From the program notes, this statement is extracted: "El Casalot is a delirious exercise on the impossible: terror on a theater stage". And, while it is true that the play breathes an aroma of mystery and thriller, categorizing it as "terror" doesn't quite fit.
Gemma Deusedas and Anna Carreño are the two actresses of El Casalot. Two actresses who play multiple roles: that of a couple, that of two sisters, that of two cousins… And the same scene is constantly reproduced, with different characters and different stories, but always moving on the same skeleton: an accident, a psychiatric center, a cliff, a murder, a knife and blood, a lot of blood…
The setting of the play is dark, gloomy, and well-designed. You enter a village house, one of those where it's cold and very quiet. Here live two women, alone and isolated, who, between delusions and realities, tell us different possible stories that happen within those four walls.
An intermittent rhythm
El Casalot has a very powerful first part. The plot presented, with the looped repetition of the same situation and the appearance of different characters, sets expectations very high: what is happening in that house? Who is right? Why do the same elements always appear?
This means that, at the beginning, we are very attentive to the dialogue and all the references that appear in the play. But, from the middle, the rhythm declines. The accumulation of stories, characters, and convoluted plots makes the loop heavy and made me feel that there is no possible resolution. And, precisely, that's what happens.
A very unconvincing and forced ending
After all the open doors that have been created during the course of the play, the ending is not very credible. Neither are the stories explained, nor is coherence given to the repetition of elements, nor an explanation of what was really happening in the house. A totally alien ending to the narrative is chosen, with a dystopian and implausible character. I felt like at the end of Lost: a totally unexpected resolution of the conflict, but one that doesn't have enough strength to be convincing.
El Casalot is a proposal that has a very good starting point: a house in the mountains, two women alone, and recurring elements. The actresses work spectacularly, embodying different characters and giving them strength and mystery. But the end of the play does not meet the expectations created, and you leave the theater without really knowing what they wanted to tell you.
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