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 play that, she says, has came out “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 is 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 pass to the other side without her being able to do anything about it.” Roca plays an associate professor at the university. “First I thought of a young woman, but a friend of mine, a teacher and of my age, was in a precarious situation and this made me rethink 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 the young have it, but also how the elderly have it. The associate professor is based on reality: she is on the street because the building was bought by a vulture fund, and she has a lower salary than what they ask for the rent”.
“If there is a philosopher who has generated a rigid and forceful and, at the same time, very important system, 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, because it is an abstract phantasmagoria. She meets a series of men from different social strata, but all cut by the same pattern. She decides to change the teaching plan she has with the students and introduces Kafka. A head of department questions him and questions his freedom from the chair. In addition, they are about to evict her from her flat, she is getting divorced and menopausal”.
“There are so many novels and plays about heroes and anti-heroes, that I really like working with an anti-heroine – points out Sáez-. In addition, 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 answers: “I was interested in men being paradigms, so that I could focus on the things I wanted to explain, because otherwise, many 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 if I should say that The Categorical Imperative is a comedy, but it does have a lot of irony”, concludes Szpunberg.