Valparaíso (Four Days, Four Nights)

by Víctor Sánchez Rodríguez (Spain, 2025)

It’s been three years since their father died, but siblings Gloria, Lara and Toni have still failed to carry out his dying wish: that they would travel together to Valparaíso, the city on the Chilean coast that obsessed his dreams, and drink a toast to him. Instead, the two sisters and a brother have gathered, finally, at the Hotel Valparaíso, a run-down vacation complex somewhere on the Spanish costas. While the unseasonal March sun beats down on them, the reluctant siblings face the reality of their unfulfilled promises, to their father, to each other, and to themselves. As an attractive waiter draws all of their attention, and a pair of fellow holidaymakers remind them of a closeness they wish they had, the days pass and the tribute to their father remains undone. But they cannot stay here forever, and at some point they must face the inevitable. Inspired by Chekhov’s Three Sisters, the latest work by the writer of Cuzco (Theatre503), The House of Sorrows (National Theatre of Catalonia) and La Florida (Teatro Español) is a tragi-comic study of grief, longing, sibling rivalry, and the search for meaning in a meaningless world.

I always wished I’d had one of those boyfriends you have at fifteen years old who you make out with for hours and who hurts you because you don’t understand anything and buys you friendship bracelets with your name on and horrible cologne and enormous stuffed toys. Well now I’ve got one. And a love bite. I know what that waiter smells like now. He smells like a new car. I still remember, even though it was a smell my girlfriends used to talk about when we were fifteen. I never got the chance to smell it. My hands smell like death. We’ve cast our father onto the ground. That’s what our family’s like. Instead of killing the father, we hurl him down onto the earth.

Trailer from the original Spanish production, produced by La Portuaria.