In the 19th century, a strange manuscript signed by a certain Ester, a mysterious young woman of religious fervour, is found in the English countryside. The writing recounts, through a series of diaries and love poems, how Ester wears herself out by giving herself to her lovers and loved ones until one day she disappears from the village without a trace. El corazón de Ester by Alberto Cortés, inspired by this story functions as a direct confession to the audience, in a kind of intimate ritual of the word. A confession that, as in Saint Augustine, is a way of redeeming ourselves together; a confession that becomes devotion and makes us rethink the limits of emotional devotion and the dangers it poses to the performer’s body. This is a piece that speaks of the wear and tear caused by gazes when they pierce through a body. It proposes a reflection on what it means for the artist’s body to be looked at by the eyes of the public and what it means to be sold over and over again by the capitalist market. The result is a body, like Ester’s, that is consumed by love in an exercise of progressive disappearance (the act of loving the spectator as a sweet, slow death).
Faced with this imminent disappearance of the performer’s body and the work itself, Ester’s heart asks: must we then invent new forms of devotion? Is there a queer devotion that does not involve sacrifice? Is the only possible option to overcome the wear and tear of the flesh to transcend it and reach the Spirit?
Perhaps El corazón de Ester is a spell, like that of a sorcerer’s apprentice, which seeks to disappear without disappearing. At this point, the influences of Simone Weil and all the mystics of history appear, who are here Ester’s great teachers. Other voices of 19th-century women who nourished the writing also appear in the process, such as Emily Dickinson and the Brontë sisters, and many others who have dialogued with the past, such as María Zambrano and Anne Carson. Beyond the tragedy of dying for love, the work is also a celebration of dedication to the audience, a love letter and a veneration of the act of holding each other together in performance.
In order to avoid being consumed so quickly and to protect ourselves from the idea of ‘star success’, we propose a pact of collective responsibility with regard to the consumption of works and the bodies of artists: the piece will have a maximum of 50 performances, in which the audience will know the number of the performance they are attending. In the hope that the viewer will become aware of its magic. And that Ester survives the sacrifice.
This is performance X of 50.
Alberto Cortés (Málaga, 1983) is a stage director, playwright and performer of his own creative wanderings. In 2009, he began his journey in the performing arts with a hybrid and peripheral form of playwriting that has become increasingly unbridled over time. Since then, he has continually crossed paths with various creators and friends who have inspired his journey, and has produced works in different formats and disciplines in an attempt to maintain hope in the intangible and the human. At a certain point, his path crossed with poetry and with establishing a romantic relationship with the audience. He has worked in international contexts and festivals such as Kunstenfestivaldesarts, the Festival d’Automne in Paris and the Milan Triennale, as well as at numerous festivals and theatres across Spain over the years. He has published Los montes son tuyos (2022) Siempre vengo de noche (2024) and Libro de las devociones (2026) with the publisher Continta Me Tienes, which bring together the texts from his latest works. His texts have also been published in French and Italian. Today, he embodies his identity as a creator, performer, director, playwright, companion, teacher, son, brother, uncle, lover and friend.
concept, dramaturgy, texts, direction and performance Alberto Cortés
lighting design and technician Benito Jiménez
sound design and technician Óscar Villegas
musical direction and violins Luz Prado
guitars Adriano Galante
choir and piano proyectoeLe
technical coordination Cristina Bolívar
subtitles Marion Cousin
set design Víctor Colmenero Mir
painting Miguel Oliver
costumes and tour production assistant Gloria Trenado
hat Patricia Buffuna
movement accompaniment Janet Novás
outside eye Amalia Fernández
photography Manu Rosaleny, Alejandra Amere
video Johann Pérez Viera
production El Mandaíto Producciones SL
co-production Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Condeduque, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Grec 2026 Festival Barcelona, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Théâtre de la Bastille, Centre de les Arts Lliures de la Fundació Joan Brossa, Agencia Andaluza de Instituciones Culturales – Teatro Central, Tanzquartier Wien
with the support of Festival Citemor, CAMPO, Azala, Graner
the project is partly supported by a grant from Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), ente pubblico statale
and with the support of Real Academia de España en Roma
ph. Alejandra Amere