Alfredo Galvez - 12 Shifts of Gear production flyer
Juan Vera created theatre with peasants and farm workers on an agricultural commune after Allende came to power in Chile. Now in exile, Juan has written an extraordinary and powerful document about one man’s struggle to face new forms of collective organisation.
Alfredo Galvez has spent a lifetime working as a mechanic for a boss and is bewildered when he finds himself accountable to committees of fellow workers.
This epic play is about change and revolution.
“To show a man, for the peasant theatre, is to show the human behaviours within a collective life, and this life is making change to each man, each work, each home, each love.”
Juan Vera
Alfredo Galvez – 12 Shifts of Gear was about the ideological emergence of a downtrodden, exploited Chilean Community. The play was very community based and was written whilst the author, Juan Vera, was working with a peasant drama group in Chile.
Loesje Sanders was the Administrator at Half Moon Theatre and recalls one show the company produced which typified the company’s political commitment. Inteviewed by Rosie Vincent.
Mick Bearwish is a theatre designer who worked on many productions for Half Moon Theatre at Alie Street and on the Mile End Road. He talks about designing Alfredo Galvez – 12 Shifts Of Gear, for which he used bits of old rural machinery and real reeds, which gave the theatre an evocative aroma. Interviewed by Rosie Vincent.
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