Muerte y reencarnación en un cowboy

It has been said of Rodrigo García that he is a "writer whose text explodes like a bomb". Born in Argentina in 1964 but living in Spain since he was a young boy, García is also a video artist performer and stage director. Not a typical artist, his works combine elements of the past with the popular culture of today. Together with his company, La Carnicería Teatro, he has produced a startling stage language which brings together ideas and emotions which mobilise the new theatrical generation.

"I was travelling in the AVE (high-speed train) and, as always, I had taken off my shoes and glasses. Through the window at 200 kilometres an hour I saw a cemetery and I put on my glasses to appreciate the graves and, would you believe it, it was a housing development and I was very disappointed.

"Each person chooses the cigarette which gives them cancer. Not all cigarettes give them cancer, it is THIS cigarette which I am lighting now which will give me cancer. It's me that chooses the cigarette and the moment to light my end. I realise that last Saturday, I said 'this is the cigarette which is going to kill me. I could throw it away right now and continue the way I am but I've decided to finish it and to enjoy the beginning of dying'. There are those who don't finish their cigarettes, they don't burn their lips or the tips of their fingers and take care not to let the smoke get in their eyes. They throw half-smoked cigarettes down the drains or into a puddle in the road and carry on with their life..." This is how director Rodrigo García (Europe Theatre Prize 2009 in the New Theatrical Realities category) approaches his latest production, Muerte y reencarnación en un cowboy, which was first performed in November last year at the Théâtre National de Bretagne in Rennes, France.

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