Artistic Activities
THEATER
Ever since I acted in a play (Inherit the Wind) at thirteen and discovered that sometimes I could feel as real the feelings that I was performing, what is objective and subjective became blurry, a perspective that has informed my psychology work, as did realizing through acting training that I could experience alternate states in which my body went beyond its usual limits (Cardeña, 2019).
I trained as an actor in México (foremost in UNAM's Taller de Investigación Teatral), Canada, and did almost 2 years of an M. A, in theater directing in the US. As an actor, I performed in stage plays by Lope de Vega, Moliére, José Zorrilla, Juan Tovar/Joe Martin, and others. I have also acted in many radio theatre productions (for a complete list see attachment).
As a playwright, I have written an original play and adapted various texts for radio theater of works by the Nobel laureate Saramago, Edgar Allan Poe, Mariana Enríquez, and many others.
Selected Radio-Theater Productions
I had the fortune to direct the great Mexican actor, Alfredo Sevilla, in Samuel Beckett's melancholy deconstruction of a life Embers (Link:)
I have also adapted many short stories, novellas, and novels into radio plays (I worked as a Deputy Director of Productions in México's National University Radio Station, RUNAM before leaving México).
Embers
I had the fortune to direct the great Mexican actor, Alfredo Sevilla, in Samuel Beckett's melancholy deconstruction of a life Embers (Link:)
Carmilla
Carmilla, by Sherida LeFanu, in which I recreated for radio the most famous female vampire story proposing that LeFanu had written the story of his wife rather than fiction (can be heard in Spanish at https://descargacultura.unam.mx/carmilla-925580)
Dos Maestras de lo Macabro
The most recent produced set of plays (1923; https://www.radio.unam.mx/el-patio-cuadrado-y-bajo-agua-negra/) is Maestras de lo Macabro (Mistresses of the Macaber). It includes a recreation of Amparo Dávila's short story El Patio Cuadrado (The Square (The squared courtyard) as a psychoanalytic encounter, and a move of Mariana Enríquez's Lovecraftian Argentina Bajo el Agua Negra (Under the sewage) into the not less deadly Mexican reality. The plays can be heard in Spanish at these links: https://descargacultura.unam.mx/el-patio-cuadrado-7101240 and https://descargacultura.unam.mx/bajo-el-agua-negra-7101285
Stage Productions
I have directed several productions in México, the USA, and Sweden, among them:
Woyzeck
Woyzeck, by Georg Büchner. Before dying at 23 years of age, Búchner wrote two theatrical masterpieces, was a revolutionary and anticipated marxism, and became an M. D. His work anticipates more than a century expressionism, existentialism, and the antipsychiatry movement.
Metamorphoses
In Metamorphoses, author Mary Zimmerman recreates Ovid's tales of divine and earthly mishaps, viewed through a contemporary sensibility.
Anna in the Tropics
Anna in the Tropics, by Nilo Cruz, takes the historical anecdote of paid lecturers reading to tobacco rollers to give the Anna Karenina story a tropical rhythm.
The Shawl
The Shawl, by David Mamet, is a game of illusions in which an apparent con-man is revealed as a true psychic.
The Stronger and Simoom
These two short pieces The Stronger and Simoom, by August Strindberg, play with some of the topics covered by Strindberg, power and gender games, reversals, and in the neglected Simoom, suggestion and implanted false memories.
Far Away
Far Away is by Caryl Churchill, one of the most original voices in theater of the last number of decades. Blending humor and pathos, she reveals how a Far Away tyrannical county is actually quite Near Here.
Krapp's Last Tape
I resonated with Beckett’s unflinching view of the human condition already as a teen. The first radio play I directed was Embers, with the extraordinary Mexican actor Alfredo Sevilla. My last ITM directing gig was his monologue Krapp’s Last Tape.
Other Artistic Activities & Publications
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS ON ACTING AND RELATED TOPICS
My publications on acting and related activities includes a comparison of hypnosis, acting, and shamanism (Cardeña & Beard, 1996), a topic on which I have presented at the University of Huddersfield, UK, and UNIARTS in Helsinki.
OTHER ARTISTIC ACTIVITIES
I performed as chorus in a choreography by Pedro Alejandro (xx), besides co-creating a multi-media event (Two Stories One Bed, at Malmö Konsthall), a post-covid happening (COREDIS, in Gallerijaktpavilliongen), giving invited presentations at Helsingborgs Stadsteater, Malmöstadsteater, Malmö's Moderna Muset, Malmö Konsthall, among other activities.
Selected References (for others see my CV)
Cardeña, E. (2018). From monkey-mind to embodied performance presence. Nivel 09, http://nivel.teak.fi/carpa5/etzel-cardena-from-monkey-mind-to-embodied-performance-presence.
Cardeña, E. (2019). What the Taller de Investigación Teatral revealed to me. In N. Núñez, Anthropocosmic theatre (pp. 215-218). University of Huddersfield Press.
Cardeña, E., & Beard, J. (1996). Truthful trickery: Shamanism, acting and reality. Performance Research, 1, 31-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.1996.10871509