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Actors Aurora Sánchez and Alberto Delgado on the play 'Arizona'.



Arizona is, without a doubt, the more polemic piece the author has presented in this city. Arrives directly from Spain by Mutis Productions, and has received mention of honor of the prize of Lope de Vega Theather in 2006 and the Raúl Moreno Fatex price on that same year. The piece deepens in the misery and greatness of human beings, besides being an attack to racial hatred and xenofobia.

The work of José Luis Raymond is purely functional: a landscape of Arizona covers the wall of the setting by where the characters appear. One by one of the mountains, a door is opened and there enters Margaret, interpreted by Sevillian actress Aurora Sánchez, and George, interpreted by the actor Alberto Delgado. Thus begins the piece, in which it goes into the thoughts of this American couple belonging to the Minutemen organization, formed in 2005 with armed volunteers that intended to protect the U.S.border from illegal immigrants.

At the begining of the play, the spectator feel in front of two typical vacationers that camp in this dry zone of Arizona. To the extent that the play evolves, the apparent innocent judgments on the reality turns into an intense dialogue in which George —the most stereotyped character— unfolds all the prejudices that has brought him to that place.

George, a racist with concepts that justify his condition, gathers all the elements of the unfeeling man. His relation with Margaret lacks tenderness; he is the typical "gringo" that chews chiclets and sips Coca-Cola. With a Bible close, he emits adages of its responsibility: "When God created the world, he expelled the condemned to the south and since then they want to return to paradise". That paradise that is the north guarded from those who the character considers inferior. George thinks that his mission and that of its wife is to watch so that this does not happen.

Alberto Delgado shows his condition of an experienced actor, difficult task in this case because of the dialogues, that can turn out to be at times little convincing given the character-archetype that interprets. But Margaret is the most achieved character. Aurora Sánchez gives it credibility and does a gala of control at the surprising scene.

Her candor causes for moments laughter and her questioning makes her be the character with greater glints of humanity. The psychological processing is another success. The transition of submissive wife to a capable woman able to generate different ideas to the dogmas, is a success in the piece. The ending turns out to be unforeseeable and the spectator is not able to remain indifferent in the end.

The duration of the spectacle is of an hour and ten minutes. It impresses that the author-director treat themes of so much complexity in so brief time. Arizona evokes the incapacity of some to not accept another way of understanding that is not the armed way. The ideology of those who preach hatred as the only solution is summarized in the words of George to his wife: "To avoid war is to endanger all of the country".

It could be object of controversy the geographical location of the piece in the United States. The touchy spectator perhaps appreciates certain dose of anti-americanism in this play, but the greatness of the U.S. is in its capacity to be regenerated, and this has always reached for the critical sense of its reality. Test of this are all the achievements of the civil rights in the 20th century.

Juan Carlos Rubio has said that " violence and intolerance are not patrimony of a single place". With this work he has intended to do "a summing-up in favor of dialogue as a better way to resolve problems". Arizona is an assembly for the reflection, one of those intents to resort to the art to improve as human beings.