Luis Manuel Soriano Ochando was born during the early hours of October 7, 1979. He is a stage director, playwright, and a designer of lights and stage spaces. He has been the programmer of International Stage Arts at the Centro Párraga from 2007 to 2012. Since 2008, he has been the coordinator of the Master of Movement and Dance Arts at the UCAM of Murcia.

Theatre works

1999 / Deshabitados en un jardín.
2000 / Huecos.
2002 / Hangares; first staged: Teatro de la ESAD.
2003 / Cadábaret; first staged: Teatro de la ESAD.
2004 / ¿Qué demonios quiere Boris Vian?; first staged: Auditorio de Ceutí.
2004 / Cada cuerpo hiere.
2005 / Lo mismo más un día; first staged: Centro Párraga.
2006 / Recuperar la luz/Vaciar la herida; first staged: Centro Párraga; published by the ESAD of Murcia (2009).
2006 / Viaje al universo de Andersen; first staged: Centro Puertas de Castilla.
2007 / Afectividad; first staged: Centro Párraga.
2007 / El cielo está enladrillado; first staged: Auditorio Anexo sala Audio.
2008 / Ángeles buscan playas abandonadas; first staged: L´Escorxador de Elx.
2008 / Ecoaventuras de Lalo; first staged: Centro Cultural de Cehegín.
2010 / Mis primeros superpoderes; first staged: Auditorio de Cabezo de Torres.
2010 / Aquí está mi puta mano izquierda que os hará temblar.
2011 / Mourning ends; first staged: Centro Párraga.
2013 / Extinción.

– Extinción –

Synopsis: A woman, Enma, gets a strange phone call on her birthday from someone who says he has a gift for her from her husband who has been dead for some months. They arrange to meet at the port of the city for him to give it to her. Once there, she discovers that the gift of her husband is the possibility of having his child, for he left behind frozen sperm. Upset, because when he was alive her husband always refused to have children, she returns home and finds there her dead husband, who assures her that, although he is dead, he is going to stay with her until she gets over his death and decides whether to have the child or not; she begins to suspect that her husband hides something shady in his past. When she decides to have the child she goes out into a city that is slowly destroying itself step by step, where mankind begins to become more and more degraded. On the other hand it is the story of Olivia, who one night goes with her adolescent son to see a curandero in hopes that he can discover the keys to her illness. Her son, Edmond, wants to discover who his father is and it occurs to him that every time something related to his father happens in the weather, he faints and goes back to that moment. Olivia advances slowly in her illness and begins to think about leaving a legacy for her son, but she doesn’t want to give him the clues to the identity of his father.

Extracts from Extinción

From dark toward light. A white fog evokes the sensation of cold and nothing can be discerned. We can spend time trying to figure out where we are, enough for the so-white fog to dissipate a bit and enough for Enma to be able to be seen, huddled in a blue cold and a silver-colored outfit, everything makes us think cold. Enma is waiting for something, we are prepared to think of who or what she is waiting for and just at that moment a telephonic voice in the middle of a conversation overcomes us.

Who is it?
Enma?
Who is this?
You don’t know me. My name is Marcel.
What do you want?
I’m calling about something your husband Esdras asked me to take care of?
What? My husband…
Your husband Esdras asked me to call you today.
What’s this all about?
Tomorrow is your birthday, isn’t it?
Listen, this isn’t funny; I don’t like these things.
Enma, don’t hang up. Esdras asked me to handle this long before his feath.
I repeat, I don’t like this. Leave it be. I don’t have time.
Can we meet tomorrow at the port? I have something for you.
What is it?
It’s something that interests you a lot. Something of your husband Esdras. I offer you my condolences. I don’t have the faintest idea of when it happened, just that it happened.
What?
I am referring to his death. I have no information about that. This matter has nothing to do with that.
What do you want?
For us to meet. Tomorrow at the port around 3pm. If you’re interested, we’ll see one another there.
Listen. How…?

The cold takes shape because the fog seems to have become solid, it doesn’t move. Enma’s image has constantly appeared and disappeared amid the rising mist. The time of a recent past mixes with what we see now; that phone conversation, after its final sentences, seem to continue in the people who made it, only now, they are present before our eyes.

Marcel.- Enma. I’m Marcel. The man who phoned you yesterday.
Enma.- I don’t even know how I dared believe you much less later to come here. But you used Esdras’ name and curiosity overcame my fear. His body is still so warm that I still keep the hope that he lives. How stupid. For a moment, I thought I was going to find him here.
Marcel.- No, but it’s possible that after this you find something fills you with life.
Enma.- Enough already with the enigmas and don’t use words to sow uncertainty. You’re here to clarify something. Do it already.
Marcel.- Here it is. An envelope.
Enma.- Is it some kind of inheritance?
Marcel.- In a way.
Enma.- What an unbearable manner you have of filling this meeting with uncertainty.
Marcel.- It’s my role here. I’m the messenger. There is no less mysterious way of transmitting this information. Open the envelope and I’ll explain everything I know.
Enma.- There’s just a card and a code. Nothing more.
Marcel.- I don’t know the reasons why things are like this, but here you have a gift. I have no more information than what I am going to give you now: your husband, long before he died, froze his sperm so that, in the event of his death, you could have a child by him. The card and the code contain the information and the authorization to retrieve it from my sperm bank. Therefore, if you want to be the mother of a child by Esdras, you can.
Enma.- Did Esdras suspect he was going to die?

The scene is illuminated by the entrance of Esdras and his future son. The son, who we don’t know at that moment, is the same age as his father.

Marcel.- I don’t know. Sometimes we men feel a tremor.
Enma.- When did he give you this and what did he tell you?
Marcel.- Five years ago.

Esdras has let himself fall to one side of what we see, like a passing hologram of a remote time in an ethereal space, Marcel turns toward there, like a physical body when it returns to a memory.

Marcel.- You are the strangest client I’ve ever had.
Esdras.- On December 18, you’ll get in touch with Enma to give her my semen, unless I call you on the 17th of December, and so on year after year; if I don’t stop you it will mean that I am dead and then this gift will have meaning, otherwise, it has no sense.