„"Isabela, Three Caravels and a Great Liar" is a two-act comedy, set in the 16th century, which starts from the story of an actor sentenced to death for daring to perform a banned opera by Fernando de Rojas. On the scaffold, he is offered the chance to perform one last performance, a chance behind which hovers the hope that in the meantime he will be pardoned.

The theater-in-theater performance is built on the structure of real facts, around a dominant historical figure, Christopher Columbus, starting with the first meeting with Isabella of Castile, up to the personal failure experienced after the fourth expedition. All these facts of true historical importance are, however, rewritten in a parodic manner, from which, incidentally, the humor is born. A slightly subversive humor, as Dario Fo himself admits:

„"I wanted to attack those Italian intellectuals who discovered its power and advantages and jumped on it like rats on a piece of cheese. I wanted to demystify a character who was embalmed as a hero in school history books, while he was, in fact, an intellectual who tried to stay afloat within the mechanisms of power, resorting to cunning to deal with figures of power, but who ended up being damaged."”

Distribution:

Christopher Columbus: Richard Balint
Isabella of Castile, Queen of Spain: Ioana Dragos Gajdo
Ioana, a girl in the house, the third sailor: Alina Leonte
Ferdinand, King of Spain: Petre Ghimbasan
Fonseca, a monk, an executioner, Piso, a sailor, the second sailor: Sorin Ionescu
Quintanilla, a carpenter, a theologian, the first sailor, a herald, the Vice-Governor: Alexander Rusu

Artistic director: Eugen Gyemant
Scenography and video: Tudor Prodan
Translation: Constanța Trifu and Lidia Sava

Premiere date: January 21, 2017

Show duration: 2 hours with an intermission