The Dead Father (El Padre Muerto

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=25% BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="plays.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Complete List of Plays">LIST OF PLAYS</A></div> <div> <A HREF="news.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="General Information Latest News">NEWS & INFO</A></div> <div> <A HREF="de_la_perra.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Marco Antonio de la Parra">Marco Antonio de la Parra</A></div> <div> <A HREF="ramos_perea.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Roberto RamosPerea">Roberto Ramos-Perea</A></div> <div> <A HREF="sieveking.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alejandro Sieveking">Alejandro Sieveking</A></div> <div> <A HREF="santana.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Rodolfo Santana">Rodolfo Santana</A></div> <div> <A HREF="rovner.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Eduardo Rovner">Eduardo Rovner</A></div> <div> <A HREF="schmidt_huber.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Guillermo Schmidhuber">Guillermo Schmidhuber</A></div> <div> <A HREF="mn.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Maritza Núñez">Maritza Núñez</A></div> <div> <A HREF="kardun.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mauricio Kartun">Mauricio Kartun</A></div> <div> <A HREF="cpt.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="A Message from the Host of Latin America">Charles Philip Thomas</A></div> <div> <A HREF="email.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Place an order / Contact Us">CONTACT</A></div> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Latin American Theatre home page">HOME PAGE</A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> <bR> <div> Latin American Theatre</div> <div> Translations by Prof Charles Philip Thomas</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="735" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 1633 WIDTH="446"><div> The Dead Father (El Padre Muerto</div> <bR> <div> AUTHOR: <A HREF="de_la_perra.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Marco Antonio de la Parra">Marco Antonio de la Parra</A></div> <div> COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Chile</div> <bR> <div> translated by Prof. Charles Philip Thomas</div> <bR> <div> CAST: 4 men 1 woman</div> <bR> <div> SETTING: An artist's studio in New York </div> <bR> <div> SYNOPSIS: </div> <bR> <div> The play begins with two confusing events: Roberto dressed in drag killing ``a'' Father, and then the news that Roberto's mother died in Chile and his Father is travelling to join Roberto in Madrid. Who has Roberto actually killed? Further events bring on greater confusion, designed to obliterate the notions of individual, space and time identities. The ``dead'' Father later on reappears to lament having abandoned Roberto and to praise his paintings, which are nothing more than empty canvases; Roberto commits suicide by throwing himself through a window, only to appear again saying he was out shopping in preparation for his Father's impending visit; Roberto is then killed by Tony with a drug overdose; the Father appears to lament Roberto's new death, to denounce his liaison with Tony, now revealing his heroic political past had really been a hoax; Roberto reappears to stage a scene of jealousy with Sonia; Roberto and his Father get together to forgive each other, then the Father kills Roberto at a hospital while the son waits for an operation. </div> <div> Comment:</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="latbook.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Latin American Theater in Translation (b"><IMG SRC="121699f0.jpg" border=0 width="105" height="159" ALT=" " ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></A></div> <bR> <div> The plot of The Dead Father ``seems'' to revolve around the ``actual'' tribulations of Roberto Belmas (``Rob'' for everyone but the Father), a megalomaniac young Chilean painter living in New York, who wants to be a ``genius.'' He has great difficulty in fulfilling the quota of paintings contracted with Saul, the owner of a gallery who is marketing Roberto's work. Roberto feels his freedom is being restrained by his lover, Sonia, who reproaches him for not being able to keep a steady job. Roberto finds refuge in Tony, a homosexual who, in order to seduce him, provides Roberto with drugs and an understanding ear. Yet a deeper explanation to his problem ``seems'' to be his feelings of having been betrayed by his Father, who abandoned Roberto when he was a child, to pursue the career of a professional communist revolutionary. In retribution, Roberto wants to totally dissociate himself from the past. </div> <bR> <div> Are these Roberto's nightmares or psychotic incidents? In line with de la Parra's other works, it can be posited that the Father is an unreal image, a haunting phantom representing the Primordial Father. As an archetype of human history He does not need to incarnate Himself in any particular individual. He is all of them and none of them, generating all the suffering, aversion, love, challenge and encouragement that go into the creation of concrete human destinies. In this sense, The Dead Father is an extreme allegory of a human being trying to express his creative capacity through the conflict between the phylogenetic history of the species and the ontogenetic individual experience, at the same time trying to stage a Nietzschean revolt against it by casting away and destroying all ties to history and the Reality Principle. In the end the phantom of the Primordial Father has more life than real human beings. </div> <bR> <div> (Summary by Hernán Vidal, University of Minnesota)</div> <bR> <bR> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="278"><div> <I><IMG SRC="0feb0d70.jpg" border=0 width="176" height="215" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></I></div> <bR> <div> Country :Chile</div> <bR> <div> Marco Antonio de la Parra</div> <div> Works  in Translation </div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="king_kong.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="y King Kong Palace ">King Kong Palace</A></div> <div> <A HREF="secret.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Secret Obsenities (La secreta obscenidad">Secret Obsenities (La secreta obscenidad de cada día)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="dead_father.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Dead Father (El Padre Muerto">The Dead Father (El Padre Muerto)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="every_young.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Every Young Womans Desire (El deseo de t">Every Young Woman's Desire (El deseo de toda ciudadana) *</A></div> <div> <A HREF="killer_tangos.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Killer Tangos (Matatangos) ">Killer Tangos (Matatangos)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="raw.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Raw, The Cooked, and the Rotten (Lo ">The Raw, The Cooked, and the Rotten (Lo crudo, lo cocido, lo podrido) *</A></div> <div> <A HREF="dostoyevski_.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dostoyevski Goes to the Beach (Dostoevsk">Dostoyevski Goes to the Beach (Dostoevski va a la playa) </A></div> <div> <A HREF="monogamy.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Monogamy (Monogamia)">Monogamy (Monogamia)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="god_has_died.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="God Has Died or the Will of power (Dios ">God Has Died or the Will of power (Dios ha muerto o La Voluntad del Poder) </A></div> <div> <A HREF="sleepless.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Sleepless Land, the Mother Whore or ">The Sleepless Land, the Mother Whore or the Mother Country: Greek Tragedy Without Greeks: (La Tierra Insomne, La Puta </A><A HREF="sleepless.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Sleepless Land, the Mother Whore or ">Madre o La Madre Patria)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="continent.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Black Continent (El continente negro">The Black Continent (El continente negro)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="ophelia_.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ophelia or The Dead mother (Ofelia o la ">Ophelia or The Dead mother (Ofelia o la madre muerta)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="small_history.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Small History of Chile (La pequeña h">The Small History of Chile (La pequeña historia de Chile) </A></div> <div> <A HREF="on_the_air.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="We are on the Air (Estamos en el aire)">We are on the Air (Estamos en el aire)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="seamstresses.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Seamstresses (Las costureras)">The Seamstresses (Las costureras)</A></div> <div> <A HREF="happyrevolt.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" The Revolt of Happiness (La rebelión de"> The Revolt of Happiness (La rebelión de la felicidad)</A></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="perrabook.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Book: The Theater of Marco Antonio de la"><IMG SRC="13a96dd0.jpg" border=0 width="150" height="221" ALT=" " ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></A></div> <div> <A HREF="delaperrapub.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Marco Antonio de la Parra Publications">Complete list of publications by Marco Antonio de la Parra</A></div> <bR> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>