A Night at the Theatre: the Duellists Based on Joseph Conrad

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Napoleon placed Europe in check with a war that seemed endless. With the intention of spreading revolutionary ideals, Napoleon became a true dictator who challenged the European monarchies. The story of this one-against-all conflict, this geopolitical duel, was captured in the form of an anti-war satire by Joseph Conrad in his novel The Duel.

It is one of the most widely known works by the Polish-born, naturalised British writer, above all because Ridley Scott popularised it in his directorial debut in Protected content , in a film starring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel.

The novel is set during the Napoleonic Wars, a terrible yet fascinating period. However, rather than a historical novel, it can be described as an anti-historical one, since it does not present a heroic world but an absurd, senseless and brainless one, which is none other than the world of duelling and war itself. For Conrad, Napoleon fights against the whole of Europe not for any logical reason, but out of sheer pride. Does this sound familiar in the present moment we are living through?

Conrad recounts the personal confrontation between two Napoleonic hussars who are obsessively determined to kill one another and who pursue each other for twenty years in order to achieve this aim, despite belonging to the same army. The whole of Europe ultimately becomes the stage for the personal drama of these two hussars, which unfolds over time until Waterloo.
PLAY IS IN SPANISH