Everyone needs money, but…

MANAGER: Listen to me...Unfortunately things don’t work like that. The Credit Committee goes over every loan application with a magnifying glass and there’s no helping it, you don’t meet even the minimum collateral requirements. You can try your luck at some other bank but to be honest, I’m afraid that without collateral and without solvent guarantors, it will be very difficult for you to get a loan.
ANTONI: Difficult but not impossible.

With this dialogue, the chess pieces are set up on the chessboard, the opening move has been made and a master class in manipulation ensues. There are only two characters, a man who has come to ask for a 3000 euro loan and a bank manager. The beauty and suspense of the game, however, comes from how the positions change of the extortionist and the side that gives in, of the master of the situation and the one who is in a bind. Needless to say, this duel is not held using force – no, everything remains in the form of a conversation behind a desk. Yet nevertheless, fates are reversed! The manipulator’s best accomplice is naturally the other person’s fear. Feed fear with the necessary words, give it sufficient material and it will evoke all manner of possible and impossible dreadful pictures before a person’s eyes and help to make the person believe that they are true.

The author Jordi Galceran has said that he has always liked stories about swindlers and that con artists figure in almost all of his plays. When asked if he has himself ever been a manipulator or a victim of manipulation, he replied: “My life has nothing in common with my plays. But we are all in the role of victims of manipulation. All I’ll say to answer that question is that I’m married” (interview in the Leak programme).

Three of Jordi Galceran’s plays have already been staged at the Estonian Drama Theatre: Grönholm’s Method (premiere in 2008), Cancún (2011) and Leak (2013).

Director → Hendrik Toompere
Set design → Riina Degtjarenko and Ervin Õunapuu
Translated by → Margus Alver

Cast → Priit Võigemast (guest appearance) and Hendrik Toompere.

The performance lasts 2 hours and 50 minutes with one intermission.

Premiere: 17 January 2016 in the Small stage.