Sybaris It was published on September 13 and is the posthumous play by Sunday Villar, that already had finished before his unexpected and mournful death in May 2022. It was also performed on stage, in his hometown, Vigo, and others in Galicia during the fall and received very good reviews. This year it is scheduled to arrive in Madrid. This is my review.
Sybaris— Review
Very short, only 152 pages, is a black comedy that Villar had finished before his sudden death. Very playgoer Since his student days, the idea had been in his head for some time and he ended up materializing it.
Cwith illustrated cover again by Carlos Baonza, a friend of the author, alludes to title of the work of a writer named Víctor Morel, that made him a celebrity in the literary world when he received the Nobel Prize. But Morel is currently in a worrying situation. creative lock for many years, something that also affects their finances, which are becoming much smaller every day. Firstly, because the banks threaten to seize their house and, secondly, because they have to face the expensive dreams of his brilliant daughter Lola, who wants to go to Oxford to study.
The problem is that, rather than face the pressing and uncertain reality, Víctor prefers to take refuge in his idealism, which is also full of eccentricities such as talking to his cat Capone, who has run away from home and who they want to take to be castrated if he appears; or with a manikin the one he calls Mrs. Simmons and the one he shares in all his troubles. And, furthermore, Victor is also neglecting his wife, Laura, who is the one who has to take care of everything, including her husband's mental health or poor attitude to get out of the hole.
Disappear
That's when Víctor receives a invitation from the Sorbonne University with the proposal that he give a master class on literature for which he will also be paid very well. And Laura encourages him to accept it. The point is that the idea of appearing publicly again after so many years becomes a panic attack and a scared early.
The ego atrophies the sense of ridicule. I am not going to risk my reputation for talks in which an adult audience looks at me like children look at a clown.
But when the situation seems to finally reach rock bottom, Laura will find a exit as ingenious as it is macabre because it will appear a very timely death to accomplish what Víctor ends up wanting to do: disappear. For this, the help of a neighbor and Víctor's editor is essential, who also ends up entering the game. And everything appears wrapped in the form of a bourgeois or salon comedy, with surprises and intrigue, and sprinkled with a touch of absurd in some bizarre situations and the fine and intelligent humor that its author owned.
Which is
Well Sybaris is a new twist and success by Domingo Villar who, unfortunately, will also remain the last. Furthermore, but this time disturbingly, it also contains in its pages a premonition before the decision of its protagonist to want to disappear from the world to escape from that lack of inspiration and that anxiety due to commitments and pressures from all sides. In fact, there is this phrase from Scene 4 that is shocking:
I don't know where I read that, apart from the Nobel Prize, nothing revitalizes a literary career as much as the premature death of the author: old books are sold again as novelties, translations multiply... Dying will be my last gift.
Fate, sometimes, is too cruel and, without a doubt, undeserved. And Domingo Villar did not lack any inspiration and many stories to write yet. Furthermore, before his death, he was planning the fourth installment of his inspector's cases. Leo Caldas and I wanted to compose the script of the three previous novels —Water eyes, The beach of the drowned y The last ship— to create a television series.
But since the best thing that can be done for a writer is to read it, fortunately we also have this theatrical legacy that we can see on stage.
Sybaris— play
The work, of the company Condetrespés directed by Lois Blanco, starring her father, the actor Carlos Blanco, seen in the series Fariña as the drug trafficker Laureano Oubiña and who had already played a Villar character in the film adaptation of The beach of the drowned. He is accompanied by Belén Constenla, Oswaldo Digón and Pablo Novoa. The presentation tour began in Vigo, at the Afundación Theater, and continued in Narón, Lugo, Pontevedra, Vilagarcía and Santiago de Compostela. In Madrid it is planned in the Teatros del Canal for the end of June.