Theatre and Democracy in Chile: La Re-sentida’s La imaginación del futuro, or the Failure of Utopias
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Abstract
This chapter examines the play La imaginación del futuro by Chilean company La Re-sentida, which premiered in the capital, Santiago, in 2013 during the commemorations of the fortieth anniversary of the coup d’état. In this production the company made the bold decision to mix past and present by showing President Allende during his last hours on 11 September 1973 working alongside ministers from twenty-first-century Chile, who are trying to save him from the fatal destiny that would befall the country. The plot presents a juxtaposition of periods, but also of ideologies. It confronts Allende’s vision of socialism via democratic means with the post-dictatorship left-wing governments, which appear as representative of Zygmunt Bauman’s ‘liquid modernity’. The essay argues that the work of La Re-sentida epitomises a new generation of Chilean theatre practitioners, whose dramatic language and ideological approaches attempt a clear separation from the previous tradition of political theatre in Chile.