“Burn the forest with you inside”: our critique of the work of Mariana de Althaus

Congratulations, the billboard in Lima is full of stagings activists, tailor-made for a clear and relevant message. However, I prefer those that raise questions, those that invite questions and evade conclusions. That is why “Burn the forest with you inside” is so refreshing: Mariana of Althaus reflects on violence against women without neglecting poetic language and with characters full of nuances and contradictions.

In the Alliance Française theater, De Althaus addresses the matter from a transgenerational perspective. There are victories, defeats, questionable decisions, but also love. Above all love, although sometimes it is excessive and misunderstood.

All the women in the family carry a past that burns them inside. No matter how hard they try to avoid it – in fact, they moved into a house in the middle of the woods to protect their teenage granddaughter – or ignore it, it’s still there. The ghosts hide inside the house disguised as caged pets -who appear little by little until they speak up to tell their sorrows-. It is enough to lose sight of them for them to break free and gouge out their eyes.

“Burn the forest with you inside” starts when the teenager (mala yamada) announces that his dad (lucho caceres) will visit her that afternoon. The news falls badly to her mother (Alejandra Guerra) and grandmother (Paola Staple): what candle does the man who neglected his daughter for so many years have at the funeral? The context could not be worse: the mother denounced a municipal authority for raping a girl and now her life is threatened. She is alone because even the victim’s mother wants to ignore the fact so as not to suffer reprisals.

De Althaus transports the public to that reality with a set full of hanging eucalyptus branches. The aroma is powerful. I don’t remember other works in which the author uses these types of resources, although if I think about how immersive we would have to go back to “The solar system” and the feeling of home. If you add to this the performances, entering the convention is very simple.

The casting is accurate. Yamada -who was recently seen around the corner of “about wolves”- manages the times well as Victory and is able to increase and decrease tension with astonishing ease. His character – troubled by issues beyond reason – demands to change the code in this way. she accompanies her Warwho hunches over and relaxes his arms to reflect the anguish and resignation of idara, stubborn and insurmountable values. Great moment when he vomits all his claims without making a mistake or getting tired.

there is also Staple, one of the best actresses on the Peruvian scene for several years now. A dawn -a woman who found a certain peace in the blindness of the magic of the tarot cards- gives her power and fragility without the need to raise her voice or too many lines. It’s always a pleasure to see her on stage.

The cast completes it lucho caceres What David, a character who, despite wanting to repair his mistakes, is incapable of noticing that in order to do so he needs, first, to free himself from the masks. Cáceres offers a good interpretation, but despite his successes -he correctly develops this repressed character-, he fails to stand out within a choral proposal full of peaks. Although it is also possible that the masculine presence in “Burn the forest with you inside” has been thought of that way.