In our work until this point, we have focused on the representation of historical figures. We have continually proposed the possibility of critical readings and endless reinterpretations of these figures, consequently questioning the notion of a univocal true history. In the course of this artistic investigation, we have realized that what is brought to the fore in these final productions has been much more an image of those who are doing the representing than those historical figures intended to be represented; our own reflections regarding reality, history, power, subject, etc. have been revealed throughout this process. Now, in continuation with this search, we intend to work on the figure of Jesus Christ. In order to do this we have chosen to focus on the biblical account of his last days. Immediately, however, we encounter our first difficulty, one that will actually become the thematic axis of our entire project, namely the question: Who is Christ? Or, What is Christ? All that is accessible to us are representations of Christ. As if the idea, image or concept of Christ, one that had until now appeared to be a stable, self contained and solid one, had fragmented itself in thousands of other images and concepts. Could we be rather speaking of an infinite chain of figures, words, paintings, songs, etc. that pile up to produce the stable and closed entity we call Jesus Christ? For some time a sign was understood as a figure, image or word that represented something else. A word was the signifier for an object, it stood in the place of that object, and thus, the object referred to by that word was the signified. In more contemporary theories regarding signification this notion of sign has been drastically reformulated. In these accounts the relation between signifier and signified is not at all a stable one, furthermore, many theorists defend the idea that we are in the presence of a chain of signifiers with no real signified. A chain because any image we could call a signified is actually already a signifier for something else, making the possibility of final and stable meaning unattainable. Insofar as Christ is the incarnation of God, he is also a sign; he is here in God’s representation. Accordingly, we could state that Christ is the signifier and God the signified. However, what occurs is that behind every image of Christ, we do not find God but another image of Christ, and the play of signifiers appears to have no end. Is it possible, then, that the final meaning for Christ does not actually exist? “It is dangerous to unmask images” says Baudrillard “since they dissimulate the fact that there is nothing behind them” What if we are actually just in the presence of an endless chain of signifiers? How can we represent, as in our case with Christ, something that is in itself nothing but a chain of representations? Even further, is it possible that that which we call reality is nothing but a layering of representations? At this point, something seems to dissolve, the distinction between reality and its representation fades, or at least becomes a problematic one. Thus, how can we account for theatre if it is supposedly a representation of reality? “The impossibility of rediscovering an absolute level of the real is at the same order as the impossibility of staging illusion. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible” Christ as sign deconstructs itself, and our task has been to provoke, to observe and to participate in this deconstruction. The result of all this is CHRIST: a theatrical work of
investigation that touches on the highly contemporary question for reality and its tendency to escape us, a research on theatre itself, its possibilities and its limits. With a strong emphasis on physical acting that enables us to reproduce the somatic reverberations that this essential question brings upon our bodies. And a highly ironic and humoristic approach that facilitates the undermining of those things that appear to us to be the most stable and unquestionable.