Tejas Verdes (Green Gables)

Synopsis

It is better to remain quiet and to forget. That's the only thing we must do. We must forget...for-get: That's the word. And for that to happen, both sides must forget and continue with their work (General Pinochet). Fermin Cabal has become one of Spain's leading contemporary playwrights. Robert Shaw's translation of this humane and powerful story pieces together the life of Colorina, a young woman who vanishes one night in Santiago. The bells of St Stephen's. I've been listening to them ever since I was a little girl... I listened to them, but I couldn't hear them. You can listen and listen and listen and never hear a thing.

Our Review:

14 January 2005

One minute you're sitting sipping a coffee, the next the dark has closed over your head and you're in horror land. It could happen that quickly, and it did in Chile, in Argentina and elsewhere in the 1970s – and no doubt is happening somewhere in the world even whilst you're reading this.

Thea Sharrock's all-female production of Spanish writer Fermin Cabal's journey into the heart of darkness, set in the period of Pinochet's military rule, is a virulent conscience-pricker. Backed by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, it gets into your head and will most likely continue to quietly explode there long after particular details of this production have disappeared.

Tejas Verdes means Green Gables. But you won't find much in common with the winsome tale of the orphaned redhead on Canada's Prince Edward Island. Rather the horrific but simply told account of a deadly game of extermination, and the torture of Colorina ([Shereen Mar...

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