The tragic true story behind L 'Incurable, the
deep dive. What happens when the real -life story
of a play's cast and crew becomes just as dramatic
and heartbreaking as the script itself? In this
deep dive, we explore the legacy of Sebastian
Mancilla Olivares' 1996 theater production, L
'Incurable, the incurable disease. We trace the
show's journey from its premiere in Catamarca,
Argentina, to the intense method acting of its
stars, to the unbelievable straying of real -world
tragedies, including sudden deaths and car crashes
that continually halted its remakes. Whether
you are a fan of Argentine theater and Chilean
playwrights, or just compelling stories of artistic
resilience, this deep dive unpacks the profound
dedication required to keep a legacy alive. Tune
in to discover how the play eventually transformed
into the tribute project, Ángeles de Amor. La
enfermedad infurable, Sebastian Mancilla Olivares,
Argentine theater, Chilean playwright, chronic
epilepsy in media, Ismael Morandini, Ángeles
de Amor, Teatro Urbano Girardi. Welcome to today's
deep dive. I am incredibly grateful you are joining
us today because the story we are exploring is,
well, it's one of the most profound examples
of artistic resilience we have ever encountered.
Yeah. It really is. It's a heavy one, but so
important. Exactly. We are looking at a Wikipedia
article detailing the history behind a 1996 stage
production called La Inframadad Incurable, which
translates to The Incurable Disease. Right. And
it was written a few years prior, in 1993, by
the Chilean playwright and actor Sebastian Mancilla
Olivares. Mm -hmm. So... If you are a fan of
Argentine theater, or honestly, just stories
about the unbreakable bonds formed by creative
people, this is going to be a deeply moving journey
for you. Definitely. I mean, the lines between
the art and the artist completely blur. Yeah.
And that's our mission today, really. We want
to trace how the intense emotional fiction of
this specific stage plays slowly and tragically
bled into the real lives of the people who created
it. It's almost unbelievable. It is. It's a story
that requires us to look at the immense weight
of human grief and the lengths people will go
to in order to keep a legacy alive. Okay, let's
unpack this. Let's do it. To really understand
the lives of these artists, we first have to
understand the fiction that brought them all
together. Could you set the scene for the original
narrative of this play? Sure. So the narrative
anchors itself in Santiago de Chile in the year
1990. Okay. The protagonist is a young man named
Juan. And the central conflict of his life and
really of the entire play is his battle with
chronic epilepsy. Right. Which is an incredibly
difficult premise. It is. And to truly grasp
the weight of this premise, we have to consider
what chronic epilepsy meant in that specific
era and setting. You know, we are not just talking
about occasional seizures. The text implies a
severe progressive condition. Like life altering
severity. Exactly. For a patient like Juan, this
means living with a constant invisible sword
hanging over his head. It dictates his independence,
his physical safety, and this is key, the intense
postictal periods. Postictal. Like the aftermath.
Yeah, the exhaustion and the severe migraines
that follow the seizures. They can leave a person
physically shattered for days. It is just an
incredibly heavy burden for a young person to
carry. That context adds so much pressure to
the situation. And there's a specific ticking
clock built into the narrative, right, that makes
it even more tense. Oh, absolutely. Because the
story points out that modern medicine is actively
working to extend Juan's life expectancy. But...
And here's the tragic part. The doctors have
pulled Juan's mother aside, a character named
Eleonora. Right. They give her a private prognosis.
A devastating one. Despite all the medical advancements,
they basically tell her they believe Juan will
likely not survive past the age of 18. Which
is just, I mean, imagine hearing that as a parent.
Yeah. Eleonora is forced to carry that terrible
secret. Just watching her son grow up while quietly
counting down his remaining days. It is a phenomenal
dramatic premise because it immediately forces
this philosophical confrontation with mortality.
And what's fascinating here is the overarching
theme that the playwright, Sebastian Mancilla
Olivares, extracts from that prognosis. Right.
It's not just a story about being sick. No, not
at all. It operates fundamentally as a carpe
diem story. Seize the day. Juan is living under
the shadow of a radically shortened lifespan.
