In one of the darkest moments of the tragedy Macbeth, Shakespeare describes life as “this bank and shoal of time”, a mere geographical accident that emerges in an unreachable sea where the past and the future are lost to infinity. It is amid the quagmires of time, where the waves wash ashore branches, shells and skeletons, that shadows and ghosts are most visible, sailors adrift in the limbo between lives. And what we call the present, with all its haste, anguish and hope, may only be the blinking of the dead from the infinite sea of time.

The Basque group Tripak (“entrails” in Euskera) invites us to delve deeper into the unreality of this remote limbo, a place on the outer limits where the body appears and disappears, dies and resurrects, incarnates and decomposes. With one foot in physical theatre and the other in fine arts, Tripak merge Rodoreda, Vermeer and Wagner into a single vision, an atavistic dream in which the past lives of several characters intersect under the gaze of a divine master of ceremonies who is weary relentless task of sustaining the world that he himself created. “If God exists, right now he’s exhausted, totally blown out,” says Andrea Berbois, the performer of the piece who, together with Garazi Navas, creates its musical atmosphere, inspired by the sounds of the sea and the stubborn persistence of waves.

A subtle thread of visual poetry weaves its way through the different elements of the piece, from the silvery sparkle of fish to the reflections of the silver platters in the theatre audience, where we, the spectators, also faithfully fulfil the role of waiting in an indefinite limbo for our lives to pause for a moment to give way to another, until this one too is extinguished and we can reclaim our present, our character.

Platea situates us in a metaphorical space that relativises our most individual concerns and puts them into perspective, without neglecting a sense of humour, tenderness and lightness to keep us engaged in a shared story.