Susana en el agua y con la boca abierta

Ophelia loves, goes mad and kills herself. This woman got people talking...

- Fernanda Orazi

Two women are talking onstage. They are talking about another woman, about a woman destined for abandonment, madness and finally, death. The woman they are talking about is called Ophelia. Why did she commit suicide? When did she head for the river, when did she head off willingly towards her death? What was she thinking?

In their attempt to understand and love her, the two characters, played by actress Marianela Pensado and choreographer and dancer Mey-Ling Bisogno, they go deeper into areas which implicate ever more their own involvement. Together, they map out a hypothetical biography for Ophelia, an unfinished biography which in fact reveals their own fears, failures and inability to understand the decisions they themselves have taken. Ophelia is turned into Susana because they cannot remember her name, because her name isn't important, because the names of the women - like their own destinies - are interchangeable.

Questions remain: When we talk of the other, are we talking about ourselves? What place does desire occupy in our lives? Around what do we shape our existence?

According to the Argentinian actress and director, Fernanda Orazi (Buenos Aires 1975), "it's nothing new to get obsessed about death but suicide provokes a bit more unease and discomfort, given that there is a willingness to die while most of us make every effort to keep ourselves alive." For Orazi, the tragic fate of Ophelia "is a feast of grief", a disaster which onstage serves to produce both "beautiful and absurd fictions about ourselves".