/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/THEATRE-PERU: Sartre Helps a Nation Delve into Its Recent Past

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Abraham Lama

LIMA, May 7 2002 (IPS) - The staging in Peru of “Dirty Hands”, by French philosopher and writer Jean Paul Sartre, digs into what is perhaps the country’s most salient political problem: the conflict between exercising power and upholding moral principles.

In recent months, numerous theatre productions, including dance, as well as essays and novels, have explored the 10 years of Alberto Fujimori in the Peruvian presidency (1990-2000), a decade characterised by political violence, the abuse of power, and the spread of corruption.

This artistic wave of remembrance includes the recent debut of “Dirty Hands”, the Sartre play directed in Lima by Jorge Chiarella, with the backing of Peru’s Pontificate Catholic University.

The director as well as actors Sergio Llusera and Mónica Sánchez, who play Hugo and Jessica, two of the main characters, had taken part in the massive mobilisations throughout the country that led to the fall of Fujimori in November 2000.

Meanwhile, Alberto Isola, who plays the role of Hoederer, served as producer, director and actor last year in the stagings of classic works that alluded to the chaotic 1990s in Peru: “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, and “Faust” by Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe.

“When we find ourselves in the painful process of looking to the past to understand what brought us those long years of violence and corruption, the premiere of ‘Dirty Hands’ invites us to reflect on the conflict between essential values and the necessities of political praxis,” commented human rights attorney and activist Santiago Soberón.

The Peruvian people have yet to recover from the shock of discovering the depth of political corruption that existed during the administration of Fujimori, who concentrated all state powers in his hands with the pretext of turning back hyperinflation and defeating the guerrilla groups Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA).

The Fujimori regime spread corruption throughout the entire state apparatus, evident in the fortune of several hundred million dollars amassed by the president’s right-hand man, Vladimiro Montesinos, who is now behind bars in Peru. Fujimori, meanwhile, has sought refuge in Japan, the homeland of his parents.

“Dirty Hands” is one of the best-known works by Sartre, father of the existentialist current of thought that arose in Europe at the end of World War II.

He wrote the play in 1948, a period when France was discovering the rampant corruption of the government of Henry Philippe Petain, who was in power until 1944 and collaborated with the invading German Nazis.

During World War II, Sartre himself was active in the resistance against the German occupation and was imprisoned until 1941. He went on to found the magazine ‘Les Temps Modernes’.

In 1964, the philosopher rejected the Nobel Prize for Literature and, in 1968, based in the student movement, he led the leftist newspaper ‘Liberation’.

In nearly all his novels and plays, Sartre describes the conflict of personal liberty and the accompanying individual responsibility to social interest, to the common good.

The story of “Dirty Hands” takes place in an imaginary Eastern European country after the war has ended. The central characters are Hugo, a petit bourgeois intellectual who joins a radical leftist party, and Hoederer, the leader of that organisation.

The members of the Central Committee order Hugo to kill Hoederer, who had made a pact with the adversary bourgeoisie to fight the occupying Nazis. The party considers it necessary to silence Hoederer because he knows too many secrets that could compromise the organisation.

“It is not a political theatre piece, propaganda, but rather a work about the nature of political decisions,” said Sartre himself when the play debuted in Paris.

“Do you think one can govern innocently? Purity is a matter for monks, clerics, not for politicians. My hands are dirty to the elbows. I have shoved them in filth and blood,” Hoederer says to Hugo in the drama.

Director Chiarella has attempted to involve the audience in the dramatic action “through symbols and indications that link the story with the political circumstances experienced by the spectators.”

Although the scenery and costumes are deliberately neutral in style, Chiarella has used contemporary popular Peruvian music in the production to draw the line connecting the play with the reality of the audience.

“The play’s intention is one of total inquiry. It could be said that the original dilemma has lost timeliness, but it has not last testimonial value about the human aspect of doubts and objections, not only of the protagonist, but also of ideologies,” said theatre critic Luis Antonio Meza.

Meanwhile, journalist Mónica Villalobos wondered: “Is innocence possible in politics? ‘Dirty Hands’ seems to have been written for us. It points to a vital issue for Peruvians, although Peru needs to wash more than just its hands.”