La Re-sentida (Chile) reckons with leftist church in Holland Festival 2015

The 1970s have for some time been the target of what we shall conveniently call the up-and-coming generation. And so we are talking about the 1970s as the glory years of hippyism, the jubilant times of the left-wing church and everything else that with today's knowledge is dirty and sordid. They were the years when the Vietnam War was protested to an end, Portuguese colonels were sent home with carnations and the squatters of the past occupied the houses you have to pay millions for now.

Anyone who might think that attacking the leftist 1970s is a hobby of the people behind The Post Online, De Balie or GeenStijl is not looking far enough over the border. Meanwhile, people in Latin America are also questioning the eternal value of the ideals of the seventies. In this year's Holland Festival La Imaginacion del Futuro show, a performance that questions the current generation's veneration of Chilean president Salvador Allende.

The play was created by the company La Re-sentida, which translates into Dutch as De Wrok. And resentful they are indeed a bit. Resentful of a generation in power, i.e. their parents' generation, that squandered the revolutionary ideals of Salvador Allende, the progressive president overthrown by the army led by General Pinochet in 1973.

The attack on the left is not so much on the left itself, the director explains in the interview that I had with him in Berlin, but on those who use leftist ideals for their own commercial ends. After all, there is still inequality, poverty, and injustice today, even though anyone who survived Pinochet's dictatorship should know better by now. They still regard Allende's last speech, 10 minutes before he was to commit suicide, as sacred. "We raise some uncomfortable questions about Allende's memory," explains Marco Layera Navarro. "We are now living with the consequences of the words Allende uttered in 1973. Nothing has happened to them."

That speech, in which Allende expresses confidence that in the end social and just forces will prevail, is central to the cabaret-like and circus-like spectacle performance created by La Resentida.

We see Allende plosteling surrounded by modern spin doctors, spokesmen and media specialists, and he eventually succumbs to their intrigues. This is beautifully portrayed and, despite the overwhelming spectacle, manages to be moving.

The performance strikes a chord with the generation that grew up under the dictatorship. In Chile, the reactions were not mild, according to the makers: "In Chile, everyone is still divided on Allende. 40 per cent say he is the bad guy is and the other 60 per cent still draw inspiration from his life. This play is aimed at those 60%. The people who go to the theatre in Chile are usually already leftist and progressive. So we criticise them, but also ourselves, because we belong to that group too. But there are people who don't tolerate such criticism."

Even more than in Chile, the group met resistance in Europe. In France in particular, the predominantly left-wing audience sometimes reacted furiously to the desecration of their hero Allende. In Berlin, where I saw the performance, reactions were mild. Perhaps people there have since learned to take the myth of the leftist 1970s with a grain of salt. The performance is therefore mostly morbid. Navarro: "All our pieces are pessimistic. There is no hope. But that is also the intention. it is a provocation. We hope the audience does see hope. But we only ask questions. The play gives no solutions.”

The director himself has hope somewhere, but he has become mostly pessimistic: "We are no longer touched by the fate of the other. I don't know how to change that either. As a theatre-maker, I actually consider myself a coward. We are too petulant, when we should be able to achieve more. Theatre is just a grain of sand. I wanted it to be bigger. I did consider going to southern Chile with the group and starting a school for poor children. Then you really achieve results. But nobody wants to come along. We are too attached to the life we have, our bohemian lifestyle. That's why I don't feel like a hero. Heroes are outside working."

Information and booking.

Photo: La Re-sentida.