Vahtra (guest)
Translator: Tatjana Hallap
Cast: Ivo Uukkivi, Mait Malmsten, Merle Palmiste, Guido Kangur, Lembit Ulfsak, Tõnu Oja, Tõnu Aav, Ita Ever, Ester Pajusoo, Mari Lill, Kersti Kreismann, Kaie Mihkelson, Viire Valdma, Mari-Liis Lill, Hilje Murel, Laine Mägi, Britta Vahur, Mihkel Kabel, Anti Reinthal, Uku Uusberg, Kristo Viiding.

After his mother’s death Juan Preciado comes looking for his father Pedro Páramo, an estate owner who rules the village. His mother’s village Comala is practically abandoned, there are no inhabitants – except the dead. In fact there is no difference between the worlds of the dead and of the living, death is a natural part of life. There is no future and no past, life and death, there is only the current moment, where everything exists at the same time. We claim that there is a palpable reality and illusion. But what is what? Maybe the objects around us are an illusion, and the invisible energy is reality.

Pedro Páramo as a text is incredibly rich - magical and real, beautiful and grim, pitiful and comical, and all this is charged with a powerful sexual energy. Besides, Pedro Páramo is a genuine politician. He simply states that things are what they are. How come he has a right to say that these lands or this woman now belong to him? Pedro Páramo simply has the power. He is of course no exception, such people ruled and still rule the Mexican villages and peasants. They actually rule us too. A Mexican story about Mexicans might seem quite exotic at first glance. In fact they are people like us. With the help of the Latin-American story we might shift out thinking patterns, perceive the possibility of another kind of world.

Juan Rulfo (1918-1989) is a Mexican writer, much influenced by magical realism, a scriptwriter and photographer. He has published only two books: a collection of short stories The Burning Plain (El llano en llamas, 1953) and the novel Pedro Páramo (1955, in Estonian in 1979), but he is regarded just as influential in Latin-American literature as Gabriel García Márquez or Jorge Luis Borges.