Divine Words

By Ramón del Valle-Inclán

Translated by Maria Delgado

Directors: John Wright and Toria Banks

Designer: Chris Gylee

Performed by: BA (Hons) Acting Collaborative and Devised Theatre students

When Juana la Reina, the old beggar woman dies, who in the village will take care of her idiot son, the dwarf?

It all depends how profitable that care could be. When it comes to snouts in the trough, it turns out we are all in it together.

Bohemian, Galician playwright Ramón del Valle-Inclán, ‘one-armed like Cervantes and lame like Byron’, had to invent his own word (‘esperpento’) to describe his savage, grotesque, hilarious, impossible plays. Long admired in Spain and the rest of Europe, emulated by Lorca and Buñuel, he has been ignored for too long in the UK. A witty, vibrant translation (previously directed in a rehearsed reading by Mark Ravenhill) is here given its full due, in a visually exciting, physically inventive production. ‘You may well laugh now but the hour of weeping and gnashing of teeth will soon be upon you.’