Le Maître de Santiago

Presented by La Compagnie de L'Elan. Directed by Patrice Le Cadre.

Presented by La Compagnie de L'Elan

Directed by: Patrice Le Cadre.

By: Henry de Montherlant.

Cast: Didier Bizet, Olivier Bruaux, Rui Ferreira, Joseph Gabison, Claude Gentholz, Pascal Guignard-Cordelier, Geneviève Jadot, Jean-Luc Jeener, Jonathan Le Guillou, Alfred Luciani, Alexandre de Pardailhan, Coralie Salonne.

Costumes: Catherine Lainard.

Lighting: Patrice Le Cadre.

Set design: Patrice Le Cadre.1519, Avila. The obsessive pursuit of purity and the mystical journey of a man trying to perfect his salvation.

Don Alvaro Dabo, Grand Master of the Order of Santiago, appalled by the conduct of the conquistadors, refuses, at a council gathering the last knights of the Order, to take part in the conquest of the New World. Alvaro is pained to see the knights drifting away from the moral order, and criticises the main reasons behind these expeditions, which he claims are driven solely by personal ambition and the desire for enrichment. He launches into an anti-colonialist speech that scandalises his friends, in which he describes the atrocities committed by the Spanish and the evangelisation of the Indians, which was most often accompanied by ignominious massacres: "If I were to go to the Indies, it would be to protect the Indians, that is to say, according to you, to betray."

Alvaro's words will hasten the implosion of the Order, already weakened. Don Bernal, Alvaro's best friend, sets out the very next day to win him over in a lengthy private interview. He raises the mutual love of their two children and the impasse they find themselves in because of the financial situation of both families. But his attempt is in vain: "You, for the first time in your life, are talking to me about money, and it is because of your son. I shall be brutal in my turn: you will only give him up for his weight in gold. And I, I am supposed to break my oath because of my daughter. So this is what our children are for!"