The categorical imperative “is a concept of Kant’s that has a remarkable forcefulness, and I wanted to talk about these imperatives”, declares the playwright and director Victoria Szpunberg, who today premieres at the Teatre Lliure de Gràcia a work that, she says, has left her “very feminist” and which has been titled precisely like this: The categorical imperative. On stage, a 50-year-old anti-heroine, Àgata Roca, and an actor who gives her replica through seven characters, Xavi Sáez.
“She is a teacher who finds herself on a tightrope,” explains the author. She is not an extraordinary person, she has done everything the system has asked of her, but she is about to go to the other side without her being able to do anything.” Roca plays an associate professor at the university. “First I thought of a young woman, but a friend of mine who was a teacher and my age was in a precarious situation and that made me reconsider the protagonist.”
Roca adds: “The character is a gift and for a long time I will not be able to complain saying that there are no good roles for mature women. We consider how young people have it, but also how older people have it. The associate professor is based on reality: she finds herself on the street because the building has been bought by a vulture fund, and she has a salary lower than what they ask for rent.
“If there is a philosopher who has generated a rigid and forceful system and, at the same time, extremely important, it is Kant,” continues Szpunberg. The categorical imperative is a concept that today we can say is very patriarchal, because it is a precept that can include everything from human rights to Nazism, since it is an abstract phantasmagoria. She encounters a series of men from different social strata, but all cut from the same cloth. She decides to change the teaching plan she has with the students and introduces Kafka. A department head questions him and questions his academic freedom. Furthermore, they are about to kick her out of her apartment, divorcing her and making her menopausal.”
“There are so many novels and plays about heroes and antiheroes, that I really like working with an antiheroine,” says Sáez. Besides, having a director who is also an author is very enriching because it makes you feel that you are part of the creation of the work in a certain way.”
Szpunberg responds: “I was interested in men being paradigms, so I could focus on what I wanted to explain, because, if not, a lot of melons would open up. She is disciplined and obedient until one day she finds herself with a sharp knife in her hands… I don’t know whether to say that L’ imperatiu categòric is a comedy, but it does have a lot of irony,” concludes Szpunberg.
Catalan version, here
