Acclaimed Franco-Uruguayan auto-fictional playwright Sergio Blanco returns to Edinburgh after
his International Festival hit show When you walk over my grave* to direct Divine Invention, his
life-affirming new show, translated from Spanish and performed by his long-time collaborator,
multi-award-winning director, Daniel Goldman.
Part metatheatrical performance lecture, part auto fictional memoir, Divine Invention is an
exploration of love that interweaves Sergio’s first experiences of love as a teenager with his
boxing instructor and the story of Francis Bacon’s doomed romance with George Dyer with an
free-wheeling journey through the history of love in art, literature, music and science.
Across a prologue, 30 short scenes and epilogue, Sergio talks of his writing process and Superman,
of musical labyrinths and Egyptian love poetry, of Tibetan meditation and Shakespeare, as he
presents a radical vision of love as the technology that might save us from ourselves.
Divine Invention represents Sergio and Daniel’s fourth international collaboration after their two
Offie-winning productions of Thebes Land (Best Production 2017), The Rage of Narcissus (Best
Play 2020), and the recent success of When you pass over my tomb (‘A masterclass of mind over
meta’ – The Guardian) at the Arcola earlier this year.
Now, for the first time in their seven-year collaboration, they will be swapping creative roles with
Sergio directing and Daniel performing.
Returning to Edinburgh for the first time in four years since their critically acclaimed Songs of
Friendship trilogy (with James Rowland), Tangram Theatre Company are delighted to present this
new metatheatrical “collaboration to savour” by “two masters of the form” (Lyn Gardner on
Daniel and Sergio in Stagedoor)
About Sergio Blanco
Franco-Uruguayan playwright and director Sergio Blanco spent his childhood and adolescence in
Montevideo and now lives in Paris. After studying classical philology, he decided to devote himself fully to
writing and directing. His plays have been awarded multiple prizes, including the “National Drama Prize of
Uruguay”, the International Prize “Casa de las Americas”, the “Premio Shell” in Brazil and two Off-West End
Awards for Thebes Land (Best Production) and The Rage of Narcissus (Best Play) in London. Among his
best-known texts are Slaughter, Kiev, Kassandra, Darwin’s Leap, Thebes Land, Ostia, The Rage of
Narcissus, The Bellow of Düsseldorf, When You Pass Over my Tomb, Zoo, Tierra and Traffic. His plays have
been published and performed in over twenty-five countries and he is currently one of the most performed
living playwrights in the Spanish-speaking world.
Sergio’s play When you walk over my grave was performed as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in
2022.
About Daniel Goldman
Daniel Goldman is a multi award winning director, playwright, translator and producer. He trained at École
Jacques Lecoq in Paris and Andamio 90 Theatre School in Buenos Aires. Selected directing credits include
Thebes Land (Off West End Award – Best Production), You’re not like the Other Girls Chrissy (co-directed
with Omar Elerian – Olivier Award Nomination), The Rage of Narcissus (Off West End Award – Best Play),
Frankenstein in Beijing (Inside Out Theatre, Beijing), CAMASCA (Teatro Britanico, Peru), Henry V (Cervantino
International Festival, Mexico) and Wanawake Wa Heri Wa Windsa (Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Globe to
Globe Festival.) As a writer, Daniel is currently on attachment to the National Theatre and under
commission at the Royal Court. Daniel has been the artistic director of Tangram Theatre Company since
2006 and he was the founding artistic director of CASA Latin American Theatre Festival from 2007 until
2019.
Daniel’s previous Edinburgh fringe shows include: Crunch! (2006), The Origin of Species… (2009), Fucked
(2009), Almost 10 (2009), You’re not like the other girls Chrissy (2010), Albert Einstein Relativitively Speaking
(2013), The Element in the Room (2016), The Scientrilogy (2016), Team Viking (2017), A hundred different
words for love (2018), Revelations (2019), Songs of Friendship – A James Rowland storytelling trilogy (2019).
About Tangram Theatre Company
Tangram Theatre Company was founded by Daniel Goldman in 2006. Productions range from ensemble
adaptations of classics (4.48 Psychosis, Fuenteovejuna, The Dragon), ground-breaking new writing (Fucked,
Art House) and small-scale touring shows (The Origin of the Species, Albert Einstein Relativitively Speaking,
The Element in the Room, and Team Viking, A hundred different words for love, Revelations). Tangram’s
work has won a Stage Award, two Off-West End Awards, two Vault Festival Awards, two Three Weeks
Editors Awards and two Adelaide Fringe Festival Awards.
Tangram’s previous Edinburgh fringe shows include: Crunch! (2006), The Origin of Species… (2009), Fucked
(2009), Albert Einstein Relativitively Speaking (2013), The Element in the Room (2016), The Scientrilogy
(2016), Team Viking (2017), A hundred different words for love (2018), Revelations (2019), Songs of
Friendship – A James Rowland storytelling trilogy (2019).
