The theatrical project Loco is based in part on the short story of the Russian author Nikolay Gogol, Dairy of a Madman, on the life of the mentally disturbed author and in part on our own experiences.

Dairy of a Madman by Nikolay Vasilievich Gogol

Nikolay Gogol’s work Dairy of a Madman is an absurd tale that deals with the unclear boundary between insanity and reason. The short story’s main character Poprishchin is a low-level civil servant. His encounter with his boss’s daughter Sofi affects his life to the point of him becoming mad. The love he feels for this inaccessible woman pulls his sick mind into a delirious search for identity. “Maybe I am an earl or a general. Why do I look as if I’m just an insignificant employee? Maybe even I don’t know who I am.” He analyses and untangles “the origin of all these differences”. His investigation pushes him to question Sofi’s dog. Madness gives him the possibility to break ties with his miserable place in the hierarchic system by creating his own fictitious version of reality: he proclaims himself Ferdinand VIII, King of Spain. This sham temporarily saves him from his despair only to later throw him into a huge disaster. The so-called “Spanish deputies” will come to take Fernando VIII… to the asylum.