And even if he doesn't know the exact medical
timeline his mother is hiding, he acutely senses
the fragility of his own body. He knows he could
die at any moment. So it's about his reaction
to that. Exactly. The play explores his defiant
reaction to that reality. Instead of withdrawing
into isolation or, you know, becoming paralyzed
by fear. He makes an active choice to live every
single day as fully as possible. That refusal
to just be a passive patient waiting for the
end is such a compelling hook. His desire to
live leads him to travel around the city to explore
his surroundings, and eventually it leads him
to find love. Yes, the romance subplot. During
his travels, he meets a girl named Selena. And
I have to say, the setting for their meeting
is incredibly charming. She sells vintage records
at a shop just a few blocks away from Juan's
house. It's a great setting. It really is. It's
such a grounded nostalgic location. You can easily
visualize the dusty record sleeves, the crackle
of vinyl playing in the background, the quiet
intimacy of two people bonding over music. It
leans into this classic romance trope that adds
a vital layer of warmth to a story that is otherwise
so heavily overshadowed by illness. The vintage
record store serves a crucial narrative function,
really. It provides the necessary lightness and
sensory texture to contrast the very clinical
heavy themes of chronic illness and impending
death. It gives you room to breathe. Exactly.
That romance isn't just a subplot. It becomes
the anchor of Juan's entire philosophy. Selena
represents the life he is so desperately fighting
to experience. The play beautifully balances
the grim reality of his failing body with the
vibrant, hopeful reality of first love. Now,
knowing how emotionally demanding that plot is,
I am incredibly curious about what it took to
actually stage this production. Because they
didn't just read this in a room once. No, they
took it on the road. The show officially premiered
in July 1996 at the Sine Catro San Fernando del
Valle de Catamarca in Argentina. And from there,
the cast embarked on what sounds like a grueling
tour. Very grueling. They took the show to Salta,
Tucumán, Mendoza, and all the way down to Ushuaia,
the very southern tip of South America. What
was the reality of taking a heavy, independent
production on the road like that in the mid -1990s?
Well, touring independent theater in South America
during the 1990s was an exercise in absolute
endurance. You have to picture long, exhausting
bus rides across vast distances. Yeah, that's
a huge geographical spread. Huge. From the mountainous
terrain of Mendoza down to the harsh, isolated
cold of Ushuaia. And these actors were doing
everything. They were setting up their own stages,
managing their own wardrobes, and living in incredibly
close quarters. I can't imagine the stress. Right.
And when you are living and breathing the same
air as your castmates, sharing cheap meals, and
then performing a play about a dying child every
single night, you develop a phenomenon known
in theatrical psychology as enmeshment. Enmeshment.
Yeah. The boundaries between the individual and
the ensemble blur. You become a deeply insular,
tightly knit family bound together by the emotional
labor of the art. That makes me wonder how the
actors physically and mentally prepared for the
kind of nightly emotional labor. I mean... Playing
a character battling severe chronic epilepsy
and dealing with that level of vulnerability,
that requires a specific kind of dedication.
It does. How did the lead actor, Ismael Morandini,
approach the role of Juan? His dedication was
staggering, honestly. To accurately portray a
young man battling severe chronic epilepsy, Morandini
committed to an intense period of method acting.
He went all in. He really did. He didn't just
learn his dialogue. He spent six solid months
studying seizures and chronic migraines. Six
months. Wow. Yes. He analyzed the physical mechanics
of a seizure, the loss of bodily control, and
the agonizing physical aftermath. He internalized
that pain. That sounds dangerous psychologically.
It is. When an actor undergoes that level of
immersive research, they are essentially tricking
their nervous system into experiencing the trauma
of the illness. It takes a massive psychological
toll. If the lead actor is going to those dark
places, internalizing that kind of pain, I have
to imagine it profoundly affects the rest of
the cast who are interacting with him on stage.
Oh, absolutely. How did the actresses playing
his mother and his love interest handle that
energy? They absorbed it completely. And the
historical record of this production notes the
sheer emotional exhaustion they faced. Juliana
Reyes, the actress playing Han's mother, Eleonora,
she found the role absolutely draining. Because
of the secret she had to carry. Partially that,
yes. And there were moments in the script where
she had to express the dark, unspoken frustrations
of being a caregiver, literally speaking, ill
of one out of sheer despair. Oh, wow. The sources
tell us that Reyes could not hold back genuine
tears on stage when delivering those lines. She
was really crying. That is heartbreaking. And
we see the exact same visceral reaction from
Lou Rodriguez, the actress playing Selena. Every
single night, the ending of the play broke her
heart. She could not avoid shedding real tears
as the narrative reached its conclusion. It is
astonishing to think about them going through
that cycle of genuine grief night after night.
city after city. Right. And if we connect this
to the bigger picture, it illuminates why this
play resonated so deeply with its audiences.
How so? This wasn't a group of professionals
merely hitting their marks and reciting lines
for a paycheck. The visceral emotional weight
they carried elevated the entire production.
