"The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant" at the Teatre Romea

Petra von Kant, a successful designer who has just separated from her second husband, lives with her secretary Marlene, who is both assistant and almost a slave. When one of her best friends introduces her to Karin, a young opportunist from humble origins, Petra falls madly in love with her and promises to make her an international model. The two women then begin a tempestuous relationship filled with dependency, jealousy, and humiliation.

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant — feverishly written during a flight between Berlin and Los Angeles and premiered in 1971 — belongs to the most brilliant period of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1946-1982). The play, which would become a film a year later, was praised by international critics for its stylized portrayal of romantic heartbreak in a purely feminine universe. The German playwright, who revitalized the Brechtian heritage with American melodrama, unleashes all his artillery to tell us about loneliness and domination in this sapphic love story that grows in ellipsis and silences. Rakel Camacho adapts and directs, with a renewing pulse full of images, this classic of the European repertoire about power relations, pathological obsession, and the toxic need to feel accepted through the gaze of others.