King Berenguer, an authoritarian and egocentric monarch, faces the news of his imminent death, with barely an hour and a half of life left. The play, written by the absurdist theatre reference Eugène Ionesco, sets up a countdown in which the sovereign tries to cling to a decaying kingdom and an authority that no one seems to obey anymore.
The company Atalaya will stage this reflection on fate and the human condition on December 4th, at 8:00 PM, at the Góngora Theatre in Córdoba. Tickets, priced at 17 and 21 euros, are already available through the usual channels of the Municipal Institute of Performing Arts.
The play features a ruler who refuses to accept that fate is the true power, and that everything dies with him. Berenguer represents humanity in an apocalyptic situation, where the time of human dominion over Earth has passed due to the very destruction it has caused.
It is a drama about man as a subject, as humanity, and as a society in progressive decay, which ignores the signs of nature. The staging, directed by Ricardo Iniesta and Sario Téllez, with text adaptation by Iniesta, includes music, movement, lighting, and symbolic scenography that progresses with the protagonist's consciousness.
The cast is completed by Marga Reyes (Queen Margarita), Silvia Garzón (Queen Maria), Aurora Bas (Julieta), Jerónimo Arenal (doctor and astrologer), and Manuel Asensio (bailiff), all under the performance of actress Carmen Gallardo as the king.
'The King Dies' confronts the spectator with the uncomfortable certainty that neither titles, authority, nor riches can stop the passage of time. The clock is ticking for Berenguer, and in Córdoba, he will only have 90 minutes left to live when the curtain rises.
