On the occasion of the exposure ‘Norman Bethune. La Huella solidaria’ (‘Norman Bethune. Trail of Solidarity’), the Universitat de València will present the dramatic reading of the Bertolt Breht’s work “Señora Carrar’s Rifles”. The event takes place today, 3rd September, at 19:00h, in Palau Cerveró and will be carried out by the actors of the ensemble of actors Cant del Cigne (Dramatic Study of Valencia), under the direction of Josep V. Asensi. Free entrance until seating capacity is reached.
The German playwright wrote his play after finding out about the Málaga-Almería road tragedy, when in February 1937 thousands of people (women, elderly people, children) run away for the advance of the Franco’s rebel troops and were victims of Mussolini’s air force and fascist navy. The history starts an April 1937 night, in a small Andalucian village, when Teresa Carrar calmly kneads and bakes bread in her house while her youngest child, José, watches his brother Juan, who is fishing in the nearby sea, before the inquisitive gaze of his mother. Teresa, who was widowed for the death of Carlos during the uprising of Oviedo a few months earlier, will receive the visit in the night of different neighbours of the village that, for the most part, think that their children should be on the front as the formal mandate of the government dictates. The dramatic reading will be represented in the exposure room, surrounded with the photographs that document the work of the Canadian doctor Norman Bethune in that place.
Norman Bethune, together with his collaborators, provided a vital assistance to Málaga’s population in their flight from the city to Almería. This tragic episode will be reflected in an impressive story that he wrote and in the photographs of his collaborator Hazen Sise, which you can see in the exposure of Palau Cerveró that will finish on 4th September. The showing gathers the photographs of the life of this important Canadian doctor and emphasise his humanitarian actions and the advances with which he contributed to medicine during the Spanish Civil War. The project, therefore, constitutes by extension a recognition to the labour of the doctors in times of war.
Norman Bethune (Gravenhurst, Ontario, 1980 - Hebei, China, 1939) had a short but intense life course. After participating in the World War I as a nurse, he becomes a renowned thoracic surgeon, and developes innovative surgical instruments against tuberculosis. Nevertheless, his condition of a prestigious doctor does not satisfy him. He is moved by the poverty that there is in Montreal in the 1930s after the major crisis. Then, he practises the social medicine, attends to the most disadvantaged people and defends, fervently, new policies of public health care.
The exposure ‘Norman Bethune. Trail of Solidarity’, curated by Jesús Majada, traces a path through the life of Bethune, offers also the only graphic file of the exodus of the people of Málaga to Almería and a testimony of the exceptional value of a tragic episode of the Spanish Civil War. The showing and the parallel activity programme have been possible thanks to the collaboration of numerous institutions: The Office of the Vice-Principal for Culture and Equality of Universitat de València, the Andalucian Photography Centre of the Ministry of Culture of the Junta of Andalusia, the Canadian Embassy in Spain, Fundación Canadá, the López Piñero Institute for the History of Medicine and Science,and the Universitat de València’s Institute for Human Rights.
Cant del Cigne is a young Valencian ensemble that appears in the year 2010 under the protection of the Dramatic Study of Valencia and with the artistic direction Pablo Corral Gómez, being the professionalised aspect of the mentioned teaching centre. He launched his adventures with the staging ‘Pinter&Politic’, with script by Harold Pinter. The last year he released in Madrid ‘Electra, llamando a las puertas de Dumblane’ (‘Electra, knocking on Dumblane’s door’), with script of the classic Euripides, both under the stage direction of Pablo Corral Gómez, continuing with her this season. On top of that, this year he also releases ‘eñora Carrar’s Rifles’ by Bertolt Brecht, under the direction of Josep V. Asensi and the dramaturgy of Pablo Corral Gómez.
Artistic file:
Direction: Josep V. Asensi
Dramaturgy: Pablo Corral Gómez
Cast: Josep V. Asensi, Betlem Martínez Vendrell,Teresa Villena García,Teo Gómez Mauri, Jorge Ruiz Peñalver, Mª Luisa Jesús Pérez
Last update: 3 de september de 2015 07:00.
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