The performative grief became a vehicle for their
actual empathy and exhaustion. It was real to
them. It was. And it makes you wonder as you
listen to this, what stands out to you in that
dynamic? Is it the sheer discipline of Morandini
dedicating six months to medical research? Or
is it those genuine, unscripted tears falling
from Reyes and Rodriguez on the stage? Both are
just incredible. Both represent a total, uncompromising
surrender to the art form. That total surrender
forged a bond that clearly outlasted the original
1996 tour. Because the story of La Informidad
Incurable didn't end when they finally packed
up the sets. No, it didn't. Years later, in 2001,
the play is revived. It reopens at the Teatro
Urbano Girardi. The original playwright, Sebastian
Mancilla Olivares, returns to direct it, but
he brings in a completely new cast to tell the
story to a new audience. Revivals are a fascinating
test of a play's endurance. It is an opportunity
to see if the magic of the original production
was purely due to that specific group of enmeshed
actors, or if the text itself has the structural
integrity to stand on its own with new interpreters.
And here's where it gets really interesting.
Looking at the production details for this 2001
revival, the funding came from a man named Az
Martinez. Right. And that name is a massive piece
of this puzzle. Do we know what his connection
to the original production was? The connection
is arguably the most beautiful detail of this
entire history. Az Martinez was not some outside
theatrical investor or a wealthy patron of the
arts. He was actually in the original 1996 cast.
But wait, playing who? He played the six -year
-old child version of Juan. That is just incredible.
He was literally a child when they were on that
grueling tour. Yeah. He grew up watching Ismael
Morandini do that intense method acting, watching
Juliana Reyes and Lou Rodriguez shed genuine
tears on stage. That experience, that level of
profound artistic dedication, clearly left a
permanent mark on his life. It absolutely did.
So much so that years later... He used his own
resources to step up and ensure the story continues.
It speaks volumes about the family dynamic we
discussed earlier. That theater troupe essentially
raised him in a creative sense. By funding the
2001 revival, he wasn't just producing a play.
He was honoring the formative figures of his
childhood. He was acting as the caretaker of
their collective memory. It is a brilliant full
-circle moment of a legacy being passed down
to the next generation. And this is hard to transition
to. It is difficult to even talk about the next
few years. Yeah, it gets very dark. The timeline
takes a genuinely heartbreaking turn. The legacy
of this play becomes almost inexplicably tied
to real -world tragedy. Let's walk through the
timeline of what happened after that 2001 revival.
Okay. The years pass, and in 2008, the team starts
considering another remake of the story. But
before they can gain any momentum, the project
is abruptly halted. The creator and director,
Sebastian Mencila Olivares, suffers a... devastating
personal loss. The death of his mother. Yes.
When you consider the thematic focus of La Enfermadad
Incurable, a play fundamentally about the agonizing,
complex bond between a mother and her dying child,
the psychological impact of his real mother's
death must have been insurmountable. The parallels
are terrifying. The themes he had written as
fiction were now his reality. The grief he had
asked his actors to portray for years was suddenly
sitting directly on his own shoulders. The devastation
was absolute, and the following year, in 2009,
Sebastian Menzel Olivares tragically passes away.
The records state he died from depression. It's
awful. The playwright, the architect of this
entire theater family was suddenly gone. It is
a profoundly sobering reminder of the unseen
battles people fight and how intimately tied
an artist's emotional well -being can be to their
work and their personal losses. Following his
death, the remaining members of the theater family
faced a monumental void. But in 2010, Ismael
Morandini, the original actor who played Juan,
who had studied so rigorously to bring Olivares'
words to life, decides to revitalize the project.
He wanted to honor him. Yes. He sets out to mount
a remake specifically in honor of Mancilla. It
is designed to be a beautiful, living tribute
to his fallen director and friend. Using the
art they created together as a framework to process
their grief, it is a very natural, albeit painful,
instinct for artists. They wanted to build a
monument to him using the only materials that
made sense, a stage and a script. But the tribute
never makes it to the stage. No. While traveling
to Tucumán, Catamarca, which incredibly is one
of the very cities they toured during that original
1996 run, Ismael Morabini is killed in a sudden
car accident. It's just devastating. The creator
is lost to depression, and the lead actor, while
actively trying to honor the creator's memory,
is killed in a crash on his way to the theater
district. The project understandably goes completely
into limbo. The sheer volume of loss is staggering.
It is a dense, almost suffocating sequence of
tragedies that forces us to look at the philosophical
irony of life imitating art. You step back and
look at the foundation of this group. a play
entirely centered on a shortened life expectancy.
The title itself, The Incurable Disease. Right.
The title itself warns of it. It is a narrative
about the extreme fragility of life, the unfairness
of an early death, and how quickly everything
can be taken away. And then you look at the real
-world events that swallowed the production.
