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A gripping dialogue between a torturer and his victim, Pedro and the Captain takes place in an interrogation room, where lives are
deconstructed by the violent hand of the terrorist state. Torture, the
awesome force that mediates the action, never appears directly on the
scene; likewise, the repressive state is never named. Benedetti
captures the essence of this dehumanizing practice without assigning it
precise location or time, which speaks to the universality of the
abomination, whether in Uruguay's La Libertad or the USA's Abu Ghraib.
In this compelling story one man begins life as a decent fellow and is
converted into a torturer, and another, an ordinary guy with leftist
political ideals, rises to the stature of martyr, preferring death over
betrayal of his comrades. Benedetti's play unpacks its deep political
and psychological insights with intensity, delivering humor amid great
sadness, beauty together with wretchedness, and amazing commentaries on
the human condition that mark this as a work of great literature.
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