EZCABA

Company: IIa productions

When: 21 January

Where: Navarra Theatre School (Pamplona)

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One might think that cartridges around a subject can be easily burned when hundreds of plays, narratives, songs and films have already been performed. But as for Ezcaba prison, there is still a lot to be told. Ilune members presented the Ezkaba play at the end of last year and have given three recitals at the Pamplona Theatre School. And fill up the room.

Manuel is a young man who presents us screaming at his mother. We can imagine that he's in prison, he's in dark, cold gray walls, and he responds by crying out for Falangist violence. Manuel, an 18-year-old Galician, is in the fortress of Mount Ezkaba, where his father is fugitive and has been arrested. Chino, a common prisoner from the same brigade, shares a cell with Julian, a political prisoner from the CNT. It's winter and it's cold through the window. Food is poor. The protagonist tells us that they kill the wrinkles of time. We and our mother.

Manuel sometimes talks about his mother. He tells him about prison affairs and that light is permeated by a nostalgic. Nostalgic is also the echo of the Galician by Marta Juaniz. But despite his sad work and theme, the character of Mikel Goikotxeandia, the Chinese gypsy, takes advantage of humor to make the situation more bearable. The work will release the tensions between the three and the path of each. We discovered that the prison props is also a place in a Galician town and the streets of Pamplona. And that Manuel's dreams and publications make sense.

The day of escape comes. Undecided, the early morning of May 22, 1938 our characters flee together, but each has its goal: Manuel wants to return to Galicia. Julian wants to meet her beloved in Pamplona. It's downhill, zig-zag, in the dark, between scrubs. You hear dogs barking. And they decide to separate.

That the end is sadder than the play is not a secret. We hear Manuel yelling at his mother again. We go back to the beginning. But the young prisoner will not be able to return to his people.

You might think that all the cartridges around Ezcaba Prison are easily burned. But today is the day that this place has only the last name of “fortress.” It is still plagued by Francoist symbols and completely abandoned. Therefore, until the memory of Ezcaba’s cruelty becomes a space, at least we must continue to tell Ezkaba’s stories and history.