Breath

Álvaro Viguera directed the audiovisual adaptation of Elisa Zulueta’s monologue Breath. In this version, Delfina Guzmán portrays Lupe, a ninety-two-year-old woman who speaks with both sadness and humor about old age, loneliness, and death.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to transform this theatrical work—which had seen its original season abruptly interrupted by Chile’s Social Outbreak—into a digital production. Filmed in the apartment of the renowned actress Delfina Guzmán with a small crew, the adaptation brought Elisa Zulueta’s text into a new audiovisual format.

In the solitude of old age, Lupe struggles to write a letter to her daughter, Lucía, with whom she has very little contact. In it, she asks her daughter to help her die. Confronting the discomfort of growing old, the feeling that no one truly wishes to share in her old age, the gradual deterioration of her body, and a profound boredom that borders on inertia, Lupe begins to feel an overwhelming need to bring her life to an end.

As she reflects on her past, she finds confirmation that she no longer wishes to continue living the life she has. Her letter becomes both a plea to death and an appeal to Lucía for the possibility of a dignified end before her suffering deepens. Through this intimate correspondence, the play opens a moral and philosophical dialogue about the desire to end one’s own life. Moving between memories of the past, the desolation of the present, and the hope that the near future will never arrive, Lupe gradually shapes a powerful monologue: the final testimony of a woman who has lived for ninety-two years and longs for the freedom to decide when her life should come to an end.

Año2021

Clasificación+12

Duración35 minutes