A THEATRICAL THRILLER
BASED ON A GROUND-BREAKING NOVEL ABOUT A DEMOCRACY DISAPPEARING
IN A STORM OF VIOLENCE AND CORRUPTION
AND A MAN AT ITS CENTER

Award-winning U.S. playwright and director Moisés Kaufman, working for the first time in his native language of Spanish, has adapted Jonathan Jakubowicz's best-seller for the stage.

A RELEVANT STORY THAT MUST BE TOLD

Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard is a political thriller, a wicked tale of love and betrayal, and a blistering exposי of the shocking descent of one of the oldest democracies in Latin America.

The play centers on Juan, a young Venezuelan who is devoted to the revolutionary ideology of President Hugo Chavez, especially insofar as he can profit from it. Through his connections with the government, he amasses a huge personal fortune before facing terrible consequences for his actions.

In telling the story of Juan's rise and fall in the Bolivarian Revolution – whose system of privileges and corruption responsible for one of the biggest robberies in human history – the play chronicles the last 20 years of Venezuelan history, shining light on the mentality and ideals of the governing elite, its contradictions, its rampant excesses, and its abuses of power.

In a moment when democracy is in peril worldwide, Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard is a timely and relevant story that provokes not only visceral reaction but ethical reflection – all in a hugely entertaining, swift-moving spectacle of theatrical magic, beauty, and brutality.

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SYNOPSIS

Juan Planchard is a charismatic multimillionaire who made his fortune through dozens of corrupt deals with the revolutionary regime led by President Hugo Chavez. By the time he is 30, he has apartments in New York, Madrid, and Las Vegas, as well as a share in a private plane. At the beginning of the play, Juan travels to Las Vegas with a beautiful Brazilian actress (whose name he can't remember) to participate in an orgy with a $25,000 entry fee.

But in spite of his wealth, youth, and pleasure-filled life, Juan feels empty inside. He has never known true love, and without that, all the rest is meaningless. But his luck changes at the poker table, where he meets a young woman named Scarlet and falls instantly, madly in love.

Juan takes Scarlet to Caracas to meet his parents, Venezuelan intellectuals who harshly criticize his corrupt dealings with the Chavez regime. In fact, behind their backs, Juan is planning a multi-million-dollar fraudulent deal to develop several prisons that will never be built – a scheme designed to make him even wealthier. But before he can close the deal, his father is killed by an errant bullet in the crossfire of a robbery gone bad.

Juan feels partly to blame – lawlessness has been tolerated and even encouraged by the revolution that he supports – and he sets off to avenge his father's death. Juan embarks on a vigilante mission, aided by hired guns who mock his softness and inexperience. Soon, he finds himself chasing a gang of young criminals into the most brutal and deadly corners of the city, causing more death and destruction while his father's killers remain at large.

Thinking now that his only salvation is Scarlet, Juan tries to settle down with her in the U.S. But she has her own secrets, and in time, Juan realizes that she has betrayed him, leaving him in despair. Once again empty and lost, Juan attempts his greatest heist yet, leading to a spectacularly surprising finale.