Theater: “Hotel Nirvana”, by Juan Villoro

MEXICO CITY (apro).- Logos is the drug to expand consciousness: the drug that Juan Villoro invented in theatrical fiction, to explore, through language, an alternate universe and a time in which it was at its peak. psychedelia. He is inspired by the American guru Timothy Leary, from Harvard University, who undertook research on LSD, psilosibin and DMT.

The professor did not call them drugs but “ecstatic technologies,” and he brought them closer to therapeutic treatments of the mind. He was expelled from Harvard and took refuge in Mexico in the sixties to continue his explorations.

In “Hotel Nirvana”, directed by Antonio Castro with actors from the National Theater Company, the characters make winks and reinterpretations of real characters such as Tom, Allen (Ginsberg) or Carlos (Castaneda); They are and they are not, but they were in that movement; They visited Mexico, explored different drugs in the sixties and opened their perception to free themselves from the tangible, the reasoned and the materialistic.

Each of the characters that live in the Hotel Nirvana, located in Zihuatanejo, represent different social sectors, different ideologies, different archetypes that embark on the adventure of introspection directed and stimulated by the logos. Allen (Antonio Rojas) is the host who hosts the visitors; He is in love with Tom (Miguel Cooper), who dares to question him and play a parallel game. There is the rich girl with a millionaire dad (Irene Repeto) who considers her family “as natural as plastic flowers,” and the anthropologist Carlos (Fernando Sakanassi) who questions Tom’s procedures but drinks Coca-Cola.

Each character has its originality and has a function in this chess game proposed by Villoro. The archetype of the “progressive” official (Arturo Beristain), ironizes politics and clichés, and together with the ex-combatant in Vietnam (Fernando Bueno), who was always drugged to endure the fighting, represent the moves that will be carried out. throughout the play until its denouement, where the CIA and the Mexican government are involved.

There is also the daring ex-nun (Mariana Villaseñor) and the renegade philosopher who wants to get rid of “the mamonry of the intellect” (Amanda Smeltz). With these characters and others, the author builds a plot and different subplots that imply a complex dramatic structure. He weaves together small stories that are expressed on stage in short, simultaneous scenes in the hotel rooms, agilely resolved in the set design by Ingrid SAC with the wonderful lighting by Víctor Zapatero. A kaleidoscope of characters that come together in therapeutic sessions with geometric figures, to embark on an inner journey stimulated by the drug logos and the words of the prophet.

And in these sessions, the author plays with words brilliantly; He expands them and strips them of meaning, reconstructing them with other meanings. And Zapata’s ideology is orange, and Zapata is orange and the sparks of color are the orange liquid poured into the bodies. Skill in language and freedom in its use is the gift that the drug itself provides; the drug that, as indicated, affects the region of the brain intended for language. And the language is appropriated by the guru, to touch the poetry and philosophy of being, appearing as a visionary but also a charlatan who abuses his power, who locks himself in his ideology without being able to really look at the other, who leads to destruction or also a healing process, as Harumi (Marissa Saavedra), the virtual prostitute, comments at the end of the trip: “I took logos and returned to my body.”

The original music by Mariano Herrera and Diego Herrera (founding musician of Caifanes) sets the tone and tones the work. It immerses us in that mix of rock and contemporary music, of mysticism and sixties music. Andrea Chirinos’ choreography also creates a group spirit with relaxed and vital movements that arise from the actor himself and that the choreographer integrates and harmonizes.

In “Hotel Nirvana”, with performances at the Cenart Arts Theater until the 21st of this month (Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m.), intelligence and humor mix: the nostalgia of a time when one could believe in utopia, where drugs would be controlled for the benefit of mental health and not used to numb rebels and questioners of the regime, and in the subsequent millionaire and bloody business of drug trafficking.