It all starts with a note that someone slips under the door. This is the beginning of an exploration of the purest and most authentic black genre.

In this case, and without fear of revealing the plot, just because of the name, you have to explore photographer’s murder. And we will do it. We will be led by a smart and classic detective (he could not miss him); It’s better for the police not to get involved in this case, because it will contaminate all the evidence.

And since this is a photographer, let’s see the photos. Time is limited, but you cannot work against the clock, the whole environment will continue to detail what has happened. We’ll have to pull up the fence.

And draws beautifully Pablo Rosalwho wrote this story of intrigue and suspense and, moreover, tells it to us. This makes us witnesses, helpers, observers, confidants. he is alone. Faced with all the evidence, with all the involved characters and suspects, whose faces cannot be seen, because the attention must fall on the plot itself. And it’s best not to broadcast it, no matter how involved a journalist, a hotel receptionist, an ex-wife (I mean a partner) with social influence, and a couple of patrons in a kind of homey sweet home triangle.

Superbly narrated as if we were reading a crime novel, attending a private screening of the cult film about the mythical detective (including its soundtrack), a story made in parts in a special edition of cold cases, a jury trial in a murder case where we can all be murderers.

Ferran Dordal and Laluesa He guides him with the necessary asepsis so as not to hide the evidence and so that we all the time think: who committed the crime?

The stage is empty. And, at the same time, loaded with the environment in which the murder was committed. We can appreciate almost every minute and every scene of the investigations of detective Julio Romero, who will reveal for us all the clues, every suspicion, as well as the unforeseen and what we neophytes did not fall for.

The story keeps you on your toes; you are trying, unwillingly, to be the first to discover it. Help him in his investigations, notice the details that he may have overlooked. But no. Everything is clearly defined and, as a good detective, (we have already said that the police do not intervene yet), we understand that the “simple art of murder” is not so simple.

It is not easy to put on stage such an intricate performance and at the same time so truthful, so natural, although the discovery of a corpse is not an everyday thing, but in this case it is entertaining.

art sheet

Authorship and interpretation: Pablo Rosal

Directed by: Ferran Dordal and Lalueza

Photograph: Noemi Elias Bascugnana

Venue: Abbey Theater

This text received a theatrical writing grant for the 2020-21 season from Sala Beckett with support from the SGAE Foundation.

Alberto Morate, writer, poet, director, professor of literature and theater, academician at the North American Academy of Contemporary International Literature (ANLMI).