Chilean director Guillermo Calderón’s lean, literary theater works are powerful explorations of political legacies distilled into tightly wrought drama. In this double bill, Calderón’s intimate and poetic language—demonstrated in the internationally acclaimed works Neva and Diciembre (seen at REDCAT in 2012 and 2011)—gives way to the cool complexities of public discourse. In Villa, three women gather around an architectural model of the Villa Grimaldi, a site where thousands were tortured and hundreds were “disappeared,” to debate the ideal adaptation of these blood-soaked facilities and grapple with a nation’s unwanted legacy. In Discurso, the same three actresses share the role of Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s recent president, to deliver an imagined farewell speech that abandons diplomatic parlance to reveal a leader’s aspirations, failures and humanity, amid the mechanizations of political life.

Performed in Spanish with English titles.