HEBRAS

HEBRAS
During this school year we have seen a variety of school plays, including those which experiment on the medium and defy conventions seen on western theater such as Yuyachkani´s “Con-cierto olvido” or “Qorihuaman” presented also on the Yuyachkani Theater. In this occasion we watched a play called “HEBRAS” created by our theater arts teacher Roberto. I mentioned the previous plays because I find something similar in all of them, they all explore furthermore the possibilities of theatre as an art and go against the common ideas many have about theater in general. In this case, HEBRAS was a play where the actions performed had to give the audience the clear idea of the motivations behind each movement and had to express the character´s feelings since we couldn’t see the actors face due to a mask. This mask was plain white and the only visible aspect where the eyes. Again this element also contributed to create a special effect on the audience, we were able to “fill in the blank” with the feeling we thought the character expressed at each moment.
From the moment we entered the stage we took notice of those unconventional aspects, the first one being the stage itself,the seats had been arranged in the form of a circle around the characters (only two for this play) which were already posing in the center of the stage. This second aspect was immediately striking, the way in which the two actors posed intrigued me as they were both joined and contorted (contorsionados, sorry Robbie no conozco la palabra) as two single strands. They were both weaved together and the play started the moment they started separating and the moment they split apart different a wide variety of images appear. The story told is not straight forward; I noticed mainly a wide amount of images, such as greed or a conflict of interests and how badly they treated each other at moments. I soon realized the symbolism behind the play, after each “conflict” they reconciled and hug each other until there are moments in which the conflicts are way too tragic so the “couple” keep fighting until at last, the characters join together in the weaving pose, the exact same one from the beginning of the play.
After watching the play we were explained the stimulus behind it was “love”. By definition love is a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person but it´s not necessary for those individuals to be a couple. This is why the symbolism in this play is so important, The characters presented wear the white mask for us to fill in the blank and put ourselves in the middle of that relationship, we can imagine a couple as we can imagine a relation between siblings or a father and son relation. It is entirely up to us to decide what we want to “see” and feel as we watch this performance.
In conclusion I can surely affirm, HEBRAS, goes beyond what many of us expected from the initial title, this play explores human relations and compares their weaknesses and strengths through a singular experience; from the dramatic and superb live music performance to the subtle smells from candles behind the stage. The most important aspect to highlight form the play is its message, how it portrays human relations as simple strands which start as firmly tied together, soon conflicts appear and the strands separate, they later on join again and this process repeats however each time the strands appear more and more damaged until a point where they no longer join until the last image, where they wove back which we interpret it as either a final reconciliation or as the final destination of the two individuals.
As a final question i must ask myself what was the meaning behind the circle formed around the stage, did it have the purpose of highlighting that this is in fact a neverending cycle, that we all experience this at one stage or another during our lifes (we shared the same level as the characters) or was it both?