/ARTS WEEKLY/ THEATRE-CHILE: Paedophilia and the Church Take the Stage

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Gustavo González

SANTIAGO, Dec 23 2003 (IPS) - Chilean playwright Jorge Díaz lashes out against the Roman Catholic Church’s corporative defence and headline-grabbing cases of paedophilia among its ranks with his play "Oficio de tinieblas" (Shadowy Vocation), to premiere here in January.

The focus of this recent work by one of Chile’s most prolific dramaturges is a call for reflection on the cover-up efforts by the country’s Catholic hierarchy in reacting to the cases of clergy abuse of minors.

Díaz, 73, won the National Arts Prize for Theatre in 1993, recognition for his long career, dating back to the 1960s with "El cepillo de dientes" (Toothbrush), a play that established the theatre of the absurd in Chile.

Few playwrights keep themselves as up to date as Díaz, who resides most of the year in Madrid and Valladolid, Spain, returning every October to his native country for the southern hemisphere summer.

He says theatre is "an obsession, a compulsion" for him, and perhaps that is where he gets the eagerness to turn each of his works into a critical view of society, its protagonists and its institutions.

In May, the Ictus theatre company staged at La Comedia "Devuélveme el rosario de mi madre y quédate con todo lo de Marx" (Give me back my mother’s rosary and keep everything of Marx’s). One of Díaz’s most lauded plays, it deals with the disenchantment and decadence of matrimonial relations.

Over the 40 years since the debut of "Toothbrush", he has lived up to his critic-granted status as "the promise of Chilean theatre". With that first play he laid the groundwork for a genre that he continues to develop to this day.

"I tend to seek a poetic that has more to do with the human side and that largely abstains from any message," he said in an interview with the Santiago daily La Tercera a few years back.

"Theatre is a poetic reflection about humankind and, therefore, I am constantly touching on the social and the political. It is the context, the scenario in which I move. The key is to reach the human condition," he added.

"Oficio de tinieblas" fully lives up to that definition, not only because it deals with current reality, but also because of the viewpoint of the author.

"This is not a play about paedophilia. It is a desire to reflect on the corporative defence that is produced in many institutions – in this case the Catholic Church – when faced with a denunciation that is disturbing or which involves the possibility of scandal," Díaz said in a recent interview with El Mercurio newspaper.

At the core of the play’s plot is the rape of a boy. With that as the basis, the positions of the protagonists are laid out, including a psychiatrist, a journalist and a bishop, played by actors Pablo Striano, Sergio Schmied and Andrés García.

"It is a work of fiction, but the problem is real, a social problem," says the playwright.

Díaz began to work on the idea in December 2002, the end of a year in which numerous reports of paedophilia in the Chilean Catholic Church had made headlines and led to a bishop’s resignation and reclusion to a monastery.

"Oficio de tinieblas", directed by Pablo Krögh, will premiere in January during the Full Throttle Theatre Festival, which every year serves as an explosion of plays in Santiago and other Chilean cities.

Where did the name of the play come from? Díaz says that up until 1965 the Catholic Church had a liturgy known as "Vocation of Darkness", used on Good Friday of Holy Week.

"It was a dimly lit ceremony that evoked the absence of Jesus Christ after his death and his descent into hell. It was ceremony of expiation and reflection in the darkness, prior to resurrection," Díaz explains.

The play is precisely a call to reflect, he says, especially for the clerical community, where "now we are seeing clear signs of a move towards greater clarification, an end to secrecy and to the rhetoric of ambiguity."

It is about making a contribution from the world of theatre to overcoming this "shadowy vocation" in which society continues to live, says Díaz, a society that is somewhat disconcerted and in which the light of resurrection remains weak.