When: 10th February – 2nd March 2012 at 8pm
Where: The CLF Art Café, Bussey Building, 133 Rye Lane, London, SE15 4ST
£: 10
What is it?
Panta Rei Theatre Collective presents Rocinante! Rocinante! a site specific promenade journey through the mind of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
The performance considers madness in the light of two of its most celebrated portrayals, Don Quixote and Hamlet. At night, Don Quixote arrives in a cemetery with his old horse Rocinante accompanied as ever by Sancho Panza and Donkey. They stumble upon Hamlet’s gravediggers, involved in alchemical experiments as they debate the meanings of life, death and everything in between. But this garden of souls is not all that it appears, and rational laws disappear to make way for something absurd, surreal and grotesque.
Influenced by the dark imagery of Hieronymus Bosch, a cast of seven alternate dynamic physical sequences with intimate poetic moments as the audience enter a world of dreams, memories and visions, embarking on a surreal journey through the restless mind of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Almost exact contemporaries, Cervantes and Shakespeare died in 1616, on the same date (23rd April), if the discrepancy of ten days between the Gregorian calendar (Spain) and Julian calendar (England) is to be allowed for.
Panta Rei Theatre (“everything flows”) is a collective of international artists promoting interdisciplinary collaborations to explore issues that transcend the boundaries of cultural, economical and social backgrounds. Rocinante! Rocinante! is part of Panta Rei’s long-term project on theatre and mental illness. The company has been collaborating since 2010 with Dr Zerrin Atakan from the Institute of Psychiatry and Dr Nick Troop from the Performance Psychology Lab, Hertfordshire University.
The CLF Art Cafe, home of the Royal Court’s Theatre Local in the heart of Peckham, is a hub for artists referred to as the “new Montmartre” by The Independent.
More info: For tickets visit www.ticketweb.co.uk or pantareitheatre.com.