It's uncanny. You see that profound thematic
irony perfectly and tragically mirrored by the
premature deaths of both its creator and its
lead actor. The fiction and the reality become
entirely indistinguishable. The play spent years
warning them about the brevity of life, and then
life proved the playwright in the most heartbreaking
way imaginable. That gives me chills. It frames
the original script as an unintentional prophecy.
They were performing their own eulogies without
even knowing it. Exactly. But... As dark as that
period was, the story of this theater family
does not end in limbo. Their resilience is something
to behold. We move forward to the year 2013.
The project has been dead for three years. The
primary visionary and the leading man are both
gone. But then a public announcement is made.
The project is back on. And the person making
that announcement is a familiar name. As Martinez
steps into the light once again. Yes. The former
six -year -old child actor who funded the 2001
revival. He steps up for a third time. He announces
that they are going to remake the play. aiming
for a late 2014 release. And they make a really
important change here. They do. They make a highly
significant creative decision. They rebrand the
entire production. It is no longer going to be
performed under the title Love from an Adincurable.
The remake is officially retitled Angelus the
Amour Angels of Love. And adding to the emotional
weight of this return, Lou Rodriguez, the original
actress who played Saluna, who used to cry real
tears at the ending every night in 1996, returns
to help guide the development. That title change
is a masterstroke of emotional intelligence.
By shifting the name from the incurable disease
to Angels of Love, they are fundamentally reframing
the legacy of the play. Taking the power back.
Exactly. It ceases to be defined by the tragedy,
the illness, or the curse of its history. It
transitions into a tribute to the angels they
lost to Mansilla and to Morandini. It becomes
a celebration of the love that held their theater
troupe together through decades of hardship.
So what does this all mean? When you look at
this expansive timeline, stretching from the
initial script in 1993 all the way to the rebranded
release in 2014, you witness the ultimate testament
to the endurance of a chosen family. You really
do. You have the literal youngest member of that
1996 cast growing into adulthood, navigating
immense grief and stepping into a leadership
role to ensure the story survives. He acts as
the final shield against his mentors being forgotten.
It is a phenomenal demonstration of how art binds
us. Which brings us to an essential realization
for you, listening to this deep dive right now.
Yeah, why does this matter today? Right, you
might be navigating your own busy life, your
own work, your own challenges, and wondering
why an obscure 1990s South American stage play
matters to your world today. Why dissect this
specific history? It is a fair question to ask
when looking at the grand scheme of history.
It matters because it serves as an absolute masterclass
in the human capacity for connection. We frequently
treat art, whether it's theater, film, or literature,
as disposable entertainment. We consume the narrative,
we feel a brief emotion, and we move on. We just
scroll to the next thing. Exactly. But the history
of Lant for Medad and Curable... pulls back the
curtain to reveal the beating, bleeding heart
behind the performance. It proves that a single
creative endeavor, if pursued with absolute authenticity,
can bind a group of individuals together so inextricably
that they will spend decades of their lives enduring
immense, soul -crushing heartbreak just to keep
each other's memories alive. That's incredibly
profound. Yeah. It is a testament to the fact
that when you pour your genuine self into your
work, that workout lives you. The enmeshment
doesn't end when the curtain falls. It inspires
the next generation. Quite literally in the case
of the child actor who grew up to carry the torch.
That perspective completely transforms how I
view any performance. It makes you realize that
behind every character standing on a stage, there
is a real human being who might be carrying the
psychological weight of that role and the memories
of their castmates. for the rest of their natural
life it does and this raises an important question
and perhaps a provocative final thought for you
to mull over long after this deep dive concludes
okay let's hear it when a piece of art becomes
saturated with so much real life tragedy does
it fundamentally alter the way the audience consumes
that art think about the experience of sitting
in the audience for the 2014 premiere of angelus
de amor knowing everything they went through
Exactly. If you are aware of the grueling 1996
tour, the mother's death, the creator's depression
and the lead actors fatal car crash. Does the
play cease to be just a fictional story about
a boy named Juan with epilepsy? Does it become
something else? Yes. Does the art transform right
in front of your eyes, stepping entirely out
of the realm of fiction to become a living, breathing
memorial to the flesh and blood people who died
trying to tell it? Does the context of the creator's
death permanently alter the DNA of the script?
That is an incredibly powerful thought to leave
on. The tears shed on that stage wouldn't just
be acting anymore. They would be an invitation
for the audience to share in a very real, very
present grief. Thank you so much for joining
us on this profound journey today. Exploring
the true story behind Lanfermidon Incurable has
been a moving reminder of the passion, the heartbreak,
and the enduring resilience of artists everywhere.
We hope you found this exploration as deeply
affecting as we did. Until next time.