Villa

Born in 1971 in Chile, Guillermo Calderón spends his childhood in a country in full dictatorship. His work speaks to us of memory, of the legacy left by what tears apart. But it also gives us the weapons to fight, with humor and intelligence. Sarah Siré, whose first season it is at the direction of the Théâtre des Martyrs, presented Villa there in 2024. Given the enthusiasm met for the show, we are happy that you can re-discover it. On stage, three women who represent and carry our humanity, must decide the fate of the Villa Grimaldi: should the Villa be rebuilt, a torture center under the dictatorship of General Pinochet, or should it be made into a museum? Designated by the committee of survivors, they do not know each other and to ensure their anonymity, all call themselves by the same first name, Alexandra. Only here, at the end of a democratic process by vote, they do not manage to agree. The staging of Sarah Siré, thought of as a thriller, holds us in a tension that pushes us into our entrenchments, without ever making us forget the theater, the ultimate space of democratic negotiation. The spectators, who witness the slightest details of this political decision-making whose intimate stakes will be revealed as they go for each character, are also put to the work of a collective questioning. Around a large table, three chairs, and a ballot, the destiny of an entire community is played out.