Premiere 1993 - Cultural Activities University of Salamanca, Spain. Duration: 25min Written and Directed: La Ribot. Performers: Juan Loriente, La Ribot. Lighting Design: Cora. Costumes: La Ribot. Premiere 1993 - Cultural Activities University of Salamanca, Spain. Duration: 25min Written and Directed: La Ribot. Performers: Juan Loriente, La Ribot. Lighting Design: Cora. Costumes: La Ribot.
Show/ Dance/ Theater
The 1993 duet Los trancos del avestruz, choreographed by La Ribot and performed by her with the actor Juan Loriente, lasts forty minutes and frequently has its audience laughing out loud.
The action starts with the pair sitting opposite one another on folding wooden chairs, laughing silently and hilariously. It then develops into a comical, puzzling and at times alarming game in which each performer, turn by turn, seems to command or threaten the other – sometimes through gestures but mostly via loud, incomprehensible and very funny vocalisations. Each yodel, bellow or whimper has an immediate and dramatic effect, causing the other performer to collapse on the floor, leap onto their chair, brandish it as if in self-defence or even dash into the theatre wings for safety.
Slapstick Los trancos del avestruz certainly is, but (very much like la Ribot’s 1995 collaboration with Loriente, Oh! Sole!) its physical comedy is cleverly complicated by the two protagonists’ absurd and enigmatic relationship. Their activities defy rationalization; nevertheless, they take them awfully seriously, and this compels a mirroring seriousness in Los trancos del avestruz’s spectators – a sense that we are laughing not merely at cartoon pratfalls but at a subtly suggested range of human foibles and failings.