Documentary theatre about refugees and displaced people with powerful imagery

During the 100 minutes of this performance, around 40,000 people worldwide will flee their homes – this is announced by the director Laura Uribe at the very beginning in huge letters. Many flee but stay in their own countries, like those displaced by the paramilitary organisations of the FARC-EP in Colombia. Others decide to cross the sea and are washed up on the coasts of wealthy nations.
Uribe’s Mexican-Colombian coproduction is a thoroughly researched piece of documentary theatre, a video spectacle and a satire all at the same time. Refugees and their families tell stories of loss and how you learn to live with it, and give an account of the number of people missing. But their demands fade away in an echo: then, instead of those in power making an appearance, a penguin on roller-skates enters the stage. Dumb and blind in its full-body costume, all it can do is helplessly flap its wings. The powerful images in Mare Nostrum denounce the inhumanity of a capitalism that systematically produces the displacement of many thousands of people.
Post-Show Talk 13.06.