Obra negra. Olimpia 68. Una versión de Hamlet by Flavio González Mello (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Obra negra. Olimpia 68. Una versión de Hamlet by Flavio González Mello
• Michael "Raúl" Brown

González Mello, Flavio. Obra negra. Olimpia 68. Una versión de Hamlet. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2022. 262 pp.

This collection gathers three plays by Flavio González Mello that debuted in the theatres of the UNAM between 2007 and 2016. The author introduces the trio of works with a brief "Preámbulo," in which he describes the production process. He explains that he completed and revised the plays not just at readings and rehearsals, but also during their run in the university theatres. In addition to the plays, the author offers a seven-page essay titled "Un Shakespeare para las tablas," which precedes and introduces Una versión de Hamlet.

Obra negra serves as both the first and the most avant-garde of the collection. In keeping with the idea of obra negra, meaning a roughed-out, incomplete construction, this play provides few stage directions and consists of a set described as "una abstracción basada en croquis arquitectónicos" (17). Likewise, the characters appear as sketches rather than fully developed individuals. In fact, 10 actors perform 35 roles, including 10 who are simply labeled as desaparecidos and 25 with generic names such as the Critic, the Artist, the Pregnant Woman, the Custodian, and so forth. The characters, most of whom were previously oblivious to one another's existence, share one thing in common: all find themselves trapped in a "smart building" as it collapses. Unable to escape due to the building's Intelligence system, which moves the stairs and deposits elevator passengers on seemingly random floors, each individual possesses his/her own explanation for the building's demise. These include an earthquake, war, terrorism, meteorite, demolition to collect insurance, a simulation, protests, and the smart building committing suicide. A second meaning to obra negra revolves around a "priceless" piece of art that appears to be nothing more than a canvas painted black. Nonetheless, the artist says that it contains a hidden landscape as a deliberate palimpsest. Of course, everyone who looks at the painting sees something different, just as viewers of the play may walk away with many interpretations of its layers.

Although the first play might allude to events like the collapse of the World Trade Center, Olimpia 68 transports the reader to the historical events of the 1968 Olympics held in Mexico City. Staged on the 40th anniversary of the massacre in the Plaza de Tlatelolco, González Mello gives the audience a glimpse at President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz's assault on student protesters through the eyes of young, foreign Olympians. The play manages to commemorate the massacre of the students while fusing them with the Olympic Games. As one example of this fusion, the [End Page 105] play opens with runners taking their positions, but when the judge fires the starter pistol, he aims at and assassinates one of the athletes. Sammy, a jai alai competitor from a tiny Pacific Island, serves as another means of blending the two groups/events. After other athletes convince Sammy to join them in exploring the ruins outside the olympic village, a government collaborator hears him practicing the word "plaza" from his phrasebook and marks him with a black balloon. As a result, two agents of Díaz Ordaz's Olympia Battalion kidnap him. The mixture of thuggery and clownishness, which includes a judge/referee who alternates between sleeping in a folding chair and directing Sammy's torture, serves not simply as black humor but also as a representation of those fulfilling Díaz Ordaz's orders as a form of idiotocracy. Although the action also follows other athletes, back in their dorms or in competitions, danger is always at hand. It appears in the form of the beaten amnesiac protester named Julio, found hiding in one of their closets, and in the hand protruding from the sandbox of the triple jump event. Although the judge forbids the athlete who discovers the hand from unearthing the crime, González Mello's play announces that the time has come to stop covering up the past...