On Friday, May 22, at 8:30 p.m., Sala La Correa (General Díaz 1163) hosts the return of the play Dos hombres junto al río, a theatrical adaptation of the novel of the same name by Andrés Colmán Gutiérrez, winner of the Augusto Roa Bastos Prize for Unpublished Novel in 2022. The season continues on May 23, 24, 29, 30, and 31, always at the same time.
The plot is set in 1908, after a clandestine incursion by Spanish journalist and anarchist thinker Rafael Barrett into the domains of the landholding company La Industrial Paraguaya in Takuru Puku. Ambushed and seriously wounded by foremen of the yerba mate enclave, Barrett is rescued by a group of mensú (rural workers) and a smuggler, who take him downriver to the Guillermo Tell colony, the scientific refuge of Swiss Moisés Santiago Bertoni.
The production, with a theatrical version by Nelson Viveros and direction by Héctor Silva, explores the intellectual clash between the two exiled Europeans. While Bertoni built his family ecosystem under the institutional recognition of his science, Barrett embodied libertarian militancy and the denunciation of indigenous slavery, persecuted by the established power. The dialogue reveals contradictions between science, literature, and social emancipation, in a jungle adventure story that evokes the native cosmogony of Yvy marane'y (the land-without-evil).
The production is by the collective ARKHE em cena, with lighting by Alberto Castillo, costumes by Belén Fretes, and visual recording by Emiliano Gómez. Tickets will be available at the box office.