CIRCULATION CATALOG 2026-2027

Theater

The killing of the first person

Nicolás Lange
Nicolás Lange

Country: Chile - Países Bajos
Premiere: 2026
Target audience: +16
Length: 60 min

The Killing of the First Person is a performance built upon the ashes of the burning of sodomites in late 15th-century Florence. This event is the genesis of a machinery of death that has repeated itself in a macabre loop up to the present day.

Fire, the magic trick that makes a body disappear in the flames, unfolding a promise of a future from which we must protect ourselves.

Is it necessary to remain in the light in this scenario? What gesture is it to continue a theatre that preys on stories illuminating first-person narratives of martyrdom?

This work is about the vowels and consonants lost when someone dies. It is a piece about fire, language, and veiled homosexuality. A promise of return to the 15th century. It is a work against the enlightened people—and against the people who set others on fire, who most of the time are the same persons seeking for light.

There are three kinds of persons.

The first person, the second person, and the third person.

This is me, the first person, alive and helping to burn

another body.

This is you, the second person, you who watches suffering

from the outside, like a theater audience.

The first person and the second person are watching a

man being burnt.

This is the third person: A man in flames.

Nicolás Lange

Press quotes:

"The audience is sweating from the heat, but also because it's difficult to bear the account of the atrocities. However, throughout the performance, this lecture-performance manages to create a feeling of unity, liberation, and resistance that is deeply moving."

- Blog2026, 15.08.2026

"Thus, for example, the premiere of The Killing of the First Person, by the Chilean artist Nicolás Lange, addresses the issue of homophobia in 15th-century Florence through an original mix of lecture-performance and comic monologue."

- FAZ, 21.08.2026

Images:

Credits:

Text, concept and direction

Nicolás Lange

Performance:

Nicolás Lange, Nazar Rakhmanov

Sound design

Diane Mahin

Visuals and piano composition

Robin Plenio

Technics

Alec Mateo

Visual credits

Enrique A Gutiérrez

Outside eye

Veronika Abdul Visocka

Choreographic coaching

Jana Jacuka

Tutoring

Zhana Ivanova

External consultancy

Tine Milz, Dries Verhoeven, Josefin Arnell

Documentation

Peteris Viksna

Distribution

Fundación Teatro a Mil, Santiago de Chile

Translation

Dòra Kapusta

Photography

Peteris Viksna

Biographies:

Nicolás Lange

Nicolás Lange is a writer, performer, and theater director. He was born in Chilean Patagonia. He is currently based between Florence and Amsterdam. He seeks to change the matter on stage through words. He works with the metaphor—its ability to transform the substance on stage, its capacity for survival as an image in the viewer's brain, its materiality to create an order: of extreme beauty, of violence, of an end, and to generate light, and horror.

His writings have been translated into English, German, Italian, Portuguese, and French, and his works have been presented in over 15 countries. Winner of the Prize 'President of The Republic' (Chile, 2025).

As a writer he is the author of the book 'Caminamos Porque Amamos Algo' (CastoryPólux, 2023) and 'Hunt The Dog Hunt The Boy Hunt The Other Boy Too' (Centro Dramático Nacional de Madrid, 2024), as well as the anthologies 'Delirios de Cautiverio' (Teatro Nacional Chileno, University of Chile Press, 2021) and 'Las Pasiones del Cuerpo' (LOM, 2015). He wrote for Theater Der Zeit (October, 2024) an article titled 'But it has always been on fire'. He has been a resident artist at Watermill Center (New York), GORKI Theater (Berlin), KVS (Brussels), National Theatre of Lithuania (Vilnius), Giornate del Respiro (Sardinia, Italy), Teatro Cantiere Florida and PARC: Performing Arts Research Center (Florence, Italy), Cité internationale des Arts (Paris).

His questions revolve around language. The shift between first and third person. The authority of the first person; the constant doubt in identity trauma. And the utopia of the third person, a narration detached from the self. He currently works among dead homosexual authors and artists such as Paul Thek, and the sodomites burned in the 15th century in Florence.

His new novel will be published next year by Penguin Random House, 2026.

Premios:

ZKB Patronage Prize

Nominated

Premio a las Artes Escénicas Nacionales Presidente de la República 2025

Winner at the Artista Escénico Emergente category