Les Chevaliers is the fourth stage project by Los Detectives, where contemporary knights tirelessly search for the Holy Grail. Like Perceval, these lost and disoriented souls make every effort but never quite succeed, yet they relentlessly hurl themselves into an endless quest. The essential question in all of this is: when you’re searching, what is it that you’re truly looking for?

The value of searching for the Grail lies in the pursuit of the impossible; it reveals an apparently unproductive gesture that, in reality, becomes the raison d’être of the adventure. This new investigation once again stems from the premise that those who truly belong to their time are the ones who don’t fit perfectly into it or conform to its demands. And it is precisely because of this condition—this sort of disconnection—that they are more capable than others of perceiving and grasping their own time. Through this anachronism, Los Detectives invite us to reflect on the most immediate present, a time defined by an unceasing search for both our own image and that of others.

What is intangible today? What is the chivalric legacy of our social narrative? How do the epic and the mundane coexist in our precarious lives?

We approach these questions through three contemporary detectives who search for the Grail in different contexts. The project is conceived in chapters, as if it were a TV series. The chapters are independent of each other and can be presented separately. The next chapter will be presented at Festival TNT 2025. On a formal level, we are inspired by the entire universe of TV detective series and films, from Inspector Colombo to José Luis López Vázquez and Fernando Fernán Gómez in Crimen Imperfecto. This highly recognizable and particular universe is brought to the stage by three female performers who place themselves in an ambiguous position regarding both gender and investigative methods (ranging from very methodical to the total loss of bearings), which creates humor and a certain absurdity. Moreover, we plan to use different scenic languages for each chapter: spoken word, music, choreography, and even varying dramatic genres and formats.

Chapter 1: The Question or the Turning Wheel was presented as a work in progress at Festival Sâlmon 2024 and will be shown at Sala Mutant in Valencia in December.

Concept and creation: Los Detectives
Performers: Mariona Naudin, María García Vera, Sofía Asencio
Project direction: María García Vera
Artistic and dramaturgical direction: María García Vera, Mariona Naudin, Sofía Asencio
Co-production: Festival Sâlmon, Beca OSIC Recerca i Creació, Festival TNT, Antic Teatre, El Canal de Salt.

"The object of the search must not be the supernatural, but the world. The supernatural is the light; if we make it the object, we degrade it."
—Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace