In the eye of the storm: contemporary theater in Barcelona 9780838758519, 9780838757222

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Preface: Theater and Barcelona (page 9)
Introduction: A Limitless Theatrical Geography (page 23)
1. From the Political to the Spectacular: Els Joglars (page 45)
2. An Aspiration to the Authentic: La Fura dels Baus (page 75)
3. A Phenomenological Gaze: Josep M. Benet i Jornet (page 103)
4. Theater of Pain: Sergi Belbel (page 163)
5. Theater of Enigma: Lluïsa Cunillé (page 230)
6. European Landscapes: Carles Batlle (page 254)
7. Scenes of Miscommunication: Josep Pere Peyró (page 288)
Epilogue: New Spaces and New Visions (page 305)
Notes (page 329)
Bibliography (page 358)
Index (page 393)

Citation preview

In the Eye of the Storm

Blank Page

In the Eye of the Storm Contemporary [heater in Barcelona

Sharon G. Feldman

Lewisburg Bucknell University Press

© 2009 by Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp. All rights reserved. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the copyright owner, provided that a base fee of $10.00, plus eight cents per page, per copy is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923. [978-0-8387-5722-2/09 $10.00 + 8¢ pp, pc.]

Associated University Presses 2010 Eastpark Boulevard Cranbury, NJ 08512

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Feldman, Sharon G., 1962In the eye of the storm : contemporary theater in Barcelona / Sharon G. Feldman.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8387-5722-2 (alk. paper) 1. Theater—Spain—Barcelona—History—20th century. 2. Spanish drama—20th century—History and criticism. 3. Theatrical companies— Spain—Barcelona—History. I. Title.

PN2786.B3F46 2009 792.0946'72—dc22 2008053179

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For Andrew P. Debicki in memoriam

Blank Page

Contents

Preface: ‘Theater and Barcelona 9 Introduction: A Limitless Theatrical Geography 23 1. From the Political to the Spectacular: Els Joglars 45 2. An Aspiration to the Authentic: La Fura dels Baus 75 3. A Phenomenological Gaze: Josep M. Benet i Jornet 103

4. ‘Theater of Pain: Sergi Belbel 163 5. Theater of Enigma: Lluisa Cunillé 230 6. European Landscapes: Carles Batlle 254 7. Scenes of Miscommunication: Josep Pere Peyré 288

Notes 329 Bibliography 358 Index 393

Epilogue: New Spaces and New Visions 305

7

Blank Page

Preface: ‘Theater and Barcelona —Where are you going? —Barcelona —Stephen Sondheim, “Barcelona” (from Company)

‘THE PromMisED LAND AND THE STORM IN SEPTEMBER 2004, ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEBUT AT THE TEATRE

Nacional de Catalunya of Forasters (Strangers, 2003), a Catalan play written and staged by Sergi Belbel (1963), veteran theater critic Joan de Sagarra published a column in the Barcelona daily La Vanguardia in which he not only lauded Belbel’s play and directorial work (along with a skillful performance by actress Anna Lizaran), but also devoted special attention to a preface to the published version of Belbel’s text, prepared by the eminent Barcelona playwright Josep M. Benet i Jornet (1940). Benet’s preface “Sergi Belbel; tot just comeng¢a” (Sergi Belbel;

it’s all just beginning) situates the career of one of Catalunya’s most prominent dramatists within a historical context, suggesting that Belbel’s international acclaim—especially his widespread renown through-

out Europe—is a phenomenon that has enhanced the profile of the Catalan stage overall, endowing it with a considerable measure of prestige. Referring to the uncommonly optimistic assessment offered by Benet (here, referred to as “Papitu,” as he is habitually known to his friends), Sagarra explains how he was moved by the experience of both reading the preface and attending the premiere of Belbel’s Forasters, for they inspired in him a long-awaited sense of “normalcy” with regard to the contemporary Catalan stage: For me, the preface that my friend Papitu has written to his godson Sergi, and most especially these last words are something that makes me feel a sense of reconciliation with this country, with this small patria that is the Catalan stage, and not only makes me feel like a normal person, a normal reader, spectator in a normal country, which one would hope is definitively normalized, but also moves me. And the only thing that pains me is not being able to share my emotion with some very dear people from the very small patria that is the Catalan stage, in which they always believed and who today are no longer with us.! 9

10 PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA Having chronicled the Barcelona cultural scene for several decades, Sagarra’s accentuated sense of “normalcy,” one may well assume, is derived from his memories of the somber post-Civil War period, in which looming clouds of oppression and censorship cast sweeping shadows across the Catalan cultural landscape. His allusions, therefore, to “normalization” are in keeping with the frequent connotation of the term as it is typically employed within Catalan political and linguistic circles to refer to the process of recuperation, revival, and rele-

gitimization of Catalan cultural and intellectual life that ensued following the period of the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975). Here, to

be “normal” is to move from the periphery to the center, to be regarded as valid rather than illicit, and to be visible and vociferous— even obvious and everyday—instead of obstructed, silenced, or relegated to the margins of exile, the recesses of memory, or the darkness of invisibility. Sagarra’s sense of “reconciliation,” then, is perhaps a reference to his perception of the present vis @ vis the past and of his coming to terms with a Catalan historical memory, as well as theater history.

Catalunya is presently experiencing the most dynamic, extraordinary, opulent, and polemical period in its modern theater history. Barcelona, the cultural epicenter of Catalunya, is the commanding hub of an energetic theater scene that over the course of the past two decades has witnessed an exuberant outpouring of new dramatists, a steady crescendo in theater attendance (topping two million spectators per season), and a continual increase in the international presence of Catalan directors, playwrights, and companies.’ Barcelona’s post-Olympian cul-

tural landscape, moreover, comprises several architecturally striking public theater projects that include the ‘Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (1997) and the new Teatre Lliure (2001)—the latter of which is a component of the Ciutat del ‘Ieatre, a “theater city” composed of several venues, situated amid the slopes of the iconic Barcelona hilltop known as Montjuic. Significantly, the dramatists and theater practitioners who have come of age during the democratic period have enjoyed a level of academic training in the theory and mechanics of writing and staging plays that has never before been seen in Catalunya, or in Spain for that matter. The diversity of opportunities to stage plays in Catalan at an assortment of city spaces is unprecedented, ranging in variety from commercial locales, such as the Teatre Poliorama and Teatre

Condal, to publicly funded stages, such as the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya and ‘Teatre Lliure, to experimental “alternative” venues

such as the Sala Beckett and ‘Teatre Nou ‘antarantana. The path along which the contemporary Catalan theater scene has struggled to recover and reconstitute the professional legitimacy and

PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA 11 visibility that it lost during the dictatorship has been a complex and polemical process, never lacking in melodramatic excess, witnessed both on and off the stage. Even Sagarra notes in his above-cited commentary that his feelings of reconciliation and normalcy have emerged in spite of the complexities of this relatively small theater world, a place (or patria or pais, as he puts it) where people are known to “de-

vour” each other.’ Benet i Jornet, in a rather sardonic—but also, deadly serious—manner, has likened the “normalcy” of the current period of Catalan theater history to the arrival of the Jewish people at the Promised Land following their Exodus from Egypt and their subsequent desert crossing: El segon llibre de la Biblia es diu “Exode.” Com sabeu, en ell s’explica com els jueus van fugir de la captivitat que patien a Egipte i van viatjar durant quaranta anys pel desert, perduts i a la recerca de la ‘Terra Promesa—una terra que sovint dubtaven de poder abastar mai. Pero hi van arribar. Encara que arribar-hi, contra allo que havien imaginat, no va ser el final feli¢ de la

seva historia. Va ser el comencament de noves Iluites externes i de nous

conflictes interns. Bé, voldria establir un paral-lelisme esquematic 1 frivol—ho sé—, entre aquella travessia del desert i la historia del teatre de text a Barcelona durant 40 anys.*

[The second book of the Bible is called “Exodus.” As you know, in it the story is recounted of how the Jews fled from the captivity that they suffered in Egypt and traveled for forty years across the desert, lost and in search of the Promised Land—a land they often doubted that they would ever reach. But they did arrive there. Although arriving there, unlike what they had imagined, was not the happy ending of their story. It was the beginning of new external battles and new internal conflicts. Well, I would like to establish a schematic and frivolous parallelism—I know—, between

that desert crossing and the story of text-based theater in Barcelona for forty years. ]

Benet’s focus here is the situation of text-based drama in Catalan, the literary genre that, during the postwar period of the dictatorship, was

perhaps most vulnerable to censorship. Yet, once the desert was crossed, as he observes, the path to “normalcy” was still not complete, and new challenges would ensue. Io name a few, there would be concerns with regard to the distribution of public subventions for the theater, the diminished support for the figure of the playwright (in favor of the director), and the privileging of image-based performance over text-based drama. Indeed the Barcelona theatrical landscape has become a place whose climate is so tempestuous that the mere acquisition of a theater ticket can be interpreted as a metaphoric gesture indicative of one’s cultural-

12 PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA and/or linguistic-political inclinations or aspirations. Since the 1990s, the cultural-political milieu that has encircled the construction and reconstruction of several architecturally striking, ostensibly lavish, and widely controversial public theater venues—which include the abovementioned ‘Teatre Nacional de Catalunya and the new ‘Teatre Lliure, as well as the Gran ‘Teatre del Liceu (the opera house that reopened, following a 1994 fire, in 1999)—has not been lacking in its share of melodramatic moments, impassioned accusations, and hysterical outbursts, witnessed both on and off the stage. In the Barcelona theater world, it is not uncommon for real life to become confused with the

spectacular, offering us repeated examples of what director Albert Boadella, in his book E/ rapto de Talia (The rapture of Thalia) refers to as an “exhibitionist virus” or “frenzy” that has besieged contemporary society.°

Perhaps the theater, because of its very nature as a live art, performed for the living, may never divorce itself completely from the vulgar extravagances, outside interests, and extraneous frivolities that sometimes appear to engulf it completely, concealing the true artistic craft. The Barcelona stage, throughout its contemporary evolution, has been immersed in a stormy climate, whose relentlessly frenetic atmospheric movement, at times, may impede one from acquiring the spatial and temporal distance necessary to see beyond the hurricane. But a hurricane always conceals at its core a zone of serenity, and in the case of contemporary Catalan theater, it is a nucleus that, although not immune to problems of financing and feasibility, is overflowing with vitality and creativity. ‘Today, the eye of this storm is a vibrant space of avant-garde energy, where banality, reckless expenditure, and facile solutions are replaced with risk, experimentation, investigation, and commitment, and where the artists are hardly impervious to international recognition. Such is the case of the Sala Beckett, a guiding light among the approximately thirty sales alternatives, or “alternative venues” (similar in conception to the performance spaces located “off-off” Broadway or on the London “‘fringe’’) that are scattered throughout Spain. A phe-

nomenon that emerged during the mid-1980s, there are presently eight of these relatively small ovens of originality and ingenuity located within Catalunya: the Beckett, Espai Escénic Joan Brossa, Sala Muntaner, Teatre Nou Tantarantana, and Versus Teatre in Barcelona; the Sala La Planeta in Girona; and the Teatre de Ponent in Granollers. José Sanchis Sinisterra (1940), a Valencian playwright, director, and pedagogue, founded the Sala Beckett in 1989 in what was formerly a factory in the Gracia district of Barcelona (in the vicinity of other well known Catalan theater venues such as the original ‘Teatre Lliure and

PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA 13 the recently disappeared Sala Artenbrut). The Beckett was initially conceived as a place in which to anchor the activities of Sanchis’s ‘Tea-

tro Fronterizo, the company that he began in 1977 during the postFranco transition to democracy. In addition to original works by Sanchis and others, the Fronterizo, which was active until the mid 1990s, staged several adaptations of canonical literary works (by authors such as Bertolt Brecht, Julio Cortazar, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Herman Melville, and Ernesto Sabato) in both Spanish and Catalan. In a socalled “latent’’ manifesto that he published three years after the debut of the company, Sanchis, ever attentive to the prospect of creating a compellingly valid, politically engaged theater in the new democratic Spain, called for a theater that would “‘disarticulate ideological models” by questioning conditions of spectacle and spectatorship.° He thus underscored what he perceived to be an indispensable relationship be-

tween content and form, or between social/political/cultural issues and aesthetic domains. He and his company consequently set out to investigate margins, limits, and “frontiers” in their many figures and manifestations in relation to theatricality as well as culture, in general. Although the ‘Teatro Fronterizo no longer exists as a working com-

pany, the imprint that it has left upon the contemporary Barcelona theater scene is still quite evident, for in addition to serving as a platform for some of Sanchis’s own texts (written in Spanish), it nurtured

and stimulated in varying degrees the careers of several prominent Barcelona actors, directors, and playwrights, including Sergi Belbel, Luis Miguel Climent, Lluisa Cunillé, Jordi Dauder, Manel Dueso, Magiii Mira, Rosa Novell, and Ramon Simo.’ It was, moreover, the embryo tor what would evolve into one of Spain’s most prominent and progressive alternative theater venues, a veritable kitchen for the preparation of the so-called “new Catalan dramaturgy.”’

In 1997, Sanchis placed the Sala Beckett in the talented hands of Toni Casares (1965), a director who had collaborated with the Fronterizo and had supervised the Aula de ‘Teatre (the extracurricular theater program) of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.® As artistic director of the Beckett, Casares has elevated the locale to new levels of prestige, design, and efficiency, revamping and updating the entire physical plant, garnering increased public funding for performances, augmenting pedagogical activities, incorporating contemporary dance into the mix, and making imaginative and timely programming decisions, such as the series titled “‘L’accio té lloc a Barcelona” (The action takes place in Barcelona), an initiative that he implemented during the

2003-2004 season, which earned him and the Beckett a prestigious Generalitat de Catalunya prize (the Catalan national theater award) in 2005.°

14 PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA It is this eye of the storm, the temperate zone of quiet reflection and tranquility exemplified by the Sala Beckett, that interests me here.

While the present study takes into account some of the public and private dramas, crucial moments, and even some of the back stories that have shaped the theatrical life of the city of Barcelona during the democratic period, I also consider at length several key companies, playwrights, theatrical works, and performances that occupy this space of calm reflection and that have contributed in significant ways to the recuperation of this theatrical life. In the introductory chapter, I offer an overview of major issues and turning points in the process of resurgence of Catalan theater during this period, focusing specifically on two major sites of contention: the ‘Teatre Nacional de Catalunya and the ‘Teatre Lliure. In this preliminary chapter, I also introduce the concept of Catalunya invisible, a term that I employ to refer to the paradoxical condition whereby the city of Barcelona began to take on a nearly indiscernible, phantasmal presence in many of the theatrical texts written during the 1980s and 1990s. ‘This was the case despite the emphasis on international projection and dissemination that has characterized Catalan cultural-politics during the post-Franco period. In subsequent chapters, I devote attention to two key companies, Els Joglars (1962) and La Fura dels Baus (1979), which have played vital roles in the contemporary Barcelona theater scene. ‘Their performances, which often deemphasize the function of verbal language, have garnered them the labels “visual theater” or “theater of images.” In these chapters, I underscore the extent to which both companies are testaments to the significant historical legacy of the Catalan “inde-

pendent” experimental theater movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which emerged in the margins of Francoist censorship. ‘The subsequent chapters of the book offer individual case studies of five key playwrights: Josep M. Benet 1 Jornet, Sergi Belbel, Lluisa Cunillé (1961), Carles Batlle (1963), and Josep Pere Peyré (1959). Some have enjoyed considerable commercial success; others display a more esoteric attitude toward drama. In examining the work of these playwrights, I consider their aesthetic ties with the European and North American contemporary theatrical vanguards. Specifically, I center my attention upon the common concerns that emerge in their plays with the process of communication (the degree to which language determines dramatic action) and the phenomenology of theatrical space (the relationship between physical space and invisible, subjective, psychic realities). The final chapter, an epilogue titled “New Spaces and New Visions,” is devoted to new locales and the multiple voices that have emerged on the Catalan stage during the decade of 2000. It is not my intention to be exhaustive in my coverage of the con-

PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA 15 temporary Catalan stage or of the many subgenres that exist in Barce-

lona within the categories of “theater” and “performance.” I am, rather, interested in highlighting a series of playwrights and companies that have already proven their ability to transcend the difficulties of surviving within the professional theater scene and whose work— given factors of reception, visibility, and intellectual depth—has already shown signs of future endurance. With the exception of Benet 1 Jornet, I do not devote extensive attention to the playwrights of the group frequently known as the generation of the “Premi Sagarra,” the cluster of playwrights that emerged during the mid-1960s, many of whom, beginning with Benet in 1963, were winners of the Sagarra Prize (named for Catalan writer Josep Maria de Sagarra [1894-1961)). These playwrights include: Alfred Badia (1912), Alexandre Ballester (1934), Ramon Gomis (1946), Jaume Melendres (1941), Manuel Molins (1946), Josep Maria Mufioz Pujol (1924), Carles Reig (19472001), Rodolf Sirera (1948), Joan Soler i Antich (1935), and Jordi Teixidor (1939). Melendres (also known for his work as a director), Molins, and Sirera are still quite active today; the others are not.!° Several critics and historians in Catalunya and Spain have offered more complete accounts of contemporary Catalan drama and performance than I am able to offer in the space of this study. ‘The list of studies available in Spanish includes the work of Maria José RaguéArias, a Catalan critic, who has published two indispensable monographs that offer an almost encyclopedic inventory of the theater of this period. Her 3 Nuevas dramaturgias?: Los autores de fin de siglo en Ca-

taluna, Valencia y Baleares (2001) ofters broad coverage of the theater of the Catalan-speaking lands and E/ teatro de fin de milenio de Espana

(De 1975 hasta hoy) (1996) treats theater throughout Spain. Other scholars writing in Spanish have also examined within a single volume

the theater of Spain overall, devoting varying degrees of attention to Catalan playwrights. These include Angel Berenguer and Manuel Pérez, Tendencias del teatro espatiol durante la transicion politica, 19°751982 (1998); José Garcia Templado, E/ teatro espanol actual (1992); and

César Oliva, La ultima escena: teatro espanol de 1975 a nuestros dias (2004), Teatro espanol del siglh XX (2003), and E/ teatro desde 1936 (1989). Javier Huerta Calvo’s two-volume edition Historia del teatro es-

paniol (2003) 1s the most complete history of Spanish theater to date, and it, too, contains several sections dedicated to Catalunya. In 2000, Juan Antonio Hormigon published a special cluster titled ““Teatro Actual en Catalufia” in ADE Teatro, the bimonthly theater review published by the Asociacién de Directores de Escena (the Association of Directors of Spain). Containing articles by Jordi Coca, Benet i Jornet, Joan Casas, Ragué-Arias, Esteve Polls, and others, it serves as an 1m-

16 PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA portant point of reference with regard to the Catalan stage at the be-

ginning of the new millennium. Also noteworthy is the general overview of twentieth-century Catalan literature offered by Ferran Carbo and Vicent Simbor in Literatura catalana del siglh XX (2005). In addition, Lourdes Orozco, based in Britain, has unmeshed the labyrin-

thine relationship between theater and politics in Barcelona in her monograph in Spanish Teatro y politica en Barcelona, 1982-2000 (2007).

The prolific work of Mercé Saumell and José A. Sanchez on performance groups in Catalunya has appeared in several languages, and especially useful and ample in its coverage is the Archivo virtual de las artes escénicas, an online archive on performance in Spain, containing visual and text-based materials, that is run by Sanchez out of the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.

Within Catalunya, some of the most enlightened studies of the work of contemporary Catalan playwrights can be found in the many prefaces published by theater critics/historians Carles Batlle, Francesc Foguet, Enric Gallén, Miquel Gibert, Nuria Santamaria, and others, often appearing in the Galliner collection of Edicions 62, the collection published by the Institut del ‘Teatre, and the volumes of plays published by Editorial Proa in conjunction with the ‘Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. These prefaces are often indispensable tools in orient-

ing the serious reader and/or theater practitioner. Finally, a recent volume deserving of mention here is the edition prepared by Batlle of the proceedings from the first international symposium devoted to contemporary Catalan theater (I Szmposi Internacional Sobre Teatre Catala Contemporani: De la Transict6 a PActualitat), which was held at the

Institut del ‘Teatre de la Diputacié de Barcelona in June 2005. The volume offers broad and substantial coverage of issues of debate and key players within the post-Franco Catalan theatre scene. Batlle, in addition, has offered extensive overviews of the playwrights emerging

from the contemporary Catalan theater scene in articles such as ‘‘Apunts per a una valoracio de la dramatirgia catalana actual: realisme i perplexitat” and “La nova dramatirgia catalana: de la perplexitat a la diversitat.”’

Despite Barcelona’s prominent cultural profile, Catalan theater of the post-Franco period has received extremely scarce critical attention from scholars outside the Catalan and Spanish-speaking worlds and only limited attention in English. The work of British scholars David George and John London (Contemporary Catalan Theatre: An Introduction, 1996), Maria M. Delgado (“Other” Spanish Theatres: Erasure and Inscription on the Twentieth-Century Spanish Stage, 2003), and Helena Buftery (Shakespeare in Catalan: Translating Imperialism, 2007) represents a series of important exceptions with regard to the shortage of

PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA 17 English-language monographs. George and London’s study, a collection containing their own contributions and several articles by scholars from Catalunya (Gallén, Saumell, and Rodolf Sirera), offers a lucid overview of contemporary Catalan theater history. Delgado’s imaginative approach centers on the work of specific directors within the broad context of twentieth-century Spain. Buffery’s monograph treats the history of appropriation and adaptation in Catalunya of Shakespeare’s plays, of how in modern times his texts have been subjected to a complex network of social, cultural, and political contexts. Another exception is the publication of a special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review published in 2007, titled “Catalan Theatre, 1975-2006: Politics, Identity and Performance.” It contains articles by editors Delgado, George, and Lourdes Orozco, as well as contributions by Cariad Astles, Batlle, Buffery, Jordi Coca, London, Saumell, and others.!! North American scholarship in the field of Spanish theater has long

exhibited a tendency to emphasize the role of the city of Madrid, rather than Barcelona, and to focus on specific written dramatic texts in Spanish. My treatment, therefore, with a single volume, of both image-based performance and text-based drama in Catalan represents

a new way of mapping the heretofore-dominant view of theater in Spain. It is my hope that the present book will build on prior studies and continue to uncover a largely underexposed and, yet, extremely vital dimension of Catalan (and Spanish Peninsular) cultural history.

Throughout the present study, I rely in large part upon my own experience as a spectator of Catalan theater over the course of more than a decade in Barcelona, Madrid, and smaller cities and towns in Catalunya. Except where otherwise noted, all descriptions of perform-

ances are derived from my personal experience of spectatorship. Wherever possible, I have provided in parentheses the birthdates of Catalan playwrights and directors, the founding dates of Catalan companies, and the date of composition of plays and performance pieces. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own. When quoting passages from the work of Catalan theater artists (play texts, manifestos, Memoirs, essays, interviews, program notes), I have left the pas-

sage in the original language and have supplied a parallel English translation. All other commentaries that originally appeared in Catalan, Spanish, or French are provided only in English translation. Writing this book as been a very long journey that began in 1995, when [| spent a three-month sojourn in Barcelona with a “Generalitat de Catalunya” grant from the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. At that time, I had the good fortune of having Professor Ricard Salvat, of the Universitat de Barcelona, assigned to me as a tutor. I shall be forever grateful for his plentiful advice, keen foresight, and generosity in opening

18 PREFACE: THEATER AND BARCELONA for me many doors and windows onto the Catalan theater scene. Additional funding for this study was provided by grants from the Office

of the Dean of Arts and Sciences and the Faculty Research Fund of the University of Richmond, the Hall Center for the Humanities and the General Research Fund of the University of Kansas, the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Education and Culture and United States’ Universities, and the United States Fulbright Scholar Program. In addition to the aforementioned programs and institutions, I am indebted to the following people who facilitated

my research in theater archives in Madrid and Barcelona: Cristina Santolaria and Gerardo del Barco of the Centro de Documentacié6n Teatral (Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Musica),

Odilo Gundia and Maria Carmen Pérez de Arenaza of the Fundaci6n Juan March (Biblioteca de Musica y Teatro Contemporanos), Carme Cases of the Centre de Documentaci6 of the Institut del ‘Teatre de la

Diputaci6 de Barcelona, Doménec Reixach of the ‘Teatre Romea (Centre Dramatic de la Generalitat de Catalunya) and the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, and ‘Txiqui Vanaclocha of the Belbel archive. I wish to express my sincere appreciation, as well, to a long list of Catalan theater professionals who, throughout my years of work on this project, graciously shared with me a variety of supplementary materials from their personal archives (play texts, playbills, play reviews,

unpublished manuscripts, production photographs, and videos), as well as thoughts on their work and the creative process. The list includes: Xavier Alberti, Quico Amorés, Albert Boadella, ‘Toni Casares, Narcis Comadira, Els Comediants, La Cubana, Lluisa Cunillé, Ramon Fontseré, Beth Escudé, Albert Espinosa, Miki Espuma, Pepe Far, La Fura dels Baus, Ignasi Garcia, Els Joglars, Roger Justafré, Pablo Ley,

Albert Mestres, Esteve Miralles, Pau Mird, Pilar Mir i El ‘Tricicle, Marcos Ordofiez, Mercé Paloma, Josep Pere Peyrdé, Ventura Pons, Magda Puyo, Maria-Josep Ragué-Arias, Oscar Roig, José Sanchis Sinisterra, Mercé Sarrias, Ramon Sim6, Antonio Sim6n, and Victoria

Szpunberg. I am equally appreciative of the thoughtful insights offered to me by several European friends and colleagues. ‘These include: Inés Delseny Mird, Enric Gallén, David George, John London, Montse Parera, Crist6bal Pera (Jr. and Sr.), and Ntria Santamaria. Most especially, I wish to express my gratitude to Carles Batlle, Sergi Belbel, and Josep M. (‘‘Papitu’’) Benet 1 Jornet. ‘To all three, I am thankful for their kindness and generosity. In particular, I shall always be grateful to Papitu for sharing with me his contagious love of the theater. Finally, and as always, I am ever appreciative of my family for their unyielding patience and enthusiasm.

:#4——: |’ 24 Ffli ' : , ; |||aS;:ee~: . ne .

= «...

ee

»

f

:

Ld

y vee

.

a

jue -

i,

is

« *” Wig ete = NE ae Bape Ts) ee ie es tap Ps ols ae, ;

: : , mod, a7 i a: Wes 7

pi eae ek sal

ites nee Pry oe (is Ta a a ecctades To

a i.; Pm ees “—) =.’asa: ;eeaone —{eea~"= $53 , ag Pe aetf~e ay éheLae ee, we ate ~.* rr Cn) poten . * “as A Pe ‘Héee : rey 3 tT mS, P oe ” ; i| eters te Noite Wi ot,gn.Pes eS2™ i eo os eTFOP ae See eisai B.S > ee boy Ri de Bo at Entrance to the Sala Beckett. Photo courtesy of the Sala Beckett.

Blank Page

In the Eye of the Storm

Blank Page

Introduction: A Limitless Theatrical Geography —We are rooted in a place, we are rooted in the absence of a place. —Herbert Blau, Take Up the Bodies'

‘TRANSNATIONAL [RANSACTIONS CoNTEMPORARY BARCELONA ASPIRES TO BECOME A EUROPEAN THE-

ater capital, often looking toward London, Paris, Berlin, or Milan in search of new artistic paradigms and modes of expression. Playwrights Josep M. Benet i Jornet (1940) and Sergi Belbel (1963); directors Lluis Pasqual (1951) and Calixto Bieito (1963); and experimental groups Sémola (1978), Comediants (1971), La Cubana (1980), and La Fura dels Baus (1979) are just some of the representatives of the contemporary

Barcelona theater scene whose names have begun to circulate throughout Europe and the Americas. ‘The Parisian production of Belbel’s Després de la pluja (After the Rain, 1993) was awarded the Moliére prize for best comedy staged in France during the 1998-99 season. In 2002, the same play was awarded a special Premio Max (the Spanish equivalent of a Tony Award) for its extensive international diffusion. Bieito’s recurrent participation in the Edinburgh International Festival and his frequent forays into opera, with productions staged at

elite European venues (often, with a Catalan design team), have inspired both praise and indignation on the part of critics as a consequence of the powerful visual dimension and startling crudeness of his

theatrical creations.2 Sémola, a multilingual theater troupe with a thirty-year history rooted in Catalunya, has been known to attract a wider audience in northern European cities than in Barcelona.’ Comediants, one of Catalunya’s oldest and most well-traveled theater companies, has engaged in transcultural collaborations with a Chinese

acrobatic troupe, thus merging the rituals and iconography of the Mediterranean with those of Asia.t La Cubana has given triumphant performances at the Edinburgh Festival with its innovative and playtul assaults upon the theatrical fourth wall.> Lastly, the Catalan company La Fura dels Baus, which began as three friends who traveled about 23

24 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM rural Catalunya by means of an old truck, now has multiple touring groups that simultaneously encircle the globe, featuring performers from several countries. La Fura is currently experimenting in a most sophisticated way with performance via the Internet in a virtual, borderless theatrical space that is both interactive and intercultural. It is my hope that, with this brief sampling, it may be possible for one to grasp the extent to which the ontological limits that define the contemporary Catalan stage—far more than any other ethno-national, or “imagined,” theater community within the Spanish state—extend well beyond the geopolitical borders of Catalunya per se, having already acquired a large measure of protagonism on the international stage.° ‘To be sure, in the nation without a state that is Catalunya, success in the theater is often measured as a function of international reach and reputation. Historically, far from displaying the provincialism often ascribed to so-called minoritized or peripheral cultures, modern Catalan drama has frequently exhibited, since its origins in the nineteenth century, a cosmopolitan and even transnational impulse, engaging in an artistic dialogue with international theater traditions of both past and present, and forging its identity vis a vis its intercultural associations. In 1983, to cite one contemporary case in point, British director/ producer Peter Brook traveled from Paris to Barcelona in search of an empty space in which to stage his version of Georges Bizet’s nineteenth-century opera La tragédie de Carmen (The Tragedy of Carmen, 1983). Brook’s decision to appropriate the vacant Mercat de les Flors, a surviving structure from the Barcelona International Exposition of 1929, would prompt this city’s municipal government, under the leadership of mayor Pasqual Maragall and cultural regidora (manager) Maria Aurélia Capmany, to transform this locale into a major point of reference for visiting performers and companies from the international stage. ‘The Mercat, which was officially inaugurated as a theater

in 1985 with the premiere of Brook’s epic Mahabharata, today is a component of Barcelona’s Ciutat del ‘Teatre. The centerpiece of the building is an impressive noucentista cupola containing a magnificent

fresco painted by contemporary Mallorcan artist Miquel Barcelo. Since its inauguration—and as a result of the creative insight of Joan Maria Gual (1946), who served as the theater’s artistic director from 1986 to 2002—the Mercat, in addition to its regular programming of Catalan theater, has served as a showcase for several works by Brook and has also been the site of memorable appearances by a series of world-renowned luminaries who have left a lasting imprint upon the evolution of this city’s contemporary theatrical avant-garde. These include Pina Bausch, Cheek by Jowl, Patrice Chéreau, the late Vittorio

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY = 25

Gassman, Jadeusz Kantor, Lindsay Kemp, Robert Lepage, Harold Pinter, Ariane Mouchkine and the Théatre du Soleil, Simon McBur-

ney and Complicite, and Elizabeth LeCompte and the Wooster Group. As early as the 1890s, modernist painters/playwrights Santiago Rusifiol (1861-1931) and Adria Gual (1872-1943) played significant roles in the translation, performance, and dissemination of international drama in Catalunya (their translations and productions of works by Henrik Ibsen and Maurice Maeterlinck are just two examples), and since that time, Barcelona has arguably functioned as the predominant “gateway” to Spain for the European theatrical avant-gardes.’ Refer-

ring to the post-Civil War period, John London has demonstrated how, from the 1940s onward, it was “precisely the translation of nonSpanish plays into Catalan which would lead to the re-establishment of the language as a working theatrical idiom, rather than a folkloric tradition.’’* Throughout the period of the Franco dictatorship, in effect, it was often through translation that members of the Catalan independent theater movement—namely the Agrupaci6 Dramatica de Barcelona (established in 1955) and the Escola d’Art Dramatic Adria Gual (established in 1960)—were able to introduce, explore, and thoroughly immerse themselves in the dominant currents of the twentiethcentury international stage.’ During this period, the use of Catalan on the stage emerged as a crucial marker of identity and a sign of resistance to oppression, a refusal to yield to the centralizing force of the Spanish language and all its implications. ‘The nonprofessional, nonofficial pedagogical spaces of the independent theater would serve as breeding grounds for many of the actors, directors, playwrights and designers who would go on to become the most vibrant members of the post-Franco theater scene. In democratic times, the presence of the Catalan language as a vehicle of theatrical expression has continued to hold symbolic value as a sign of identity and a vindication of Catalan culture. For many contemporary Catalan dramatists, innately conscious of the oppressive realities of the past, the linguistic distinction appears to take precedence over all other thematic or aesthetic indicators of identity. ‘To write and/or to stage a play in Catalan is, in effect, to inscribe and reclaim a specific cultural space. Today, the so-called “new” Europe of evaporating cultural, political, and physical boundaries is, like Catalunya, a bewildering entity, rife with tension and uncertainty, which eludes any fixed definition and can be envisioned as a constant flow and substitution of images, peoples, technologies, and ideologies.!° The contemporary technological revolution, coupled with the deconstruction of the nation-state,

26 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM the spread of cosmopolitanism, and movements of mass migration have, in the words of Montserrat Guibernau, ‘“‘transformed the world into a singular place where processes of cultural integration and disintegration take place.”'! Social theorists, such as Arjun Appadurai, have suggested the existence of a world-historical shift, of imprecise periodicity, signaling a move from modern to postmodern, and from national to transnational (and, in turn postnational, postcolonial, and postidentity). Appadurai, in particular, has observed that “the very system of

nation-states is in jeopardy” and points to the formation of ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes as symptoms of a contemporary subjectivity that naturally would inspire us to reflect upon long-established relationships between the local and the global.'? It is also, in a sense, this ambiguous space of refection and subjectivity that in recent years has enabled Catalan culture in general,

and theater in particular, to question the sovereignty of the Spanish nation-state while inserting itself within a European, and even global, context.'? In his written précis for the Barcelona public theater project known as the Ciutat del ‘Teatre, Lluis Pasqual (1951), perhaps the most transnational of Catalan directors (a founding member of Barcelona’s ‘Tea-

tre Lliure and former director of the Centro Dramatico Nacional in Madrid and the Odéon-Théatre de Europe in Paris), reminds us of the intrinsic relationship between performance and identity, observing

how the theater continues to preserve its primordial function as a place where members of a freely united community can reveal themselves to each other and to others.'* Fundamental to most theories of globalization is the often-cited paradox whereby the drive toward universal integration, while enabling cultural legitimacy and international recognition, may also engender a kind of transnational homogenization, a dreaded sacrifice of difference. Thus, returning to the context of the theater, one might ask: how does the Catalan stage negotiate this dialectic of the universal and the particular? In an age in which “cultures overlap and mingle, enmeshed in a global struggle for selfdetermination,” how does contemporary Catalan theater participate in this struggle?!> Expressed in more pragmatic terms, how can a play, playwright, performance, or director “‘reveal’’—to use Pasqual’s phasing—or conserve markers of Catalan identity and, at the same time, transcend that identity to engender an international appeal? In the remaining pages of this introduction, I shall outline the complex set of circumstances that frame these questions. ‘Then, in subsequent chapters, I shall describe the often-paradoxical ways through which several contemporary dramatists and companies have searched for a solution.

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY — 27

PuBLiIc AND PrivaTE Dramas During the 1980s, as Spain’s central government shifted toward the left, a vast move toward decentralization ensued throughout the Spanish theatrical landscape with the emergence of several national ‘‘drama centers” funded by local governments in Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Catalunya, Extremadura, Galicia, and Valencia. These generally well-endowed public institutions (some of which were only short-lived ventures) were created according to varying principles of international projection, nationalism, and protectionism. In principle, they were es-

tablished in order to promote and showcase autochthonous theater from distinct historical repertoires, as well as the work of contemporary playwrights. During this period, the Catalan equivalent of a national drama center was the Centre Dramatic de la Generalitat de Catalunya (CDGOC), founded in 1981 (dissolved in 1998) and housed

in the historic Teatre Romea (the cradle of modern Catalan theater, established in 1863).!° As Enric Gallén recounts, after a brief period under the stewardship of theater historian Xavier Fabregas, actor/director Hermann Bonnin (who, from 1970 to 1980, had been director of the Institut del Teatre de la Diputacié de Barcelona) assumed the role of artistic director of the CDGC in 1982. Doménec Reixach replaced Bonnin in 1988, and his appointment, according to Gallén,

‘signified a conscious decision to opt for contemporary Catalan drama, through new productions and the periodic awarding of grants aimed at promoting playwriting.” During his tenure at the CDGC, Reixach, “restored dignity to writers of earlier decades” and created a myriad of opportunities and incentives for young and/or up-and-coming Catalan dramatists. In addition, as Gallén notes, the Centre Dramatic organized a highly successful program of “‘classical’’ Catalan drama as part of the cultural activities planned in conjunction with the 1992 Olympic games. ‘The program included works by Josep Maria de Sagarra (1894-1961), Francesc Fontanella (1622—1681/85), Angel Guimera (1845-1924), Carles Soldevila (1892-1967), Caterina Albert (“Victor Catala,” 1869-1966), and Santiago Rusifiol (1861-1931)." With the arrival of the 1990s, two ostensibly lavish public theater venues, the ‘Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (INC) and the new ‘Teatre Lliure, emerged on the Barcelona theatrical landscape as crucial sites

of contention.'® Each became an artistic-political battleground, a prominent subject of debate and discussion, and at times a place of public spectacle. Perhaps the most carnivalesque public drama to emerge during this period is that which was protagonized by the indel-

ible presence of Catalan actor/director Josep Maria Flotats (1939), whose unsuccessful period of sovereignty at the helm of the ITNC,

28 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM which ended with his humiliating dismissal shortly after the official inauguration of the theater in 1997, for several years filled the pages of the daily press with a delirium of “‘politics, architecture, money, theater, insults, vanities, vindications and even a physical blow or two.” In sum, it was “pure Shakespeare,” as Victor-M. Amela aptly suggested on the pages of the La Vanguardia. Derived from what had been the Centre Dramatic de la Generalitat de Catalunya, the —ITNC, situated on the Placa de les Arts (near the Placa de les Glories), adjacent to the Auditori Nacional de Catalunya, is, in physical-spatial terms, an imposing edifice of pristine marble and glass, a variation on postmodern Greek revival as conceived by famed Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill. In the Barcelona press, “monumen-

tal” is the word that has been most often used to describe it—as though the building itself were capable of visually reaffirming the presence and experience of Catalan nationalism, specifically that

which was promoted by President Jordi Pujol, who governed Catalunya from 1980 to 2003. The ITNC is actually a theater complex containing three performance spaces (the nine-hundred-seat Sala Gran,

the three-hundred-seat Sala Petita, and the four-hundred-seat Sala Tallers), and while it may be spectacular on a visual level, there was, throughout the period of its construction during the 1990s, a growing fear among members of the Barcelona theater community that, when all was said and done, the spectacularity of the gesture—the grandiose facade—may be all that would remain.'” Flotats is a vastly talented artist who, for several years, was considered a cultural prophet of Catalan president Pujol’s right-centrist co-

alition Convergéncia i Unid (and of the Catalan and Catalanist bourgeoisie). He studied acting and worked in France throughout the decades of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, becoming an accomplished member of the Comédie Frangaise in 1981. As early as 1979,

he proposed his concept of a national theater to Max Cahner, then Conseller (minister) of Culture for the Generalitat (the Autonomous Government of Catalunya), and in 1984, he returned to Barcelona, where he was granted the opportunity by the Generalitat to direct his own eponymous company. The Companyia Flotats was based at Barcelona’s ‘[eatre Poliorama, a theater that was then subsidized by the

Catalan government. Flotats would remain there until 1994, when construction began on the ITINC.

In 1995, the Generalitat appointed Flotats artistic director of the TNC in a gesture that inspired dissatisfaction among a large sector of the Barcelona theater community. In the press, he frequently defined the IINC as “el Barca del teatre catala” (the Barca of Catalan theater), referring to the iconic Barcelona football club, and assured everybody

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY — 29

that the supreme desire of the Generalitat was to give Catalunya a re-

splendent cultural center and company, similar to the Comédie Francaise, the Piccolo ‘Teatro di Milano, or the Royal Shakespeare Company. His treatise Un projecte per al Teatre Nacional (A project for the National ‘Theater, 1989) was a brief précis (published with prefaces by Pujol and Barcelona mayor Pasqual Maragall) in which he attempted to outline his conception of “Un teatre de tots, per a tots, al servei de tots.’2° [A theater for all at the service of all.] In his view, the TNC was a public-service enterprise necessary for the expression of Catalan cultural identity: ““Ha d’aportar, a imatge de les grans institucions culturals europees, una mostra de la tradicié 1 de l’art teatral ca-

tala” [It has to bring, in the image of the great European cultural institutions, an example of Catalan tradition and theatrical art].?! His précis, however, did not provide a clear artistic vision regarding the

type of programming that he planned to offer at the “INC, and the absence of such a vision was a sign that did not portend well for the future of autochthonous Catalan drama.

The chagrin that spanned many sectors of the Barcelona theater community with regard to the Generalitat’s appointment of Flotats as artistic director of the INC, in effect, stemmed in part from his apparent preference for international, rather than Catalan, theater. Dur-

ing the nine years that his company inhabited the Poliorama (1985-1994), Flotats produced relatively few Catalan plays. Moreover,

his twenty years of experience in Paris contributed to the prevailing sentiment that he was rather disengaged from the contemporary evolution of the Barcelona stage and that he had not “paid his dues” during prior years of struggle and oppression. In his memoirs, Albert Boadella (1943), founder and director of Els Joglars, Catalunya’s oldest theater collective, refers to the Generalitat’s direct “importation” of Flotats from France: La casi totalidad de los recursos econdémicos ptblicos del teatro catalan fueron automaticamente destinados a sus montajes, dejando para el resto del gremio una ridicula proporci6n de ayudas. Las iniciativas escénicas de los grupos que habian levantado el teatro en Catalufia a finales del franquismo no le merecieron suficiente crédito.” [Almost the whole of public economic resources for Catalan theater was automatically destined to his productions, leaving for the rest of the profession a ridiculous proportion of funding. ‘The performing arts initiatives of the groups that had built the theater in Catalunya at the end of Francoism were not deserving of credit in his eyes.]

Although Boadella’s statement may be imbued with hyperbole, it is indicative of the atmosphere of apprehension that enveloped Flotats’s

30 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM appointment. Such concerns peaked when Flotats announced his decision to launch the first (preinaugural) season of programming at the TNC with North American dramatist Tony Kushner’s award-winning play Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (1991).

Flotats’s mise-en-scéne of Kushner’s play, translated by the skillful hand of Josep Costa, premiered in November 1996 in a makeshift performance space that would later become the Sala ‘Tallers of the TNC. The cast was composed of a prestigious group of actors that included Pere Arquillué, Montserrat Carulla, Ramon Madaula, Silvia Munt, Vi-

centa Ndongo, Francesc Orella, and Josep Maria Pou. They were members of a burgeoning resident company at the —ITNC that would never completely come to fruition. Despite Flotats’s imaginative staging of Angels, which he set in the allegorical space of a Jewish ceme-

tery, the premiere was heralded with cries of public outrage by members of the profession who insisted that it was inappropriate to initiate programming at Catalunya’s national theater with a North American play. ‘To this end, one of Barcelona’s most emblematic playwrights, Josep

M. Benet 1 Jornet, published the following reproach, steeped in sarcasm, in the Catalan supplement of E/ Pais in September 1996: Aleshores, el que demano, el que quasi bé exigiria als responsables pertinents de la Generalitat de Catalunya, fora que, ja que tenen molt de sentit de la nostra historia i dels seus moments claus, ja que han muntat fins 1 tot un museu per mostrar qui som, d’on venim i on anem, facin el favor de continuar en la mateixa linia y col-locar una placa a la entrada del nou local al fi que, per sempre més, . . . tothom pugui recordar amb goig y llagrimes als ulls que el Teatre Nacional de Catalunya va engegar .. . amb Angels in America del gran autor america Tony Kushner. Que se sapiga sempre! Que no s’oblidi mai! Que quedi gravat dins la nostra memoria col-lectiva! . . .

Ens trobem davant un nou fracas, davant una nova oportunitat perduda. ... A canvi, Broadway desembarca definitivament a Catalunya. Jo vull la placa. Preferentment en angles, a fi que s’entengul.”? (Therefore, what ’m asking for, and what I would practically demand of all those responsible at the Generalitat de Catalunya, be it that they have a great sense of our history and of its key moments, since they’ve even built a museum to show who were are, where we come from, and where we’re

going, do us the favor of continuing in the same direction and put up a plaque at the entrance to the new locale so that, forever more, . . . everybody can remember with tears of joy in their eyes that the National Theater of Catalunya got its start .. . with Angels in America, by the great American author ‘Tony Kushner. Let it be forever known! Let it never be

forgotten! Let it be forever engraved in our collective memory! .. . We find ourselves facing yet another failure, facing another lost

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY 31

opportunity. .. . In exchange, Broadway has definitively disembarked in Catalunya. I want the plaque. Preferably in English, so that it can be understood. |]

If Dublin had the Abbey; Paris, the Comédie Francaise; London, the Royal Shakespeare; and Berlin, the Volksbiihne, then, according to Benet 1 Jornet, Barcelona, likewise, could aspire to create a public “platform” through which the Catalan people would be able to “project,” or reveal, who they are to the world at large. Benet 1 Jornet has long been a staunch defender of text-based drama, and it bears recalling that, several years earlier in 1978, he had been involved in a similar dispute with the ‘[eatre Lliure when he alleged that, in privileging the

so-called “universal’’ theatrical repertoire, the Lliure had not put forth a sufficient effort to sustain and nourish the art and profession of playwriting in the Catalan language. Eventually, the debate over Kushner’s work took an additional ironic turn when many of the Catalan bourgeois spectators aligned with Convergeéncia i Unio realized that Angels in America is, on one level, a disdainful examination of their own conservative politics. Flotats, in effect, had made a rather venturesome move in choosing to stage such an unequivocally political play, which candidly confronts the problem of AIDS and the issue of homosexuality, especially when his greatest supporters were most likely expecting to see a more conventional melodramatic work. On the night that I attended the pro-

duction in November 1996, half the spectators vacated the house during intermission and did not return for the second half of the show. The Catalan production of Angels in America, nevertheless, ran at the TTNC until April 1997 and was seen in Barcelona by approximately 13,000 spectators before touring Spain in its Spanish version. Following Angels in America, Catalan taxpayers witnessed the premiere of the Broadway musical Company, by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, at their national theater. (Sondheim’s piece contains a

scant reference to Barcelona, but nothing more.) By the spring of 1997, the outrage did not diminish when Flotats announced that the “official inauguration” of the “Sala Gran” of the TNC would take place on September 11, 1997 (Catalunya’s National day) with the mise-en-scéne of a Catalan classic, Rusifiol’s L’auca del senyor Esteve (Mr. Stephen’s auca, 1917), a play that treats the relationship between the figure of the artist and bourgeois Catalan society.”+ ‘The production was regarded by some to be a safe (even amusingly obvious) selection, lacking in originality and vision, and the fact that Flotats’s choice of a director to stage the play was Adolfo Marsillach, a Catalan born in

32 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Barcelona who had built much of his career in Madrid, did not inspire widespread favor. Shortly after the “official” inauguration of the theater in the fall of 1997, Catalan cultural minister Joan Maria Pujals asked Flotats to vacate his position as director of the INC (effective July 1, 1998).?° ‘The true reasons as to why Flotats was asked step down were never explicitly and unequivocally established; yet, undoubtedly, he did not help his case when he made a widely-quoted public speech on the night of

the inauguration in which he unabashedly flaunted his ability to act upon his own volition, independent of the desires of government officials, whom he referred to as “quatre gats baladers que no compten, que no son ningt” [four whining cats who do not matter, who are nobody]. Pujals, shortly afterward, was quoted in the press as pointing out that Flotats’s actions and declarations has caused the cultural minister to lose confidence in his willingness and/or capacity to follow the officially dictated government standards of devoting 35 percent of the TNC’s programming to the work of Catalan companies. Following the dismissal or desistiment (which was the word widely employed by Catalan government officials) of Flotats, Domeénec Rei-

xach, artistic director of the CDGC, was appointed to replace him. The CDGC was consequently dissolved in 1998, when the presence of both this entity and the ITNC was deemed to be redundant. Reixach presided over the INC until July 2006 (when he was relieved by Sergi Belbel), and during his eight years as artistic director, he and his carefully chosen advisory board continued to emphasize the programming of Catalan theater and dance, focusing upon four primary objectives: “to bring the creation of contemporary dramaturgy to its highest potential, revise the classical tradition, create incentives for contempo-

rary dance, and foment the creation of programming for young audiences.’’*° In subsequent years, the Teatre Nacional, under the direction of Reixach, would launch several initiatives designed to cultivate and showcase the work of Catalan dramatists, directors, dancers, choreographers, and companies, young and old. In 2002, the TINC introduced a new project known as “T’6,” under the supervision of playwright-director Belbel, with the intention of nurturing and staging the work of six young dramatists and directors per year, mainly

from Catalunya. There were, nevertheless, on repeated occasions, public critiques of Reixach’s stewardship and programming decisions from notable figures that include writer/critic Jordi Coca and directors Joan Ollé and Richard Salvat. During the farewell party for Reixach at the ITNC in June 2006, he acknowledged the theater’s polemical past, noting how it had evolved from a project that had begun its trajectory

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY — 33

with everything against it, into one that, finally, has everything in its favor.?’

In the aftermath of the “Flotats Affair,” the Romea, in 1999, shifted into the private hands of the newly created Fundacid Romea per a les Arts Escéniques and the supervision of “Focus,” a production company with a large stake in Spain’s commercial theater sector. Calixto

Bieito was appointed as the Romea’s artistic director and has since maintained an exceptional measure of aesthetic risk in his programming. Flotats eventually declared himself to be of French nationality, because, as he observed, he owes much more to the French government than to the Catalan Generalitat. Following his woeful expulsion from the ‘INC by the Generalitat’s Department of Culture, he rode out of town and headed for Madrid, like the defeated cowboy in an old Western.?* Once there, he made a triumphant comeback of resounding commercial success with his own awarding-winning miseen-scéne in Spanish of Art, a play by Yasmina Reza (who is also of French nationality). The “Flotats affair,” though it may have seemed frivolous or even

amusing at times, is more than a mere private drama made public; rather, it represents a significant chapter in a longstanding series of contentious debates that, since the period of the democratic transition, have centered on the notion of “official culture” and the institutionalization of Catalan theater, the distribution of public subsidies for the performing arts, the hazy boundaries separating the public and private

theater sectors, and the support given to autochthonous theater. In 1976, with the establishment of the Assemblea d’Actors i Directors (Assembly of Actors and Directors), the Catalan stage began the long road to “normalization”: recuperating the professional legitimacy and visibility that it had been denied during the period of the Franco dictatorship, improving working conditions for theater professionals, and planning for the future. Significantly, this process of recuperation entailed the construction and reconstruction of theatrical infrastructures in Barcelona (and Catalunya, in general) whose existence had been thwarted by the dictatorship. It also included the remodeling and recovery of locales that had been transformed into cinemas, as well as several theater spaces that had lapsed into a lamentable state. Inspired by European paradigms that include Jean Vilar’s ‘Théatre National Populaire and Giorgio Strehler’s Piccolo ‘Teatro di Milano, Catalan theater professionals, especially during the democratic transition, were motivated by a seemingly utopian view of the theater as a “public service” for “the people.’’’? (Flotats’s vision, therefore, as outlined briefly in his précis, did not represent a new stance, but was derived from a prevailing attitude that characterized the Catalan theater

34 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM scene throughout the period of the transition.) According to this view, they did not, and sti// do not, consider culture to be a luxury, but instead, a necessity for the spiritual well being of society. Hence it was deemed the responsibility of public administrations to provide for this necessity and make it accessible to the largest audience possible. Emphasis was placed on ‘‘an aesthetic and ethical commitment,” rather

than commercial and economic interests.*° With these concerns in mind, the Assemblea launched an appeal in 1976 for the creation of a Teatre de Barcelona, a Teatre de Catalunya, and a Llei del ‘Teatre (theater law). Although the demands put forth by the Assemblea were initially denied, it did nevertheless succeed in inciting public debate and exerting pressure upon the municipal government (the Ajuntament) to

establish the Grec summer festival, an event that continues to thrive and whose opening night each June serves as a reminder of past struggles.?!

The year 1976 was also a key moment in that it marked the birth of the ‘Teatre Lliure, Catalunya’s most stable, accomplished, and distin-

guished repertory theater company. [he Lliure was founded under the direction of Lluis Pasqual, Pere Planella (1948), Fabia Puigserver (1938-1991), and Carlota Soldevila (1929-2005) as a private collective with public aspirations. “Un teatre privat amb vocacio de teatre ptblic” (A private theater with the vocation of a public theater) was the theater’s often-cited maxim.* Its original performance space, still in use today, is located in the Gracia district of Barcelona, in a late-nineteenth-century building that once belonged to the Catalan workers cooperative La Lleialtat.** Joan-Anton Benach recalls with emotion the inaugural night of the Lliure, on December 1, 1976, when moments prior to the opening of Pasqual’s Cami de nit (Night road), the audience stood before an empty stage and burst into spontaneous applause in anticipation and celebration of what had been achieved and what was to follow: ‘Io the nothingness that hadn’t occurred. ‘To everything that we sensed was about to occur. The ovation was dedicated, simply, to a set of walls, to a camp of operations that was about to premiere.**

Faithful to its name and to its establishment during the transition to

democracy, the Lliure—both the building and the resident company—has always stood as an emblem of freedom of expression, a vindication of Catalan-language theater productions, and a laboratory for

experimentation. Its unique view of the creative process has emphasized the notion of artisanship—as opposed to authorship—in its in-

novative readings of classic plays drawn from an international repertoire. The Lliure, to this end, has played a key role in the process through which the post-Franco Catalan stage has struggled to recover

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY — 35

and reconstitute the professional legitimacy and visibility that it had lost during the period of the dictatorship. It has also functioned as a creative workshop and training ground for many of the most talented members of the Barcelona theater profession. Yet the Lliure has also been a key site of contention. In 1988, the theater finally became a public entity, the Fundaci6 Teatre Lliure‘Teatre Public de Barcelona, with the support of the Barcelona munici-

pal government. One year later, through the perseverance of the late director and scenic designer Fabia Puigserver, the Barcelona City Council granted the Lliure its dream of a world-class theatrical space: the Palau d’Agricultura, a historic noucentista building situated along the slope of Montjuic, originally designed by Josep Maria Ribas and

Manuel M. Mayol for the Barcelona International Exposition of 1929.35 During the late 1990s, the socialist Ajuntament, along with Barcelona’s left-of-center provincial government (the Diéputacio), began converting the lower part of Montjuic into the Ciutat del ‘Teatre, a multispace “theater city” that would comprise the new Lliure, along with the Mercat de les Flors (specializing in international productions of theater and dance), the ‘Teatre Grec (centerpiece of the Barcelona summer arts festival, also built for the 1929 Exposition), and the new headquarters of the Institut del Teatre de la Diputaci6 de Barcelona (inaugurated in 2000). Barcelona’s municipal and provincial governments, as well as the Generalitat de Catalunya and Spain’s central government, all provided funding for the new Lliure and the Ciutat del Teatre, motivated by cultural-political aspirations to transform Barcelona into a European theater capital. It did not come as a surprise, then, when in 1997, at the beckoning of mayor Maragall, Lluis Pasqual, one of the most internationally rec-

ognized Catalan directors, returned to Barcelona, leaving behind his position as director of the Théatre de |’Odéon in Paris, to coordinate the Crutat del Teatre project. Pasqual had been artistic director of the Odéon since 1993; he had also been one of the central creative motors behind the Lliure since the time of its humble inception in Gracia. Having accepted Maragall’s invitation, Pasqual was to serve as artistic director of the new Lliure upon completion of the restoration of the Palau. Unfortunately, the Lliure was fraught with a series of financial dilemmas and administrative clashes that led Pasqual to announce, during the summer of 2000, his imminent departure from the project. Less than one year later, during the spring of 2001, Pasqual’s successor, director Josep Montanyés (1937-2002), who was frustrated over the Lliure’s faltering economic situation, announced his resignation, as well. The destiny of the theater dangled indeterminately for a period of several weeks, but ultimately, Montanyés, who had been

36 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM involved with the project since the early stages of acquisition and construction of the new site at Montjuic, agreed to return to his position overseeing the Lliure and the Ciutat del ‘Teatre consortium.*® Ultimately, the Palau d’Agricultura did undergo a stunning trans-

formation, revamped by architect Manuel Nufiez Yanowski, who made impressive use of the plans that Puigserver had left behind. Today, the new Llture contains two performance spaces, the eighthundred-seat Teatre Fabia Puigserver and the two-hundred-seat Espai

Lliure. The larger of the two spaces, fittingly named to honor the memory of Puigserver and his enormous contributions, boasts a stateof-the-art modular stage that is unique in Europe. It has enabled the

Lliure to continue to evolve along the same artistic lines that have shaped much of its trajectory: specifically, an always-distinctive, poly-

valent use of scenic space, varied in its relationship to the audience with each successive artistic undertaking.*”? When the two spaces, the Teatre Fabia Puigserver and the Espai Lliure, however, finally opened their doors in November 2001 and February 2002, respectively, Pasqual was notably absent.

Moreover, after a twenty-five-year artistic odyssey, much of what had been the Lliure’s stable resident company had since dissipated, and what was originally conceived as a private collective still faced a rather uncertain future as a pricey public institution whose fiscal destiny rested in the hands of four different government administrations with diverse political agendas. Following the news of Pasqual’s resignation, theater critic and chronicler Marcos Ordofiez alluded to these prevailing winds of uncertainty when he published, in E/ Pais, the following commentary in an article that he aptly titled “El follon del Lliure” (The Lliure’s fiasco): “TI still don’t know what the plan is, and what the real assets of the Lliure (directors, actors, works) will be when the time comes to assume the challenge of filling the Palau, of going from

a space of 300 seats to one of many hundreds. It’s a question that all the theater people—including the audience members of course—ask ourselves. But in a hushed voice. So as not to hinder the negotiations, I suppose. We are fans of the Lliure, of course; the problem is we don’t really know what or who the Lliure is.’’** As it embarked upon a new stage in its artistic evolution, the Lliure

conveyed a desire to transcend its controversial past and open itself with agility to the participation and collaboration of several generations of theater professionals from diverse sectors of the performing arts: theater, music, opera, and dance. ‘The first season (2001-02) at the Palau d’Agricultura offered a varied program that was in keeping with the Lliure’s tradition of favoring Catalan-language productions of international drama. It entailed the collaboration of directors Carles

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY — 37

Santos (1940), Alex Rigola (1969), José Sanchis Sinisterra (1940), Theodoros ‘Terzopoulos, Joan Ollé (1955), Jordi Mesalles (19532005), and Ricard Salvat (1934). (The only autochthonous Catalan works were those staged by Santos and Salvat.)*? In the “Projecte artis-

tic” that was published in the new Lliure’s inaugural program, it ap-

peared as though the theater and its corresponding foundation, presided over by Antoni Dalmau, had begun to confront the difficult task of constructing an artistic identity that would be, at once, compatible with the present realities of the profession, faithful to its past as a public theater of private origins, and conscious of its historic role in forging a contemporary theatrical life in Catalunya.‘ Sadly, the segment of the Lliure’s history that I have recounted here has a tragic denouement, for it culminated with the death in the fall of 2002 of Josep Montanyés, who collapsed as a result of a heart attack in

the days following the inauguration of the theater’s second season. Benet i Jornet had published an article in E/ Pais in the spring of 2001

titled “EI Lliure y/o Josep Montanyés” (The Lliure and/or Josep Montanyés). When viewed in retrospect, it appears to have been a strange premonitory gesture, as though Benet had somehow sensed that the theater that his friend and colleague Montanyés had worked so hard to engender and nurture eventually would become the root of his physical demise. In March 2003, Alex Rigola, a young director brimming with innovative energy, was named artistic director of the Lliure, and he has since taken the theater in new directions.*! ‘THIS Is NOT THE Paris OF LES VALIDES

In 2000, during the period of turmoil surrounding the new Lliure, there was a much-recounted moment of tension between Pasqual and Ferran Mascarell, director of the municipal government’s Institut de

Cultura. Pasqual defended the notion of creative autonomy, and Mascarell, in turn, responded that “the world of artistic creation is important, but we are not in the Paris of /es valides.”” It was a sobering rejoinder that, as Ord6fiez pointed out, at the time rang strangely familiar to those who had witnessed the Flotats debacle at the —TINC.* Considered in a historical light, it seems ironic that both Flotats and Pasqual, two Catalans who found great success abroad—in France, in particular—and whose transnational artistic trajectories embody the

type of cosmopolitan openness that has shaped the evolution of the modern Catalan stage, would, upon returning “home” to Barcelona, find themselves at the veritable hub of conflict in an unrelenting spectacle of suspicion, covetousness, and theatrical politics.

38 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM As ‘Teresa Vilardés has warned, “Catalan identity” may quickly become a commodity, an ideological simulacrum that can function stra-

tegically and seductively to “sell” or “negotiate” Catalan cultural capital.*+ Unlike the ITNC, the Llture was born “from below,” out of the sheer desire of private citizens; it did not, in its original incarnation, materialize “from above,” out of the resolve of public administrations. Still, public entities in modern Catalunya historically have shown a preference for investing in extravagant monumental projects and grand-scale cultural events as a way of garnering visibility and

claiming legitimacy for Catalan cultural identity within a global sphere. The Barcelona Universal Expositions of 1888 and 1929, the Olympic Games of 1992, the ITNC, the Auditori Nacional de Catalunya, the Ciutat del ‘Teatre, and the Forum Universal de les Cultures of 2004 are among the many examples. While it may be taken as a manifestation of a strategic desire on the part of certain politicians, along with architects and urban planners, to leave their definitive, Mitterandian, signature upon the cultural map of the city, perhaps, more significantly, the tendency toward grandeur is an indication of an overt political consciousness with regard to the status of Catalunya as a stateless nation, and of a resultant impulse to underscore difference and, in some cases, even express self-determination. Viewed in this light, it is not surprising that politicians such as Pujol and Maragall would fixate on the international cachet of Flotats and Pasqual in order to boast the international profile of their projects. Indeed the interest (even obsession) on the part of public entities with infrastructure often has more to do with global aspirations and the international projection of catalanisme than with the artistic vigor of the local theater profession or the cultivation and preservation of Catalan text-based drama. In ‘‘Casa nova, casa vella’’ (New house, old house), an article whose title constitutes a subtle allusion to the Palau de Agricultura (as well as Carlo Goldont’s La casa nova [1761]), Jordi Coca underscores the importance of recuperating theatrical performance spaces but also questions the relatively inadequate quantity of energy devoted to tending the fields of Catalan drama. As he points out, it remains unclear as to why there would be such great emphasis upon exterior facades and the physical improvement of facilities, and proportionally so little energy committed to what goes on inside each edifice: to “what has been and what is Catalan theater.”” Even among Barcelona production companies, Coca detects an “inexplicable aloofness” with regard to Catalan plays: “we could all stand to be more generous with our past and with our present. It is imperative that we do so if we don’t want to be regarded as peripheral and provincial.”’* Perhaps there has been no greater cynic with regard to the presence

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY = 39

of public theater institutions throughout the Spanish state than Albert Boadella. In 1989, the year that the Generalitat announced plans for the construction of the INC, and one year after the Lliure became a public theater and lengthened its name to the Fundaci6 ‘Teatre Lliure-

Teatre Public de Barcelona, Boadella proclaimed, in a gesture of mockery, designed to undercut the prevailing notions of official culture, that he was renaming his company “Els Joglars-Teatre Nacional de Catalunya.”*¢

The distinguished director Ricard Salvat has publicly offered his own critical voice, as well. On the eve of the inauguration of the TINC, Salvat, who—like Benet i Jornet, earlier—was riling against Flotats’s decision to launch the first season of programming at the ‘[eatre Nacional with Kushner’s Angels in America and Sondheim’s Company, felt com-

pelled to ask, “Are we in Burundi or in the European Community?” and then to remark that, after twenty-two years of democracy, he had yet to see an adequate model of public theater that was even minimally compatible with the European Union.*’ Salvat called for an end to what he dubbed a “Hipermercat de I’Espectacle” (A hypermarket of spectacle) and made an appeal, instead, for coherent programming: Una “lectura” de la nostra dramatirgia nacional i, a la vegada, de la dramatirgia internacional. Un repertori que expliqui la “nostra historia,” la dels Paisos Catalans, en relacié a la Peninsula Ibérica 1 a Europa. Una progra-

maci6 que... funcioni com un servei public, no com un servei per a una O per a tres o quatre persones soles; i que a través d’aquest repertori es defineix el nostre ésser aqui, en el mon, com a catalans. Es parli de les nostres inquietuds i de les responsabilitats d’un millor futur politic.*

[A “reading” of our national drama and, at the same time, of international drama. A repertory that would explain “our history,” that of the Catalanspeaking lands, in relation to the Iberian Peninsula and Europe. A program that .. . would function as a public service, not as a service for just one or just three or four people; and that through this repertoire our place here, in the world, as Catalans, would be defined. It should speak of our concerns and of the responsibilities of a better political future.

Salvat, in effect, was expressing the same concerns with international projection, self-determination, and protectionism that would later land on the agenda of the new administration of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (apres Flotats). But the definition of the “we” (no-

saltres) to which Salvat (and, also, Coca) was referring (as in “our national drama,” ‘‘our history,” “our place here, in the world, as Catalans,” and “‘owr concerns’) is a rather imprecise construct, part of a

40 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM contemporary zostreficacid, which has infiltrated popular discourse and political rhetoric in reference to an imaginary map of cultural distinc-

tions.*? Catalunya’s status as a stateless nation has given way to an overt consciousness with regard to the space of Catalan culture and the curious tendency to define this space through the abstract use of personal pronouns. Performance theory has already shown, effectively, that the very notion of cultural identity—in this case, of catalan-

itat—can be construed as a subjective process. Consequently, for a community to “reveal” itself on stage, to bring to life a national narra-

tive, the stage must be conceived as a site of conflict, struggle, and resistance, of cultural, social, and political negotiations and vacillations.”°

Viceng Villatoro describes the “terrain” of Catalan cultural hegemony as a symbolic space of emotion, perception, and subjectivity.*! It is a place of individual, as well as collective, self-recognition whose parameters are established phenomenologically, in relation to different cercles de pertinenca (circles of belonging), which include the Spanish state, Europe (and, I would add, Africa and the Americas).*? Within

this emotional, subjective space, the image of Europe is regularly evoked, albeit ambiguously, as a point of contrast with Spanish centralism and a context for a more autonomous Catalunya. (The slogan, which was especially popular during the 1992 Olympic games, “‘Catalunya, Un pais d’Europa’”’ [Catalunya, a country in Europe] ts indica-

tive of this point.) Hence, Villatoro situates the issue of cultural identity within a spatial arena, not only a linguistic-political arena, as is so often the case. Such a gesture is particularly relevant to the theater, for the problem of place and the relationship between place and theatrical space are issues that traverse the entire trajectory of modern Western drama.

Una Chaudhuri employs the term “geopathology” to describe this problematic, observing how it emerges throughout the realist/naturalist tradition as a “series of ruptures and displacements in various orders of location, from the micro- to the macrospatial, from home to

nature, with intermediary space concepts such as neighborhood, hometown, community, and country ranged in between.” ‘The play with spatial geography, especially with the image of home and the notion of locality, can be remarkably revealing in terms of a playwright’s worldview and his or her sense of self, identity, and culture. CATALUNYA INVISIBLE

Throughout the post-Franco period, politicians, architects, designers, cultural planners, urban developers, and even theater directors

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY 41

continually retmagined and envisaged Barcelona’s contemporary theatrical landscape, unabatedly preoccupied—even obsessed—with Catalan cultural identity and its international projection vis 4 vis varied

manifestations of globalization and Europeanization. At the same time, the city, paradoxically, began to take on a nearly invisible, ghostly presence on the contemporary stage. Curiously, in the copious

outpouring of Catalan plays written during the post-Franco period, Barcelona and/or Catalunya are, in general terms, conspicuously absent from the theatrical landscape. In the private, intimate space of theatrical writing, the dramatists themselves, especially throughout the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, appeared to elude for the most part any sort of cultural specificity.

There are, unquestionably, several Catalan performance groups, such as La Fura dels Baus, Comediants, and Sémola, whose references to the culture of the Mediterranean are evocative of Catalunya in varying degrees. Other companies, such as La Cubana, ‘Teatre de Guerrilla (1998), and Els Joglars, have portrayed Catalunya and Catalan identity through the lens of parody and caricature. In the literary realm of text-

based drama of the 1980s and 1990s, however, seldom did Barcelona—or Catalunya, for that matter—as an image, notion, rhetorical figure, or poetic trope, make an appearance on the contemporary Catalan stage, and rarely was it addressed or even subtly invoked.

The traditional geographic place markers of a Catalan imaginary practically vanished from the settings of contemporary drama of this

period. What one finds in these plays, then, is not the Catalunya grounded in the symbolic geography of Angel Guimera’s late nineteenth-century Terra baixa (Marta of the Lowlands, 1896) or Mar i cel (Sea and Sky, 1888); nor does it resemble the popular-mythical Catalunya of Josep Maria de Sagarra’s L’hostal de la Gloria (1931) and E/ Cafe de la Marina (1933), or the costumbrista portraits of Barcelona that surface in Sagarra’s La placa de Sant Foan (1934) or La rambla de les Floristes (Vhe rambla of the florists, 1935).°+ Catalunya, it would seem,

is rarely even referenced in a metaphoric or allegorical sense during this period, as was often the case in the politically-committed theater written during the years of censorship and dictatorship; for example, the allegorical-mythical evocation of Arenys de Mar/Sinera and Barcelona/Lavinia of Salvador Espriu’s Ronda de mort a Sinera (Death around Sinera, 1966) and Primera historia d’Esther (First story of Esther, 1948). In stark contrast with their predecessors, a substantial cluster of contemporary playwrights, which includes Carles Batlle (1963), Sergi Belbel (1963), Josep Maria Benet 1 Jornet (1940), Toni Cabré (1957), Lluisa Cunillé (1963), Albert Espinosa (1973), Jordi Galceran (1964),

42 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Josep Pere Peyré (1959), David Plana (1969), and Mercé Sarrias (1966), began to play with a vacuous, nondescript spatial territory. Their plays, whether written in a realist vein or a more experimental mode, were generally characterized by a lack of spatial geography and by an evasion of geographic signs of identity. It would seem, therefore,

that imbedded in their own geopathology has been a desire to transcend through the theater their own cultural space. Batlle describes this situation of invisibility in relation to a self-deprecating attitude, or psychological complex, commonly referred to as Catalan autoodi (self-hatred), suggesting that the phenomenon may be linked to a desire following the dark ages of the Franco dictatorship to bring contemporary Catalan cultural production to a level comparable to that of the most civilized or sophisticated cultures and societies: Durant anys, els autors hem estat patint un cert complex que ens impedia situar les obres a les nostres ciutats, que ens obligava a disfressar els noms dels personatges per por que no semblessin massa locals. El complex— aquesta mena d’autoodi—probablement té alguna cosa a veure amb la sensacio d’endarreriment que arrosseguem des de la postguerra i la transici6 democratica. L’afany d’acostar-nos al mon civilitzat ha provocat—si més no en l’ambit teatral—que rebutgéssim les marques de localitat; marques que, en cas d’aparéixer, semblaven posar en evidéncia un producte vell, poc cosmopolita, “catalanet”’ i fins it tot—quin pecat!—lligat a la tradicid.*° [For years, we authors have been suffering from a certain complex that impeded us from situating plays in our cities, that obliged us to disguise the

names of characters for fear that they might seem too local. ‘The complex—a type of self-hatred—probably has something to do with the feeling of backwardness that we’ve lugged around since the postwar period and the democratic transition. The desire to bring ourselves closer to the civilized world has provoked in us—at least in the theater world—a rejection of signs of localism; signs that, when present, seemed to point to a product that was old, not very cosmopolitan, catalanet and even—what a sin!—tied to tradition. ]

In a move ostensibly in the direction of universalism, as well as a cosmopolitan yearning to project themselves and their work beyond local borders, many Barcelona dramatists virtually erased Barcelona from the stage, turning their backs on the city with a peculiar air of modesty

or reticence, as though to name their place of origin or residence would have implied a sinful portrayal of local realism or an overtly gratuitous act of small-minded provincialism. Ironically, the democratic freedom that afforded the professional theater unrestricted use of Catalan as a “theatrical idiom” appears to have yielded a certain

INTRODUCTION: A LIMITLESS THEATRICAL GEOGRAPHY — 43

complacency, ambivalence, or even neglect on the part of some directors and producers with regard to the staging and support of autoch-

thonous drama. Hence, at times, it would seem as though Catalan drama itself were in danger of becoming invisible. Barcelona playwright/poet Joan Casas has even dared to pose the provocative hypothesis that the often-cited “new Catalan dramaturgy,” in effect, may be merely a “mirage.”

Perhaps, during these postdictatorial years, the mere gesture of writing or staging a play in the Catalan language served as a sufficiently crucial, or even politically charged, marker of identity. Or, perhaps, the absence of Catalunya was a way for many playwrights on the left to “write against” the politics of Pujol and Convergéncia. Or, was it that Barcelona’s urban landscape—what literary critic and journalist Julia Guillamon calls an “interrupted city’”—was changing so rapidly that it practically escaped concrete representation or description? Guillamon has described, in La ciutat interrompuda, a tendency among Catalan (and even Spanish) fiction writers of the 1990s to evade literary representations of Barcelona, transferring the “‘real’’ map of the

city to a personal-mental imaginary. He borrows the notion of the “interrupted city” from an essay written by Giulio Carlo Argan (with Bruno Contardi) who observed in the late 1970s that Rome was no longer on the minds of writers and artists, but instead had passed into the hands of technocrats. For Guillamon, contemporary Barcelona is also an interrupted city, in that there is a vast gap, or inconsistency, between the fictionalized representations of the city and the images conjured during the post-Franco reconstruction (before and after the Olympic games) by politicians, urban planners, and architects.** Faced with the difficulties of portraying an urban landscape that is changing so rapidly that it practically eludes description, novelists and short story writers such as Quim Monz6, Sergi Pamies, and David Cirici have given preference to interior “psycho-geographies” or to incomplete fragments drawn from the exterior urban scenery, or to anony-

mous “no-places” that are seemingly lacking in signs of identity. Reflecting upon this absence, Guillamon wonders if it might be possi-

ble at some point to reclaim these lost spaces: “Is it possible to reconquer the spaces of anonymity, is it possible to convert them into spaces of identity and of memory?”*’ Josep Miquel Sobrer, in turn, poses the notion of aporia, a “being at a loss for where one is, or where to begin or how to proceed,” as an apt way of conceiving this problem-

atic sense of Catalan identity, which he traces to the cultural Renaixenca (Renaissance) of the 1890s and the “reinvention of Catalonia as nation.’’*®

It is this same geographic loss, or sense of displacement—the para-

44 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM doxical presence of an “invisible Catalunya’’—that became a defining

trait of much of contemporary Catalan drama.*? Many of the playwrights whose work I shall visit in this study inscribe Catalunya (its inclusion and exclusion) without offering us an essentialist vision; instead, the notion of Catalunya vacillates, it hovers and drifts in the background. It often lingers in a subliminal semantic void, undergoing constant formulation, reformulation, and displacement.

The strategy of displacement is often portrayed on the Catalan stage (and elsewhere) through the figure of America. As Chaudhuri notes with regard to modern drama in general, America is “the hinge,

the turning point in more than a century-long neglect of the very principle that it seems to erase: space.” This tactic can be observed in plays such as the earlier-cited Després de la pluja, by Belbel, in which

the setting, the lofty rooftop of a skyscraper owned by a transnational corporation, alludes to an uncertain abstract urban geography reminiscent of North America and resembling, in particular, New York City. In Belbel’s play, “America” is retmagined as a placeless metaphoric space of idealism, and also of decadence, a “heterotopic” realm of desire, comprising, as Chaudhuri would have it, “many different, even incompatible places.’ Batlle attributes this so-called ‘“Americanization” of Catalan drama in part to a contemporary fascination with the theater of David Mamet, whose critical views of American society have provided Barcelona playwrights with a paradigmatic portrait of postindustrial decline. In addition, as Batlle notes, the influ-

ence of North American cinema has been a crucial element in the creation of a generic “collective imaginary” that entails abundant

Hollywood film clichés, such as the presence of skyscrapers and evening mist wafting off a set of broad city streets.” If the aesthetic and political evolution of the modern Catalan stage is conceived as a process of transnational transactions, the product of an attitude of openness with regard to international theater traditions,

then the contemporary conditions surrounding the emergence of a postnational subjectivity have only served to facilitate this process. Yet,

as Catalunya struggles to position itself within the space of cultural integration and disintegration that is the new Europe, it must also take into account the space of cultural pluralism that it calls home. Indeed, in the new millennium it appears as though Catalunya is gradually becoming visible on the stage once again, and, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, a new image of Catalunya, or Barcelona, has begun to emerge. Contemporary Catalan theater seems to thrive on the transnational transactions that I have described here, creating a limitless theatrical geography in which it manages to resist the absolute vanishing point.

I

From the Political to the Spectacular: Els Joglars —At some point in human history people began performing their dreams and elaborating on them. These were not facts nor were they imaginary. They were performances of events between fact and imagination. —Richard Schechner, The Future of Ritual’

IN JUNE 1996, AT A PRIVATE CEREMONY HELD IN BARCELONA AT THE

Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya (Palace of the Autonomous Gov-

ernment of Catalunya), amid the pomp, circumstance, and political rhetoric customarily associated with state occasions, I watched with awe and curiosity as President Jordi Pujol (1930) bestowed the Creu de Sant Jordi (Cross of Saint George), his nation’s most coveted medal

of honor, upon a distinguished group of men and women whose accomplishments extend from the realms of art and music to business and athletics. ‘The prestigious Creu was established in 1982, in Pujol’s

words, “to pay public homage to those who have contributed to the promotion and exaltation of the civic and cultural values of Catalunya,” and among the deserving recipients that year were several the-

ater professionals: the companies Comediants and Dagoll Dagom, director Ricard Salvat (1934), and perhaps, most intriguingly, actress Carlota Soldevila (1929-2005).2 A member of an illustrious family of intellectuals and one of Catalunya’s most extraordinary performers, Soldevila delivered a moving acceptance speech on behalf of all fortytwo 1996 award recipients. She spoke passionately of the censorship and suppression of her culture that she and her colleagues had endured under Franco and the revitalization of that culture in democratic times. It would be easy to conclude that, ostensibly, Soldevila had received the Creu de Sant Jordi in large part in recognition of her work with the prestigious [eatre Lliure, for she had been one of the most emblematic actresses of this theater’s resident company since its beginnings in 1976. One can only speculate in silence, however, as to 45

46 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM whether President Pujol was aware of the ironic detail that, approximately thirty-four years earlier, she was also a founding member, along with Anton Font and Albert Boadella (1943), of the Catalan theater company Els Joglars. ‘This is the very same company whose widely successful performance piece Ubi president, which premiered in 1995 and was revived in 2001 with the title Ubu president o els ultims dies de

Pompeia (Ubu President or the final days of Pompeii), offered a brazenly satirical portrait of Pujol’s twenty-three-year marathon run as

president of the Generalitat (1980-2003). Throughout the 1990s, with a series of productions that include E/ Nacional (The nacional, 1993), La increible historia del Dr. Floit & Mr. Pla (The incredible story

of Dr. Floit & Mr. Pla,” 1997), and Daaali (1999), Els Joglars had launched, from a multitude of perspectives, a corrosively humorous attack upon Pujol’s ego, his conservative view of nationalism, his monolithic conception of Catalan culture, and his supporters or convergents (who were often members of the Catalan bourgeoisie).’ It is hardly surprising, then, that Soldevila would be the first and last member of this company to wear the illustrious Creu during the Pujol presidency.

Perhaps no other theater company in Spain has been as inspired by the ambivalent crossings of performance with real life—especially, Catalan political life—as Els Joglars. Established as a collective in

1962, they are, today, the longest running and, quite possibly, the most widely acclaimed (and publicly scorned) professional theater company in Spain. They emerged during the Franco period and continue to thrive and thus epitomize the historical legacy of what was the independent theater movement. Throughout their trajectory of more than forty years, which includes, numerous awards, the participation of more than 140 different actors, the presentation of more than thirty different theatrical spectacles, numerous international tours (to Latin America, most especially), and a diverse gamut of projects for television, Els Joglars have never turned their back on politics.* ‘They have,

on the contrary, gradually modified their aesthetic values, adjusting their point of attack according to the most ardent political issues of any given moment. Today, Els Joglars function under the exclusive direction of Boadella, who has repeatedly served as the prominent public voice of the company, a voice that has never been retiring or reticent. In his published memoirs, titled Memories d’un bufé (Memories of a

buffoon, 2001), written in a sardonically ironic tone and a schizophrenic style, which intermingles a first person, autobiographical discourse in Catalan with a third person narrator in Spanish, he offers the following commentary concerning his reputation as a provocateur:

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 47

En el terreny de l’ofici, aquesta caracteristica ha estat determinat per abordar els temes des d’una perspectiva sovint insolita. . . . El valor functional del l’art és la transformaci6 de les coses evidents; el bon gust, la moral, la

moda o la legalitat vigent no s6n termes essencials per a l’artista. En el teatre, la gent espera veure que hi ha de pervers en la bondat, o de generds en els malignes; es tracta també de mostrar els enganys dels honorables poderosos i de donar veu als muts. ‘Tot aixo requereix una personalitat desconfiada, fins 1 tot davant de les millors aparences humanistiques, i per des-

comptat, un escepticisme granitic enfront dels qui pregonen el seu altruisme massa sovint.°

[Within the field, this characteristic has been determined by tackling themes from an often-singular perspective. .. . The functional value of art is the transformation of things that are evident; good taste, morals, the reining fashion or legality are not essential terms for the artist. In the theater people expect to see what perversity there is in goodness, or generosity in bad things; it’s also about showing the deceits of the powerful, honorable ones and giving voice to those who are speechless. All of this requires an untrusting personality, even when faced with the best of human appearances, and of course, a granitic skepticism when faced with those who preach their altruism much too often.]

Boadella and his Joglars have always allowed the political to arouse and invade their creative imagination and have continually sustained a fundamental interest in the employment of theater as a means of protest, resistance, and social agitation. With a highly refined sense of the intricate rapport between bodily movement and scenic space, a sophisticated awareness of the potential relationships between technology and theatrical communication, and a profound understanding of the transgressive power of farce and satire, Els Joglars have cultivated an interest in performance as a method of critique and a strategic weapon in the creation of a theatrical aesthetic that resists any imposition of political or cultural authority.° In the following pages, I shall outline the historical-theoretical context in which this company emerged, describe the processes that they employ, and then turn my attention to Ubu president. his production and its sequel Ubi president o els ultims dies de Pompeia will serve as concrete examples of how Els Joglars have elaborated this type of performance of resistance. ‘THE INDEPENDENT [HEATER MOVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE IN CATALUNYA

Although the stifling censorship practices of the Franco regime undoubtedly left a lasting imprint upon the development of theater and

48 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM performance in contemporary Spain, theater practitioners during the post-Civil War period did not find themselves thoroughly deprived of opportunities for experimentation. It is a fact that is rarely underscored by Spanish and European theater historians, but totalitarian

Spain did experience its own theatrical avant-garde, which was strongly inspired by the parallel activities of companies of international acclaim, such as the Living Theater, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Bread and Puppet, and Théatre du Soleil. Beginning in the 1950s, the Spanish theatrical landscape witnessed the genesis of a vari-

ety of communitarian performance troupes conceived as nonofficial and nonprofessional alternatives to government-subsidized theater. These so-called “independent” theater groups—Els Joglars, Comediants, and Dagoll Dagom in Catalunya, ‘[4bano and Los Goliardos in Madrid, Akelarre in the Basque Country, and La Cuadra de Sevilla in Andalusia are some of the best examples—engaged in their own explorations of the implications of collective creation.’ The Franco regime’s privileging of theater in Spanish significantly mitigated the activities of the professional Catalan stage—so much so that by the 1950s, according to Enric Gallén, Barcelona’s professional theater scene was in a “lamentable” state, aesthetically antiquated and exceedingly dull.* The performance of translations was largely prohibited, and plays could be presented in Catalan only at a sparse number

of locales. The most progressive members of the Catalan theater scene, consequently, were propelled toward either self-imposed exile or nonprofessional alternative environments in which they were able to explore experimental modes of performance. In general, censorship

was less stringent within this nonprofessional sphere. While there were frequent limitations with regard to the number of times a play could be performed in public, this was the sort of rule that at least carried the positive effect of encouraging an extensive array of productions and performances. It also had the effect of stimulating the proliferation of itinerant theater companies.”

In 1956, Ricard Salvat, Miquel Porter, and Elena Estellés created an experimental group known as the ‘Teatre Viu (Living Theater). They were motivated by a desire to infuse the Catalan stage with the most recent twentieth-century artistic tendencies. Much of the work of the ‘Teatre Viu was developed within a free and open improvisational environment in which its participants regularly drew upon the methods of pantomime and gesture of Jean-Louis Barrault.!° Eventually, the ‘Teatre Viu established ties with another innovative segment of this alternative theater scene, known as the Agrupacié Dramatica de Barcelona (ADB, 1955-63), whose central aim was, as Gallén relates, “‘to revive artistic and social interest so as to enable Catalan the-

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 49

ater to relate once more to the dominant currents of contemporary foreign theater.’ In 1963, a government decree dissolved the ADB following a performance of Brecht’s Three Penny Opera. However, in 1960, Salvat and Maria Aurélia Capmany had already created the Es-

cola d’Art Dramatic Adria Gual (EADAG), a school named for the Catalan playwright-poet-painter Adria Gual (1872-1943), which would serve as a cradle for the most innovative Catalan theatrical activity. By the time the EADAG closed its doors in 1976, the school had played a substantial pedagogical role as an important training ground for the most outstanding members of Catalunya’s independent theater movement. Concurrent with the evolution of the Teatre Viu, the ADB, and the EADAG was a growing interest among Catalan performers in mime and pantomime—especially the work of Italo Riccardi of Chile and Jacques Lecog of France. Riccardi offered a series of mime classes in

Barcelona in 1962, which were frequented by the three founding members of Els Joglars: Font, Boadella, and Soldevila. Several Catalan performance artists—including Boadella and Joan Font (who would go on to found Comediants)—made the “pilgrimage” to Lecoq’s school

in Paris.’ In this period of dictatorship, the value and integrity of linguistic structures were naturally perceived through a lens of ambivalence, and for many of the Catalan independent troupes, the word ceased to occupy an elevated position of authority. Moreover, the presence of linguistic censorship appeared to encourage their prevailing fascination with nonverbal, gestural, and pantomimic forms of performance. As Mercé Saumell observes, “‘censorship forced theater to use parable and parody, both textual and visual, as dramatic tools, as well as antinaturalist non-textual forms of theatrical discourse like mime.” Instead of the word, the independent groups placed emphasis on acoustic images and visual tableaux that stressed the pictorial, sculptural, and plastic dimensions of the spectacle, creating what Bonnie Marranca has called a “theater of images.” Liberated from the shackles of the official culture, the independent theater embarked upon an exploration of the processes and aesthetic and political implications of col-

lective creation. Saumell affirms that the independent theater ‘belonged to an international theater scene with which it maintained close ideological and aesthetic ties. As with post-1968 European and American theater, TI eroded the physical and psychological barriers of the traditional stage (bourgeois buildings, established genres, conventions perpetuated through realism, etc.)”'+ Through their experi-

mentation, the independent groups and collectives attempted to interrogate the conventional hierarchy of theatrical invention and

50 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM mise-en-scéne that historically had assigned separate and distinct roles to the actor, director, scenic designer, playwright, and spectator—an

interrogation that eventually gave way to the well known equation

“theater-life.”’ In Catalunya, where the Catalan language was, and still is, a driving force behind the culture of this nation, the issue of freedom of expres-

sion inevitably became intertwined with the question of identity. For the independent theater, nonverbal communication, in effect, became an implicit affirmation of Catalan cultural identity, in that it signified a refusal to yield to the omnipotent authority of the Spanish language. To do so would imply an acceptance of the discourse of oppression. If they could not speak their own language, better not to speak at all. For discerning spectators who were able to read between the lines, silence became just as powerful a strategy of political protest and social commitment as the spoken word. ‘This was especially true of the work of Els Joglars. Thus, in their quest for freedom of expression, the early participants

in the Catalan independent theater movement—1in essence, the most imaginative and promising members of the Barcelona theater scene— not only found it necessary to turn their backs on Barcelona’s lethargic professional stage, but also, they felt obliged to look away from Madrid, away from the symbolic center of the dominant Spanish culture and the Franco regime. Instead, they would leave behind the historical baggage of Spanish theater to look outward, toward Europe, in a gesture that Catalan artists and writers had been known to perform for centuries. It is possible, therefore, to distinguish a direct rapport between the suppression of the Catalan language and culture and the growth and vitality of Barcelona’s independent theater. Indeed, it will always be a curious and absurd paradox that, during these post-Civil War years, the denial of freedom of expression, in a sense, seemed to fuel creativity and change, and the confining sociocultural circumstances surrounding Catalunya’s independent theater movement became a catalyst for aesthetic innovation and internationalization. With the death of Franco in 1975 and the subsequent transition to democracy, the majority of the independent theater groups reached an impasse and/or suffered a crisis of identity as they were forced to examine their raison d’étre when their main cause for rebellion had suddenly ceased to exist.!* While this crisis gave way to the disappearance of most of these groups, the case of Els Joglars was different. ‘Today,

in democratic times, having survived the political transition, Els Joglars are no longer considered a radical “off, off’? performance group, but rather a firmly established professional company, which is not immune to accepting public subventions.!¢

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 51

The subtle line that delineates the limit between theater and life—a line that certainly did not elude the attention of Shakespeare, Calderon, or Moliére—is also that which outlines the hazy and imprecise

perimeter of the artistic arena known as “performance,” an anticanonical, liminal, interstitial genre that operates between reality and illusion, text and representation, appearance and disappearance.!’ Performance is a designation that refers to a broad network of activities transpiring in spaces that are both sacred and profane, interior and exterior; in sum, the spaces of everyday life in which one is able to observe a strong theatrical, ritualistic, or ceremonial impulse.'® As Els Joglars clearly have come to understand, performance exists in the theater (the genre and the building itself), but it also surfaces in the realm of the paratheatrical; it infiltrates the sports stadium, the carnivalesque festival, the battlefield, the tribunal, the church, the synagogue, the mosque, the political arena, the hospital, the university, and the psychiatrist’s office.!? According to this extensive definition, it would be possible to affirm that performance is an all-encompassing phenomenon that can be found everywhere; yet, such an affirmation runs the risk of creating a precarious situation for the spectator, as well as the researcher, for upon contemplating a performance, one inevitably may encounter the possibility of confusing it with life itself. While this well-known ontological dilemma, essentially the confusion of reality with art (or artifice), has been a provocative issue worthy of the attention of theorists, at the same time, it has been powerful source of inspiration for many artists, including Els Joglars. On an artistic level, performance finds itself inexorably pursued by a desire to leave behind its apparent theatricality, to eliminate the “‘as if,” as Herbert Blau would have it, and aspire to the “truth.” Nevertheless the authenticity that one is able to achieve is always an illusory impression—or even a “mythological” notion, as Henry Sayre points out—and the pure presence of performance, as much as it insists on being the equivalent of life, is, when all is said and done, pure illusion.”° The perpetual flux that is the art of performance, with its constant flow and vacillation between the real and the illusory, constitutes a space that incessantly affirms and transgresses its own margins, a place where cultural and artistic representations are continually placed beneath a dubious light. ‘Therefore, as both concrete manifestation and metaphor, performance has become a concept of great utility for the critic and the contemporary artist when contemplating the construction of subjectivity, identity (cultural, national, sexual) and relationships of power.?! It is also an artistic genre that corroborates the predominant (postmodernist and poststructuralist) lack of confidence with regard to any agency or authority that would aim to situate itself

52 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM outside of, and prior to, the constitution of the subject. It is from this lack of confidence that a parallel sense of doubt emerges with regard

to the dichotomies “dramatic text/representation” and ‘‘author/ actor.” Performance, consequently, operates by definition within a space of resistance. It wants to free itself from the historical and semiotic ties to the past; yet, at the same time, it cannot escape the inevita-

ble representational frame, the mise-en-scéne, that is life itself. Els Joglars have come to understand performance and its capacity for resistance as a way of confronting oppressive systems, of creating a dia-

lectic of critique and complicity that both reinscribes and subverts previously existing paradigms.” From MIMODRAMES TO THE POLITICAL TRANSITION

As Boadella recounts in his memoirs, all three actors who formed the initial nucleus of the company—Boadella, Soldevila, and Font— had studied with the Chilean mime artist Riccardi during a series of

workshops that the latter offered in Barcelona in 1962. The three would also coincide as members of the Agrupacié Dramatica de Barcelona, which was based at the medieval Palau Dalmases on the historic Carrer Montcada (also the seat of the revered Catalan cultural association known as the Omnium Cultural). It was there, in the early 1960s,

that they formed a pantomime group that rapidly would evolve into Els Joglars.2? The original incarnation of the group also included actors Jaume Sorribas, Josep Maria Vallverda, Montserrat ‘Torres, and Gloria Rognoni. Undoubtedly, their early affinity for mime, further augmented by the influence of Lecoq, would leave a lasting imprint upon their finely tuned consciousness with regard to the use of the body in performance.”# Els Joglars began to function as a collective in 1962 with the presentation of several nonverbal works employing pantomime. Mimodrames (1965-66) and E/ diari (The newspaper, 1968) are the first major titles

in their trajectory. They created with these spectacles a visual language of performance based on gesture, movement, and image, which

the eminent Catalan writer Maria Aurélia Capmany designated “un art del silenci i ?engrescament.”’ With this “art of silence and enthusiasm,” Els Joglars forged their political commentaries in the elliptical moments and tacit margins of what was left unsaid or was not permitted. Over time, with spectacles such as E/ joc (The game, 1970), Cruel Ubris (Cruel fate, 1971), and Mary d’Ous (Egg Mary, 1972), the group gradually began to incorporate sounds and words into its artistic expression.” ‘Today, their works are regularly produced in Catalan, or a

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 53

combination of both Catalan and Spanish. As deemed necessary, when

they take their performances on tour throughout the Peninsula or Latin America, Els Joglars habitually make adjustments to accommo-

date non-Catalan speaking audiences. At present, the principal nucleus of actors is composed of Jesus Agelet, Ramon Fontseré, Pilar Séenz, Minnie Marx, Xavier Boada, Dolors Tuneu, Pep Vila, and Xavi Sais.

Els Joglars’s center of operations is located far from the Barcelona theater scene in the mountainous area of Collsacabra, near the village of Pruit (in the comarca, or “county,” of Osona), situated in the province of Girona. The geographic distance between Pruit and Barcelona

might be merely two to three hours, depending on one’s mode of travel; however, Pruit’s psychological distance from Catalunya’s cultural capital is far greater. In 1976, Boadella supervised the construc-

tion of a large geodesic cupola, twenty meters in diameter, in a meadow between Pruit and what was then the company’s home (now the residence of Joglars Ramon Fontseré and Dolors ‘Tuneu), known as the Casa Nova. When I visited Els Joglars in Pruit in 1995, I was struck by the sleek, ultra-modern, futuristic design of the cupola. Constructed of polyester, with windows that allow for natural light, it has the strikingly alien appearance of a spaceship that has fallen to earth and landed in the midst of a rural cow pasture. Ample, airy, tranquil, and easily modified, the cupola has provided Els Joglars with an ideal rehearsal space in which to create their shows. As Joan Abellan aptly observes with regard to this superbly functional empty space: “The geodesic cupola is an enclosure constructed from the real nucleus from which the drama must emerge: the actor. Clean and pure, upon beginning the process of creation, the space produces a large enigma and, at the same time, a marvelous confluence of multiple spatial possibilities for interaction.”° In the early 1980s, Els Joglars acquired a spacious residence near

the cupola, known as El Llora, which today serves as a collective dwelling for the majority of the members of the company when they are in the midst of rehearsals and the creative process.?’ Oddly, the house once belonged to ‘Tecla Sala, an elite member of the Catalan textile industry, and it was there, according to legend, that she habitu-

ally would meet with the upper (Catalan) echelons of the Catholic Church. In this landscape of bucolic serenity, Els Joglars are able to share their daily lives and creative energies, partaking in a disciplined work schedule, daily meals, rest, and recreation (the house contains a lovely garden, swimming pool and tennis court), far removed from the distractions and turmoil of city life.2* As Boadella suggests, their selfimposed exile to the mountains has given them the breathing room

54 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM and solitude necessary from which to contemplate from a critical distance the underpinnings of urban Catalan cultural life—perhaps with a certain degree of skepticism acquired under the influence of rural country folk: Ens autoexiliem a les muntanyes de Pruit, on els pajesos, si bé voten mono-

tonament Convergéncia i els diumenges porten tots el mateix vestit gris, allo que auténticament els preocupa és el preu de la Ilet. . . . Tot aquest entorn ha tingut la particularitat de convertir-nos en adults, perd sobretot en solitaris.?°

[We exile ourselves to the mountains of Pruit, where the country folk, while they may vote monotonously for Convergeéncia and on Sundays they all wear the same grey suit, are really bothered by the price of milk. .. . All

these surroundings have had the particular effect of converting us into adults, but above all into loners.|

Boadella recalls, furthermore, employing a third-person narrator: Lleg6 un momento en que no deseaba otra cosa que distanciarse del cotarro cultural catalan; le invadia una necesidad apremiante de rodearse de solitarios paisajes, y, en ultima instancia, de tratar con gente tan escéptica e inamovible como los payeses.*°

[A moment arrived in which he desired nothing more than to distance himself from the Catalan cultural sector; he was overcome by a pressing need to surround himself with solitary landscapes, and, finally, to deal with people who were as skeptical and imperturbable as the people out in the country. |

Naturally, the symbiotic relationship among members of the company and their ability to create a propitious situation of seamless communication is, in part, the result of Boadella’s special care in selecting

his actors. He has observed how they understand each other on an almost telepathic level, a situation that is possible because of the lack of specific protagonism among them.*! In fact, Boadella has a reputation for avoiding the young prodigies of the Institut del ‘Teatre in Bar-

celona, favoring instead a type of actor with “raw” talent whose technique might be less polished and/or tainted by the methods of the conservatory. For many of the Joglars, such Pilar Saenz, who joined the company at age eighteen, Boadella’s tutelage has been a primary training ground. According to their method of collective creation, and despite the gradual incorporation of verbal communication into their scenic lan-

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 55

guage, Els Joglars have continued to forgo the use of a written theatrical text in the most traditional sense; that is, as a preconceived map of the performance. Abellan, appropriates Boadella’s term artesania col-lectiva (collective craftsmanship) to describe their method, whereby the director, actors, and technicians alike take on clearly delineated roles in creating the performance piece. ‘The notion of artesania col-lectiva, as Abellan clarifies, refers to the ‘“‘work of a collective,” rather than “collective work.”*? Through numerous exercises incorporating a diverse gamut of improvisational techniques, the performance piece gradually comes into view. Assistant director Lluis Elfas, who has been with the company since 1989 (occasionally taking on dramatic roles), helps Boadella to document the process on paper and through the use of video. Boadella then goes about selecting, ordering, blocking, and

stitching the scenes together, in addition to incorporating visual effects. [he written texts that exist today, in more or less final form, thus serve as testaments to this creative process. Many of these texts have been published, always following the premiere of the production and almost always bearing Boadella’s signature as author.»

In the tumultuous curriculum vitae of the eminently insolent Boadella and his Joglars, the moments in which public life has intermingled with spectacle have emerged with extraordinary frequency: court martial, imprisonment, an appropriately theatrical escape from jail, flight into exile, subsequent amnesty, gun shots fired at a theater, knife wounds inflicted on an actor, bomb threats, and public remonstration by a group of bishops are just some of the entries in this cv, which, on occasion, has occupied the front pages of the daily press. Such was the situation when the censorship of the spectacle La torna (Leftovers, 1977), whose run at Barcelona’s Teatre Romea was suspended, converted this work and its exiled and incarcerated performers into heroic emblems of the battle for freedom of expression during Spain’s democratic transition. La torna presents a satirical critique of how the Franco government, in 1973, attempted to sway public opinion regarding the execution of Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich by executing simultaneously a supposed Polish “delinquent,” referred to as “Heinz Chez.” The Spanish military in 1977 was—despite the death of the dictator in 1975—still very much in the grip of Francoism and did not take kindly to Els Joglars’s critical portrayal of its barbarous practices of torture and capital punishment. As a result, several members of the company, including Boadella, landed in jail. The events provoked a general strike of theater professionals throughout Spain and public outcry from writers, artists and intellectuals from across Europe, condemning the actions of the Spanish military. In his memoirs, Boadella offers a detailed chronicle of the Torna affair, in-

56 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM cluding a recollection of his feigned illness, his perilous escape (disguised as a doctor) from a fifth-floor window of Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic, and his subsequent flight over the border to Perpignan. In 2005, Boadella reprised his production of La torna within the context of a workshop with a group of students from the Institut del

Teatre. It premiered in June of that year at the Teatre Bartrina in Reus, in the province of ‘Tarragona. When it was announced that the

production would be returning to the Romea and opening the fall 2005 season of this theater, the actors who had participated in the original production of 1977 (Andreu Solsona, Gabriel Renom, Myriam de Maeztu, Arnau Vilardebd, Elisa Crehuet, and Ferran Rafié) came forward to demand recognition of their role in the historic affair

in the form of intellectual property rights to the text. They consequently generated an additional layer of controversy surrounding La torna, which brought to bear the problematic question of authorship with regard to works of collective creation.** In addition to La torna, another significant performance piece from the period of the democratic transition, 7eledeum (1983), incited abundant controversy, press coverage, and protest as a result of its irreverent portrayal of religious institutions, especially the Catholic Church. Teledeum depicts the hypothetical back-story of a televised religious service involving representatives from a diverse gamut of nationalities

and faiths. A brief survey of the headlines drawn from the popular press throughout 1984 (many of them appearing in the ultraconservative daily ABC) reveals the broad extent of the Te/edeum controversy, not only throughout Spain, but also in Latin America: “Two Bomb Threats at the Premiere of “Teledeum”’ ““Teledeum,’ A Poor Show that Marks the Decline of Els Joglars”’ ‘““Monsefior Diaz Merchan, Against the Representation of “Teledeum’” “The Police Headquarters of Valencia calls Els Joglars ‘Street Crooks’”’ ‘A Judge from Valencia Indicts Els Joglars for the Representation of “Teledeum’” ‘The Brazilian President Defends “Teledeum’” ‘Protests Over the Staging of “ITeledeum’ in Extremadura”’ ‘The Blasphemy Case against Els Joglars Dismissed”’ “Els Joglars Stage a Ridiculous Parody in Madrid: “Ieledeum’ ” ‘Shots against “Teledeum’” “In Valladolid the Performance of “Teledeum’ is Questioned”’ “Strong Condemnations in Segovia Against “Teledeum’”’ ‘The Bishop of Avila Makes a Pronouncement Against “Teledeum’”°

In addition, Ex-joglar Jaume Colell, who was stabbed seventeen times

in the legs in the wake of a performance in Madrid, chronicles the

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 57

events surrounding the production and corresponding tour in a volume titled E/ Viacrucis de Teledeum.

The decisive moment that was the Torna affair engendered a rift within the company. From across the border in Perpignan, in French Catalunya, an exiled Boadella, who continued to enter Spain clandestinely (and was able to return to Spain freely in 1979), went about rebuilding Els Joglars. In so doing, he enlisted a new group of actors and

the collaboration of acclaimed scenic designer/director Fabia Puigserver (1938-91) of the Teatre Lliure (Puigserver had also designed the set for Els Joglars’s Alias Serrallonga [1974]).*° The first piece to emerge from this post-La torna/post-Franco period was M-7 Catalonia, which premiered at the ‘Théatre Principal in Perpignan in 1978. It is structured around a paratheatrical frame whereby two Englishspeaking, Anglo-Saxon anthropologists offer the audience a scientific report of their latest discovery: the remnants of the fictional ‘“‘zona 7” of the Mediterranean, an area that, in theory, was once known as Catalonia. Since M-7 Catalonia, the majority of Els Joglars’s productions have been situated within some sort of fictional paratheatrical or metatheatrical frame, which calls attention to the ritualistic and/or performative impulse underpinning multiple contexts of daily life. As a strategy that signifies the demolition of the so-called “fourth wall” of theatrical il-

lusion, it provides the spectator with the opportunity to feel an increased (and, sometimes, unnerving) sense of proximity, implication,

or complicity with regard to what is occurring on stage.*’ Laetius (1980) and Bye, Bye, Beethoven (1987), for example, are framed within

the context of a scientific report concerning the apocalyptic consequences of a nuclear disaster. Operacié Ubu (Operation Ubu, 1981, in collaboration with the ‘Teatre Lliure) and Ubu president present a series of psychodramas and dream sequences. Olympic Man Movement (1981) portrays a political meeting that encourages audience participation. Teledeum presents a rehearsal for a televised ecumenical service. Gabinete Libermann (Libermann’s office, 1984, staged in collaboration with the Centro Nacional de Nuevas ‘Tendencias Escénicas) and Yo tengo un tio en América (I have an uncle in America, 1991) are framed by psychotherapy sessions. Vzrtuosos de Fontainebleau (Virtuosi of Fontain-

bleau, 1985) presents an elegant chamber music concert in which there is an implicit critique of the Catalan (and Spanish) obsession with Europeanization. Columbi Lapsus (1989) is framed within the context of a performance of Gioacchino Rossini’s I/ barbiere di Siviglia. El Nacional takes place within the decaying walls of an old national the-

58 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM ater inhabited by a group of indigents. La increible historia de Dr. Floit & Mr. Pla contains a play-within-the-play and reveals the hallucinatory effects of a powerful aftershave lotion. Finally, Daaalé portrays

the final seconds of surreal delirium in the mind of Salvador Dali as he lay unconscious upon his deathbed. Speaking about Els Joglars’s post-Franco work, Abellan concludes that, up until and including the audiovisual “virtuosity” of Daaali, the work of Els Joglars is a “perfect luminous and sonorous machine.’”?* In effect, on a technical level, M-7 Catalonia marked the beginning of a process whereby Els Joglars began to incorporate into many of their set designs a light board, or a series of illuminated panels, used in the projection of words and images, as well as in the demarcation of spatial

boundaries. Over time, with the advent of advanced computer and video technology, often at the hand of set designer Dino Ibafiez and technical director Jordi Costa, this design feature has become a kind of visual trademark, increasingly sophisticated in conception and capa-

ble of creating a stunning degree of synchronicity between the dramatic situation and the use of space, sound, and light. M-7 Catalonia, according to Antoni Bartomeus, was extremely well received when it premiered in Perpignan and Madrid, and it eventually garnered applause throughout Spain and Europe (in Rome, Hamburg, Milan, and Munich), but when it arrived at Barcelona’s ‘Teatre Romea (Centre Dramatic de la Generalitat de Catalunya), it was not even met with a full house. A note of indifference, or even resentment, could be detected in the air.*? Perhaps an attitude of rejection was beginning to brew among Barcelona audiences with regard to Boadella’s critique of Catalanism, or perhaps Boadella—and, by extension, his company—was suffering from a chronic case of overexposure, having received abundant media attention during the prior months. Boadella indicates that, from that moment on, things would never be the same: No se puede decir que fuera algo explicito; los medios de comunicacién cubrian muy correctamente sus actuaciones, no se escatimaban recursos en publicidad, etc. Pero algtin germen activo, enquistado en las profundidades de la trama cultural catalana, provocaba la descompresion y coartaba el entusiasmo.*”

[It can’t be said that it was something explicit; the media covered their performances very properly, they didn’t spare resources in publicity, etc. But some active seed, incrusted in the depths of the Catalan cultural sector, provoked misunderstandings and curtailed enthusiasm.]

By the fall of 2007, Boadella had published a new book, Adiés Cataluiia. Cronica de amor y de guerra (Goodbye Catalunya: Chronicle of

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 59

love and war), another fervent attack against Catalan politics and politicians, which he presented on a boat off the coast of Barcelona.

If there is a burning question that surfaces repeatedly throughout much of the work of Els Joglars, both within and beyond the spatiotemporal confines of the Franco dictatorship, it is the role that art (specifically theater) can and should play in the articulation of cultural identity and the visual construction (and deconstruction) of a national culture. Els Joglars operate from a perspective that implicitly proposes the concept of nation as a performative space. ‘Thus, they conceive the concept of nationality as a creative process, rather than a sacred truth, emphasizing the manner through which this concept habitually undergoes invention and fabrication. Els Joglars’s approach is, in effect, consonant with that of the often-cited view of Benedict Anderson, who perceives the nation as an “imagined community” of fluctuating dimensions. Accordingly, in her trenchant study of Els Joglars’s irreverent brand of humor, Jill Lane observes that, for Boadella, the prob-

lem of representing a nation through theatrical/performance is a question of “‘authority and strategy”: “who is authorized to ‘summon’ the national community in representative stage practices; who determines the ‘representative’; and what practices affirm and secure its legitimacy?” These are questions that, as Lane notes, have taken various forms throughout modern Catalan history.*! Boadella flagrantly demonstrated his awareness of this problematic when, in 1989, the Generalitat de Catalunya announced its elaborate plans for the construction of the ‘Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC) (this was also the year after the Lliure “went public” and lengthened

its name). He announced, in turn, with a combination of sardonic irony and seriousness, that he was rebaptizing his company with the title “Els Joglars-Teatre Nacional de Catalunya.” It was a gesture of indignation, designed to destabilize the notions of official culture and national patrimony that were invoked by the presence of the “INC and the Lliure.* ‘Thus, in a provocative act of resistance, Boadella appropriated the reigning hegemonic discourse and converted it into his own weapon of protest. As a result, the Catalan government suddenly saw its own image bestowed with new meaning, reflected in a kind of esperpentic mirror. It is this same paradigm of resistance that Els Joglars bring into play in their creative endeavors. If, during the dictatorship, the company found in the expression of its Catalanism a way of opposing the oppressive centralization of the Franco Regime, then, with the advent of democracy and Pujol’s presidency, their appropriation and perform-

60 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM ance of Catalanism evolved into a means of resisting the institutional-

ization and monolithic view of Catalan culture that Pujol’s autonomous government appeared to encourage. In his artistic trajectory as well as his public life, Boadella has been one of the most vocal skeptics with regard to Generalitat’s so-called “normalization” of Catalan cul-

ture and its opulent expenditures on public theater. This prominent voice of skepticism and suspicion can be traced throughout much of Els Joglars’s post-Franco repertoire, from M-7 Catalonia to Daaali, works that, in general, express an implicit consternation with regard to the Generalitat’s construction of an official cultural politic that would serve to propagate its nationalistic views. More specifically, these works offer a critique of what Lane (paraphrasing Louis Althusser) calls, the “reinvention of the theater as Catalan ideological state apparatus. ”* El Nacional, for example, offers a critique of state-sponsored culture

and—according to Boadella’s point of view—its corrupting powers. The show premiered at the Teatre Municipal in Girona in 1993 and then moved on to Barcelona’s ‘Teatre ‘Tivoli. At a time in which plans for the opulent ‘IINC were well underway, E/ Nacional represented a

direct attack upon the Generalitat’s strategies of cultural protectionism. Boadella has often referred to the TNC as a mausoleum, telling Albert de la Torre in an interview, “‘si hi ha d’haver un teatre nacional, teatre nacional ho som tots 1 s’ha acabat la historia.’”’** [if there has to be a national theater, we’re all the national theater and that’s the end of the story.] By the time E/ Nacional premiered, he and Els Joglars (as a result of their relationship with the—by then—publicly funded ‘Teatre Lliure) had decided to forgo their rights to the trademark ‘““Teatre

Nacional de Catalunya”; nevertheless, they did not renounce their conviction that public subventions would lead to the death of the stage or, to use Peter Brook’s phrase, “deadly theater.” Speaking about E/ Nacional, Boadella noted that the production was inspired, in part, by the frustrating experience of the company during a sojourn in Paris at the state-funded Théatre de l’Odéon: A mi em va motivar aquest espectacle a partir del moment que vam anar a fer temporada al teatre de l’Odéon. Em vaig adonar que allo és la mort del teatre: a partir del moment que per moure una cosa de I’escenari s’ha de pujar a les oficines per demanar permis i que hi ha molt més personal burocratic que d’escenari, veus que és una situacid que només pot desembocar

al desastre, que és impossible pensar en un acte creatiu alla dintre. .. . Quan penso en E/ Nacional, m’imagino un teatre en el qual no ha quedat res. Només un acomodador, un vell boig, enamorat encara del teatre i que intenta refer-lo a partir de gent que sdn lo més desgraciat 1 tirat de la societat.*

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 61

[This show motivated me from the moment we went to play during a season at the Théatre de ’Odéon. I realized that is the death of theater: from moment in which, in order to move something from the stage, one had to go up to the offices to ask permission and that there’s much more bureaucratic personnel than stage personnel, you see that it’s a situation that can only lead to disaster, that it is impossible to think about a creative act inside

there... . When I think about E/ Nacional, I imagine a theater in which there is nothing left. Just an usher, a crazy old man, still in love with the theater, who attempts to remake it from the people who are the most wretched and rejected members of society. ]

Operating under the influence of classical music (as in Bye, Bye Beethoven, Columbi Lapsus, and Virtuosos de Fontainebleau), Boadella used

the opera Rigoletto as an intertext for E/ Nacional. Giuseppe Verdi’s iconic hunchbacked jester is an apt metaphor for the theater spectacle in its most untainted, primordial, carnivalesque state, prior to the creation and influence of official cultural institutions. ‘The performance was elaborated on a nearly empty stage, with the exception of numerous oriental rugs covering the floor, vestiges of a once lavish theater that had been reduced to a dilapidated state, approaching the point of disappearance. It is an eerie coincidence that, shortly after the premiere of E/ Nacional, Barcelona’s celebrated opera house, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, went up in flames (to be rebuilt eventually with a combination of public and private funding). In Els Joglars’s production, the character of don Josep (played by Ramon Fontseré), a former usher from the glory days of the theater, gathers together a group of homeless indigents with the intention of staging their own version of Rigoletto. The space thus represents a theatrical infrastructure that once had been an emblem of high culture, of official grandeur in its

most refined expression, but is now nothing more than a decaying shell, having been plagued by financial woes as a result of its dependence upon government institutions. On an ironic note, it is no secret that even Els Joglars have habitually accepted public subventions. In an interview with Carlos Galindo of ABC in 1994, Boadella acknowledged that government funding provides approximately 15 percent of Els Joglars’s annual budget.* In 1995, the year in which they premiered Ubu president, however, Els Joglars chose, for questions of artistic freedom, to refuse the annual subsidy that they had been receiving from the Generalitat.*” UBU PRESIDENT AND “ [HE TRILOGY”

Beginning in 1989 with Coluwmbi lapsus, Girona’s ‘Teatre Municipal

became a frequent site, off-Barcelona, for Els Joglars’s premieres.

62 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Boadella was a sympathizer of prominent Catalan socialist Joaquim Nadal, who was mayor of Girona from 1979 to 2002, and he clearly felt comfortable with the reception of Girona audiences. It was there, in October 1995, that Ubu president debuted, prior to making its way shortly thereafter to Barcelona’s ‘Teatre Tivoli. Ubu president is not only one of Els Joglars’s most widely acclaimed spectacles to date; it is also one of the great success stories of the Spanish and Catalan theater seasons of 1995 to 1997. In attendance at the Barcelona premiere were

more than 1500 spectators (most with special invitations), including several prominent political and culture figures: Josep Borrell (a leading representative of the Spanish and Catalan social democratic parties), Antonia Macia (widow of Josep ‘Tarradellas, former president of the Generalitat), and the Catalan musical icon Joan Manuel Serrat.*® After spending much of the 1995 season at the Tivoli, the production went on to tour Spain until May 1997, reaching a total of 275,000 spectators. Conceived and directed by Boadella, Ubu president is the first play in a so-called trilogy of works treating a series of historic Catalan cultural figures: politician Jordi Pujol in Ubu president, essayist and intellectual Josep Pla (1897-1981) in La increible historia del Dr. Floit & Mr. Pla, and artist Salvador Dali (1904-89) in Daaali. ‘The extraordinarily versatile and talented actor Ramon Fontseré incarnated all three figures to widespread acclaim and, in 2000, he was awarded the Premio Nacional de ‘Teatro from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport for his portrayal of Dali. In 2001, he published a memoir, Els tres peus al gat (The three legs of the cat), offering an autobiographical chronicle, in the form of a diary recounting his meticulous and awardwinning portrayals of Pujol, Pla, and Dali. The three works in the trilogy continue to cultivate Els Joglars’s long-standing interest in the provocative and subversive powers of visual imagery, music, gesture, and laughter. With Ubi president, Boadella returns by “hygienic necessity,” as he often puts it, to the Ubu theme of an earlier piece, Operacié Ubu, which he had produced with the company of the Teatre Lliure in 1981, at the beginning of the Pujol presidency.” A mordant Jarryesque satire, Ubu president expresses Boadella’s displeasure with President Pujol and

what the director considered to be the Pujol government’s excessive brand of nationalist politics. Recuperating the tradition of the theater of the absurd, Uba president implicitly addresses the role that a political

theater can play in contributing to the definition of cultural identity within the context of a contemporary democratic system. Boadella, who envisions himself as a kind of contemporary court jester (hence the title of his memoirs, Memories d’un buf6), has repeatedly expressed

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 63

a strong desire to recuperate the theatrical traditions of political parody, satire, and mockery, traditions that, in his view, have practically vanished from the Catalan and Spanish stages.*° As he told Madrid playwright Fermin Cabal in 1982, “Esto de ser el buf6n de la carta catalana, a veces molesta, hiere, pero es un trabajo extraordinariamente ecolégico, absolutamente necesario, que Ilena mi sentido como comediante.’’*! [The business of being the buffoon of the Catalan landscape, sometimes is bothersome, hurtful, but it’s an extraordinarily ecological, absolutely necessary, job that fulfills my sensibilities as a man of the theater.] Like all the Joglars’s productions, Ubi president participates in this burlesque/carnivalesque tradition, which envisions the stage as a space for transgression, risk, cruelty, provocation, rage, obscenity, scatology, sacrilege, abrasive satire, and cathartic parody.°* For Boadella, these characteristics are also distinctly Mediterranean—that is, Catalan.°* He aims to wound one’s sensibilities, and if, in so doing, he is able to entertain, so much the better.

The other two pieces of the trilogy, La increible historia del Dr. Floit & Mr. Pla and Daaali, were produced in conjunction with the publicly-funded Centro Dramatico Nacional (Spain’s national theater) in Madrid, and it did not come as a surprise that José Maria Az-

nar’s central government (known for its centralist views of Spain) would lend abundant support to Boadella’s parodic critiques of Catalan culture. Both performance pieces present recreations of historicalcultural figures from the Emporda region of the province of Girona, an area of Catalunya for which Boadella has a special affinity, for it is also his birthplace and a corner of the world where he has spent much of his life. La increible historia del Dr. Floit & Mr. Pla premiered in Barcelona at

the ‘Teatre Romea (Centre Dramatic de la Generalitat de Catalunya) in September 1997. ‘he premiere coincided with the official inauguration of the ‘TNC, in which Boadella’s nemesis Josep Maria Flotats staged Santiago Rusifiol’s classic play L’auca del senyor Esteve.*+ ‘Vhe

protagonist of La increible historia del Dr. Floit & Mr. Pla is Ramon Marull 1 Tic6, a successful Catalan businessman who has grandiose plans to leave his fortune to the Abbey of Montserrat where a mausoleum will be built in his honor. ‘The name “Dr. Floit’ is an allusion to a popular Catalan brand of aftershave (Floid) that was manufactured by Joan B. Cendrés i Carbonell (1916-86), a businessman, philanthropist, politician, and promoter of Catalan cultural activities who inspired the character of Marull i Ticé. Cendrés, as it happens, was one of the founders of the Omnium Cultural and the Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes (a prize that was never offered to Pla, because of his controversial politics). He was also an active player in Pujol’s coali-

64 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM tion Convergéncia 1 Uni6.** In the show, each time Marull smells the aftershave lotion that he is responsible for manufacturing, he assumes the literary personality of Pla, thus invoking a Jekyll-and-Hyde dialectic that Boadella views as a metaphor for the Catalan temperament. As he comments in the program notes, with new millennium approaching, he wanted to express a certain anxiety with regard to the definition of Catalan identity, a schizophrenic or double-sided personality that embraces both pragmatic materialism and lyrical sentimentality, pettiness and creativity, and hatred and love with regard to Spain, not to mention the cultural cliché concerning seny (common sense) and rauxa (uncontrollable emotion).*° Daaali, which had its premiere in Spanish at Dali’s birthplace of F1gueres in September 1999, depicts a dreamlike flurry of thoughts and

memories, the images and recollections that might have gushed through the artist’s mind as he agonized upon his deathbed. ‘The performance is framed by opening and closing scenes in which a nurse, at Dali’s, side, tends to him, as he lay unconscious. Els Joglars’s performance established connections between Dali’s adult eccentricities and childhood obsessions, touching upon his fascinations with, for example, Catholicism, death, scatology, eroticism, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Gala. It also included a satirical critique of nonfigurative art; specifically, that of Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Antoni ‘[apies, and especially, Joan Miro. ‘The Dali of Els Joglars is, according to Boadella, “un home cruelment sincer, enginyés, provocador, imprevisible i llibertari; en definitiva un ésser ecologicament imprescindible per a contrarestar l’embafador exhibicionisme de bondat farisaica que ens envaeix.’’*” [a cruelly sincere, ingenious, provocative, unpredictable, and libertarian man; definitely a person who was ecologically indespensable in order to be a counterpoint to the cloying exhibicionism of hypocritical goodness that is costing us.]. On a visual level, the set design of the production brought the company’s recurrent use of a light board to a new level of sophisticated visual poetry, incorporating video technology to replicate images from Dali’s life and of several paintings and their production. ‘The show toured widely and was premiered at London’s Barbican ‘Theater during the fall of 2001. While, on the one hand, Els Joglars uphold and embrace the Catalan language and culture, along with its Mediterranean traditions, they also condemn its institutionalization.** They do not pose solutions; rather, they are situated at a paradoxical and slippery crossroads where two faces of nationalism appear to intersect. Nationalism is, according to Terry Eagleton, always a dialogical affair between the universal and the particular. Ironically, “‘a politics of difference or specificity” can swiftly evolve into one of “sameness and universal identity.’’*? Boade-

I: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 65

Ila appears to understand the hazards of this treacherous affair, and with Ubi president, he set out to disrobe those whom he believed to be the guiltiest players. Ubu president thus represents his way of “‘exorcising his demons,” of expressing his displeasure with President Pujol (sarcastically referred to in the show as “‘Excels’’), his nationalist coalition, or alliance, of two parties (aptly known—in real life—as Con-

vergéncia 1 Unid), and the Generalitat’s intemperate strain of nationalism, which propagated throughout the Pujol era an exalted image of Catalanism. In reference to Ubu president, Boadella offered the following commentary in the Spanish daily E/ Pass: Escribi esta obra porque ya no puedo mas con el nacionalismo del sefior Pujol. Estoy harto de que la palabra Catalufia se pronuncie tres mil veces al dia en nuestra televisi6n autondmica. Estoy harto de que en esa misma television salga Pujol cada diez minutos para refiirnos porque no somos todos lo buenos catalanes que deberiamos ser: sdlo le falta ensefiarnos a mear a la catalana. Estoy harto de vivir en un estado de excepcidn permanente del que, supuestamente tiene la culpa el enemigo exterior, los espafioles. Estoy harto de que me recuerden constantemente la suerte que tengo de ser catalan, porque los catalanes somos los mejores del mundo. Estoy harto de que los intelectuales . . . y otros cerebros privilegiados, reinventen la historia de este pais como mejor conviene a quien les paga. .. . Estoy harto de muchas cosas, y trato de hacerles frente con la tinica arma que tengo, el teatro.” [I wrote this play because I’ve had it with Sefior Pujol’s nationalism. I’m sick and tired of hearing the word Catalunya pronounced three thousand times a day on our autonomous television. I’m sick and tired of that fact that on that same television channel, Pujol comes out every ten minutes to scold us because we’re not all the good Catalans that we should be: the only thing left is for him to teach us how to piss a /a catalana. ?'m sick and tired living in a state of permanent exception for which supposedly the fault is the exterior enemy, the Spaniards. I’m sick and tired of being reminded constantly of how lucky I am to be Catalan, because we Catalans are the best in the world. I’m sick and tired of the intellectuals . . . and other privileged brains, reinventing the history of this country in a way that is most advantageous to those who pay them .. . I’m sick and tired of a lot of things, and I try to confront them with the only weapon I have, the theater. |

The production coincided with the one-hundredth anniversary of the premiere of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu roi in 1896. It was a fortuitous coincidence for Boadella and his Joglars that the actual premiere in Octo-

ber 1995 also corresponded with the most intense period of the Catalan presidential election campaign of that year. Pujol eventually

66 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM won reelection by a small margin; however, had he lost, Els Joglars, ironically, may have been credited with helping to topple his campaign. In the week following the premiere, I'V-3, the principal Catalan public television channel—parodically referenced in Ubu president as TV-Res (TV-Nothing) in Catalan and as TV-Estrés (T'V-Stress) in Spanish—televised a presidential debate between Pujol and the other

candidates. During the debate, there was a surprising moment in which one of the left-wing contenders, Rafael Ribo, of the green party Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds, made an ironic reference to Ubi president, publicly addressing Pujol as “Excels.’’®! ‘The incident made head-

lines in the daily press and stands as a testament to the role that the theater continues to play in the cultural and political life of this area of Spain.

Pujol’s conservative strain of nationalism, of bourgeois origins, is historically ghosted by the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-cen-

tury nationalist discourse of political-intellectual figures such as Francesc Cambo and Enric Prat de la Riba, and of the political party that was known as the Lliga Regionista de Catalunya. It is a discourse that, when viewed through a contemporary lens, is disquieting in its ethnic, anthropological, and even racial conception of the nation.” During Pujol’s presidency, these historical underpinnings were especially apparent in his conservative attitudes with regard to immigration. For Boadella and Els Joglars, Pujol’s nationalism (and that of Convergencia, in general) represented an isolationist, limiting, and damaging perspective. In Boadella’s words, ““Hem acabat trobant en el germen gregari del nacionalisme una manera encoberta de dignificar les practiques racistes.”® [We ended up finding in the gregarious seed of nationalism a covert way of dignifying racist practices.] As JoanLluis Marfany points out in La cultura del catalanisme, the modern notion of Catalanism (or, Catalan nationalism) is a function of a fundamental opposition positing Spain as state and Catalunya as nation (the well-known “fet diferencial”’ [differential trait]). Catalanism, as practiced by Els Joglars during the Franco era, in which they opted for silence and gesture as strategies of political protest and commitment, signified a move against censorship and the oppressive centralization of the regime; yet, paradoxically, post-Franco times and the reconfiguration of Spain as a nation state composed of seventeen autonomous communities have revealed the other face of the nationalist dialectic: a suppression and concealment of individuality and an exaltation of what Boadella perceives to be a parasitic, opportunistic, commercialized, homogenized culture that operates at the service of government institutions. Regionalist nationalism, such as that of Pujol (also called Pujolisme), may at first appear to promote and defend difference, but

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 67

at times it also seems to fulfill Eagleton’s hypothesis; it turns around and attempts to smother any discourse of resistance, such as that of the Joglars, which stands in the way of the cultural images and patriotic ideals that it wishes to project. In the performance of Ubu president, ten actors interpreted more than 95 situations and 50 different characters within a nearly empty space, which was modified through the use of a mobile set, composed of large platforms and risers. With their highly polished technique of voice and movement, they were able to construct, through their physical presence, the walls and rooms of a fictional presidential palace where Excels works (from seven in the morning until midnight) and lives with his wife, Excelsa. Fontseré’s incarnation of Pujol/Excels was infinitely humorous and truly masterful, especially if one considers that the actor is probably twice the size of the diminutive real-life double whose essence he so adeptly captured. Bodyguards and members of the president’s cabinet, deputies from the Catalan parliament, journalists from Catalan television, cleaning women, politicians, and even Great Britain’s Queen Mother are just some of the characters and stereotypes who make an appearance on stage. According to the plot, the Ubuésque protagonist, Excels, has difficulties (as does the real Pujol) making himself understood during his public speaking engagements. ‘The only words that he seems to enunciate correctly are “Catalunya” and “Catala.” In order to remedy his verbal neuroses and improve his public image, he seeks the help of one doctor “Oriol,” a famed psychoanalyst, played by Xevi Vila, whose name recalls that of the real-life Doctor Joan Obiols, the head of Psychiatry at the Hospital Clinic who helped Boadella with his famous escape during the Torna affair.** Oriol encourages Excels to act out and expel his inner fears, desires, passions, and ghosts through a technique of psychodrama. When he enters the psychodramatic dimen-

sion, a zone of performance or play-within-the play, Excels, in a manner similar to Jarry’s absurdist invention, envisions himself as king

of Poland (with Excelsa as queen), the Pope, and even God. “Déu 1 Pare de tots els Catalans” [God and Father of all Catalans] he declares, as he swings like a trapeze artist from the modernist Gaudiesque lamp in his office. In these farcical metatheatrical scenes, the actors employ the same extraordinary leather masks and grotesque costumes that the late Fabia Puigserver had designed for the 1981 production of Operacié Ubi at the ‘Teatre Lliure de Gracia. Unfortunately, tor Excels, his fic-

tional hallucinations begin to infiltrate and contaminate reality and vice versa, blurring the distinction between theater and life (something that Els Joglars, in effect, had already been doing on an even

68 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM larger scale). Hence his therapy only yields further confusion and embarrassment. The strategy of resistance that Els Joglars employ in Ubu president

imbues the audience with incertitude, creating an unstable parodic space that resists an exact repetition (or representation) of the truth. It is a technique of mimicry, derived in part from the group’s early experiences with political pantomime. Mimicry, as conceived by Elin Diamond, is a distortion of mimesis, a form of performance that produces an “ironic disturbance.” In Ubi president, Els Joglars employ mimicry as a way of creating an ironic disturbance that will place into question the visual representation of Catalanism. ‘The scenes that most effectively display this strategy are those in which Els Joglars insidiously manipulate and mimic the emblems of nationalism and patrio-

tism that historically have contributed to the construction of a “universal” (Eagleton’s term) Catalan identity. It is a form of mimicry that presents a visual image that is, in Homi Bhabha’s words, “almost the same, but not quite.” ‘Through performance, the Joglars’s mimic representations, ‘“‘almost the same, but not quite,” at once reinforce and undermine the notions of nation and nationalism by creating an ambivalent zone of distinction between the real and the copy. In the performance of Ubu president, there is, for example, a dream sequence in which Excels receives a mysterious visit in the middle of the night from a voluptuous diva known as “la Montse,”’ a parodic version of Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé, who sings him an operatic lullaby and envelops him in a Catalan flag (known as /a senyera),

which also serves as a blanket. For the audience, it is clear that “‘la Montse”’ bears a striking resemblance to the “real’’ Caballé, but she also bears a visual likeness to the Andalusian cleaning woman who works for Excels and Excelsa at the presidential palace. She was portrayed, in effect, by the same actress, Begofia Alberdi; hence the ex-

alted visual image of the distinguished soprano is ghosted and undermined by that of an immigrant servant.® In a key nonverbal visual tableau, another dream sequence, Excels plays with a giant in-

flated globe in an ironic quotation of Charles Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940), a film that was prohibited in Spain throughout the Franco dictatorship. As he kicks the globe into the air, he reveals the red and blue colors of the Barca football team emblazoned on his sock in a visual reference to Pujol’s supposed delusions of global power and a disturbing allusion to fascism. Elements of scatological humor, a stereotypical attribute of Catalan culture, surface throughout Ubi president, as illustrated in an episode situated in the men’s lavatory of the Catalan parliament. Here Excels engages in a clandestine meeting with his deputies in order to devise a

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 69

strategy that will subvert the opposition: “Escolteu ... Si em poso el boligraf a l’orella, abstencid. Si em poso el boligraf al nas, voto negatiu, ¢d’acord?” [Listen . . . If I stick my pen in my ear, abstention. If I stick my pen up my nose, negative vote, OK?] When Excels accidentally and emblematically soils himself with his own urine, he asks one of the deputies to exchange trousers with him, a problematic request that is complicated by the fact that the president is much too short to wear another man’s pants. In the final scene, Excels gives a presidential speech atop Montserrat in which one of most sacred icons of Catalan culture, the famous “black” virgin known as La Moreneta, is so bored by his incomprehen-

sible political gibberish that she drops the famous ball that she has held in her hands for centuries. As a culminating point, the performance is topped off by a perfectly executed sardana, danced by the actors in a final curtain call. ‘The gesture is not an innocent one, since this 1s a politicized sardana that is consistent with Els Joglars’s vision of the nation as an imagined, peformative space. In developing his concept of nation as narration, Bhabha speaks of an inherent tension between what he calls the “pedagogical” and the “performative.” The people of a nation are at once manipulated objects of an historically authoritarian nationalist pedagogy, while at the same time, they are charismatic subjects who engage in a simultaneous erasure of the mythic patriotic politics that have been inscribed upon their bodies.*’ Ubi president exposes this “‘ambivalent intersection” where the spatial and temporal conceptions of nation are at once inscribed through historical reference and erased through performance. In a key moment, Excels turns to his Mallorcan cleaning women and tells her, in a condescending tone, “Tu ets tan catalana com jo”’ [You are just as Catalan as I]. He then repeats the same phrase while conversing with his secretary from Perpignan. Boadella has thus reproduced a common cliché, historically intended to signify Catalunya’s all-inclusive acceptance of the immigrant “other.” Here, however, the cliché is rendered all the more ironic since Mallorca and Perpignan are actually considered part of the Paisos Catalans, or Catalan-speaking lands. Els Joglars in this manner, have inverted the cliché; its meaning

is unraveled within the performative context of the play so that allinclusive acceptance becomes an oppressive attempt to define and empower through colonization. The impeccable sardana that is presented at the end of the performance serves as a kind of recapitulatory synopsis of the process whereby Els Joglars have inserted themselves into the nationalist dialectic. ‘The sardana is a traditional ring dance, historically appropriated by Cata-

lanists as a symbol of their patriotic spirit. The circle in which it is

70 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM danced is often considered a metaphor for all-inclusiveness, for anybody, in theory, is welcome to join the circle/culture of the dancers. Yet, it is important to note here that Els Joglars’s sardana is danced during the curtain call of Ubu president, in the margins between performance and real life, when the performers are no longer “‘in charac-

ter.” ‘Thus, from the point of view of the spectator, it is not, for example, Excels and Excelsa (nor, their real-life doubles Jordi Pujol and his wife Marta Ferrusola) who are dancing; rather, it is Els Joglars (i.e., actors Ramon Fontseré and Pilar S4enz) who have appropriated the official pedagogical side of nationalism and used it to perform and legitimize their own dance of cultural identity on the Catalan stage. During the rehearsals for Ubu president that I had the opportunity to attend in July 1995, Boadella brought in a local sardana expert and insisted that the company learn the dance with the highest level of precision, for what they were performing was, in fact, a sardana politica (political sardana). He apparently wanted to obscure the difference be-

tween mimesis and mimicry in order to achieve the desired effect. While the line between subversion and simple repetition is a fine subtlety, the effect is similar to that which Boadella achieved when he appropriated the title ““Teatre Nacional de Catalunya”’ for his company. Like that mirror image of Catalan nationalism that was imbued with new meaning, Ubu president ofters a representation of nationalism that,

at first glance, appears to be an exact copy of its pedagogical face. Then, however, the face is turned around to reveal its alternative “‘performative” side. In this manner, Els Joglars have used this alternative

face to legitimize through performance their own dance of cultural identity on the Catalan stage, and also, within the larger frame of Spain’s theatrical landscape.

Between September 2001 and March 2003, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the company, Fontseré reprised all three roles in La trilogia (Vhe ‘Irilogy), and it was in the context of this revival that Ubu president was updated with the title Ubu president o els tiltims dies de Pompeia.* In this updated version, Excels is suffering from a depression, having arrived at the twilight of his political career. Under the advice of Dr. Oriol, he takes the popular antidepressant Prozac before going to bed each night and, as a result, has a series of hallucinatory dreams. In one of these dreams, Montserrat Caballé, played by Rosa Nonell, appears, once again, with the senyera. ‘This time, the nonverbal sequence is even more polished than in the earlier version of the production. Excels counts the four red stripes (the famed quatre barres, or “four bars’’) and envelops himself in the flag, performing a kind of erotic dance with this hallowed symbol of Catalan nationalism, rolling around with it in bed in an exaggeratedly sensual matter, creat-

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 71

ing a transgressive blend of sanctity and profanity. There is also a visu-

ally captivating scene in which Excels is amusingly depicted in pajamas, swinging from a chandelier in his office with the unrestrained energy of a small child in a playground. As Els Joglars appear to imply, Excels’s psychological delusions have assumed multiple forms of contagion, including the linguistic capacities of the citizens of Catalunya. The political slogan “‘un pais de sis milions d’esquizofrénics bilingiies” (a country of six million bilingual schizophrenics) emerges during the performance in a parodic allusion to the linguistic politics of the Generalitat. It is an echo of the slogan “som sis milions”’ (we are six million), which the Pujol government

propagated during the 1980s. Years earlier, Els Joglars had sarcastically countered this slogan with a television series titled Som 1 meravella (We’re a marvel, 1988).° By the time the revival of Uba president o els ultims dies de Pompeia premiered in November 2001 at Barcelona’s Teatre Poliorama, Pujol had already announced that he would not be running for reelection in the fall 2003 and that Artur Mas, his chief minister, would be replacing him as the candidate from Convergencia i Unid. Consequently, there

is a scene in the production in which Excels enters his office and, to his dismay, finds a portrait of Mas already hanging on the wall. His staff tells him that they are merely testing the portrait out. Among the other additions to this new version of the production is Els Joglars’s timely approach to the themes of immigration and cultural diversity, issues of primary importance during the first decade of the new millennium. This time, a Moroccan cleaning woman named “Fatima,” played by Dolors ‘Tuneu, has replaced the Andalusian woman of the prior production. Excelsa, once again masterfully played by Pilar Saenz, advises Fatima and a German cleaning woman, played

by Minnie Marx, that they should learn to speak Catalan. Following this scene, a racial-ethnic hierarchy is revealed to be at work when the German cleaning woman gives Fatima the same advice given to them by Excelsa. Fatima’s response is that learning Catalan is the very least of her concerns, for she has absolutely nothing. In another revealing scene, Excelsa threatens her husband and tells him that if he does not behave, she will tell everybody what he really thinks about immigrants.

The scene represents an ironic reference to the ethnocentric offhand comments that Marta Ferrusola made at a public gathering during the winter of 2001. Her offensive commentaries were picked up and reiterated repeatedly by the press, causing severe damage to her husband’s political reputation and career. The socialist opposition was hardly immune to Boadella’s satirical scrutiny, and in light of the changes forthcoming in the Catalan gov-

72 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM ernment (changes about which Els Joglars could only speculate), he took advantage of the opportunity to aim his arrows at members of the left wing. Vastly amusing is the parody of Pasqual Maragall, the former socialist mayor of Barcelona who would go on to become the next President of the Generalitat in 2003. During a series of psychodramatic sequences in which Dr. Oriol, played by Xavier Boada, makes an appearance on stage, he takes off his glasses, modulates his voice, and undergoes a theatrical metamorphosis into a character known as “‘Pasqual Maremagnum.” The “Maremagnum”’ is, literally, a large postOlympic construction and tourist attraction (encompassing the Barcelona aquarium and several cinemas), which was part of the Maragall government’s urban redevelopment of the seafront; but the name, in a more poetic sense, conjures connotations of Maragall’s political discourse emphasizing Barcelona’s Mediterranean identity. When Excels engages in a conversation with Pasqual Maremagnum, their speech patterns are equally unintelligible and the discussion collapses into gibberish. It is a parodic gesture that not only ridicules their less-thanpolished communication skills (a distinction for which both Pujol and Maragall are renown), but also expresses Boadella’s lack of confidence in the political discourses of both the right and the left. In a powerful visual image that, once again, incorporates the senyera, Pasqual Maremagnum and Excels engage, like two quarreling children, in a tug-ofwar over the Catalan flag. The representation of their political rivalry

continues in the form a verbal debate, in which they compare their accomplishments and rattle off the list of grand-scale cultural projects created by their respective governments. Pasqual Maremagnum announces that he is responsible for the construction of the Maremag-

num and the forthcoming Forum de les Cultures of 2004. In a moment of hysterical frenzy, he boasts that he was even responsible for burning down the Liceu opera house. Excels announces that he 1s responsible for the ‘Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, the mausoleum in which he plans to be buried. During the final moments of Ubu president o els tiltims dies de Pom-

peia, Excels holds a press conference atop Montserrat, with his head barely visible amid the numerous microphones. The company then creates a rather burlesque tableau vivant, incorporating several Catalan

cultural icons (some of which are more mainstream than others): Montserrat Caballé; a member of the boys’ choir (or Escolania) of Montserrat, accompanied by a suspicious-looking Catholic priest; a sardana dancer; the late violoncellist Pau Casals; a cagador (an overtly scatological component of Catalan nativity scenes); a member of the Barca football team; and the Moreneta, who, once again, drops her ball out of boredom or frustration. ‘The figures move about like mechani-

1: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SPECTACULAR: ELS JOGLARS 73

cal dolls, as the audience has the opportunity to pause and contemplate

the implications of their appropriation by Els Joglars, the consequences of their construction and deconstrucion as cultural icons and

emblems of nationalism, and their placement within the theatrical frame. A lively sardana, with the actors in full costume, tops off the show. What is, perhaps, most surprising about Ubd president and Ubu president o els uiltims dies de Pompeia is the mixture of brutal satire and in-

tense lyricism that permeates both productions. In his review of the Barcelona premiere of the revival, Pablo Ley praised the audaciousness of Boadella’s political satire and commended the fluid technique of the actors, especially Fontseré’s very human, and even poignant, caricature of Pujol: One should emphasize that the actors of Els Joglars are the best band of nuts that this country has to offer. If Ramon Fontseré is the center, around him a compact team of brilliant actors transform themselves into a multitude of characters, but also images. Christ or football player, abbot or bodyguard, the profusion of signs that these 11 athletes of the stage are capable of creating is such that they sincerely make the imagination overflow. It is truly a pity that our politicians are not up to the level of a sense of humor that surpasses them in intelligence, in elegance and, above all, in dignity. None attended the premiere.”

With the establishment of Pasquall Maragall as President of the Generalitat and the new “tripartite” government in place (composed of the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, Esquerra Republicana, and

Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds), it would have seemed as though change were in the air; however Boadella’s skepticism with regard to official or “‘national” culture would not diminish, and he would continue to find cause for disenchantment in the policies of the left-wing

government. In November 2004, the Generalitat announced that Boadella had been selected as a recipient of the Creu de Santi Jordi, and, although it was clear that the gesture was meant to be an attempt at reconciliation, Boadella, nonetheless, refused the distinction. His growing lack of confidence in the Catalan socialist party was all the more evident in June 2005, when he, along with a group of cohorts that included Félix de Aztia and Arcadi Espada, issued a manifesto, which received extensive media coverage, titled ‘Per un nou partit politic a Catalunya” (For a new political party in Catalunya). In it, they proclaimed their dissatisfaction with what they perceived to be a rup-

ture between Catalans and Spaniards, engendered by both left- and right-wing nationalisms. ‘The end result has been the formation of Ciutadans, a new, antinationalist party.

74 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM In the future, whatever political changes may ensue, it is unmistakably apparent that Boadella and Els Joglars, in their dance of cultural identity, will continue to modify their strategies of resistance, creating uncertainty, confusion, and even bewilderment with regard the distinction between the spectacular and life itself.

2

An Aspiration to the Authentic: La Fura dels Baus It’s not a social phenomenon, it’s not a group, it’s not a political collective, it’s not a circle of allied friends, it’s not an association established for a cause. . . . It produces theater through the constant interference between intuition and investigation. It’s experi-

enced live. Each action represents a practical exercise, an ageressive performance against the passivity of the spectator, an intervention of impact designed to alter the relationship between him/her and the spectacle. —lLa Fura dels Baus, “El manifest canalla’’!

EXPLOSION AT SITGES In OCTOBER 1983, JUST SOUTH OF BARCELONA AT THE ANNUAL SITGES

Theater Festival, beneath the railroad tracks in the claustrophobic space of a subterranean pedestrian passageway, La Fura dels Baus erupted into public view with an embryonic version of its first major spectacle, entitled Accions (Actions). ‘The performance was conceived

along the same aesthetic lines that continue to shape even the most recent work of this Catalan company. Accions consisted of a series of transgressive and, at times, startling exercicis practics (practical exercises) that were intended to elicit an impulsive, visceral response from

audience members. In its program notes, La Fura defined the performance as “a game without norms, a ball kicked right in the face, a noisy racket, a release of light and pyrotechnics; the best way of destroying a car, a sharp thud, a brutal succession of hammer blows, a sonorous execution, a chain of limit-situations, a plastic transformation in an unusual area.”? Accions possessed a kind of organic, roughcut, seams-showing quality reminiscent of the work of Catalan artist Antoni [apies (1923).3 Like ‘lapies’s “matter paintings,” which resemble walls made of earth and stone, La Fura’s Accions appeared to be in a constant state of construction or undoing. ‘They reflected a desire to return to a primal, prelinguistic, “‘authentic’”’ reality, beyond the con75

76 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM straints of representation and signification. La Fura began with an empty, undifferentiated space, uninhabited by theatrical ghostings, and it was there that the group endeavored to chisel, carve out, and constitute a scenic architecture through the use of organic and residual materials and their own physical, live presence.* A hypnotic brand of avant-garde music played, as nude male bodies seemed to emanate from out of nowhere, smeared with raw egg and flour, or covered with sand and mud. They hurled themselves into the crowd of spectators, frightening some and enthralling others. In one of the most visually impressive exercises, nude “chrysalid men” covered in plastic placentae were suspended from ropes and propelled toward a huge white canvass covered with bags of colored gelatinous paint. ‘The pigments spewed across the canvass in an ironic recollection of the work of Jackson Pollack and Yves Klein.° La Fura’s spectacle stressed the process (that is, the performance) over the final product; it presented theater in the very act of becoming and in the act of fading away—what Catalan art critic Pere Salabert refers to in his own metaphysical discourse as “‘Self-destruction, disappearance. Ejaculatory discharge of that

which is there—the world—in the pure making-spectacular of things.”° When, near the end of Accions, a high-pressure hose was used to spray the canvass clean, La Fura’s body painting appeared to vanish in an instant, thereby evading commoditization as a fixed and permanent work of art.’

In another defining moment of the performance—one that roused a great deal of commentary from the press—members of the group, dressed dark urban formalwear, demolished an entire automobile (a scrap of postindustrial refuse) with their bare hands and the aid of an ax. At the end of Accions, the auto was ignited and enveloped in flames

in a negative gesture of destruction, rather than construction, which paralleled the disappearance of the painting. La Fura dels Baus, with its seemingly gratuitous and aleatory “actions,” left only a fugacious imprint on the empty space. The performers then disappeared without a trace into the undifferentiated chaos from where they were born. Like footprints on the beach that are immediately washed away by the tide, signs were rendered visible, and then they vanished, and with their vanishing and self-consumption, so too disappeared the possibility of reference. Each ritualized gesture was drained of meaning, for it was the spectacularity of the gesture itself that mattered. La Fura dels Baus emerged as a collective in 1979, during the period

of political paradox, cultural renaissance, and frenetic activity that characterized Spain’s post-Franco democratic transition. In 1983, with

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 77

the Sitges Festival program already closed, La Fura approached festival director Ricard Salvat with its proposal for Accions. His foresight in granting La Fura a last minute opportunity to present its work at the festival proved to be a turning point for the company.’ Since that time, La Fura has evolved into one of Catalunya’s most revered, provocative, and successful performance groups, having achieved an impres-

sive range of international visibility and critical attention. Many television spectators still recall La Fura’s presentation of Mar mediterrama (Mediterranean sea) at the opening ceremony of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. The performance, which featured music by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, presented an allegorical battle in which a giant phantasmagoric hydra engaged in a struggle against progress and civilization.'° La Fura’s main body of work is composed of two trilogies: Accions (1983)—Suz/o/Suz (1985)—Tier Mon (1988) and Noun (1990)—M.T.M. (1994)—Mamnes (1996). ‘These are ambi-

tious, predominantly nonverbal, spectacles in which this so-called “urban tribe” employs a multimedia aesthetic of collage in presenting its delirious obsessions. ‘The plastic arts, dance, mime, elaborate sadistic-looking machinery, nude bodies that perform impressive feats of athleticism, live music, video, mobile sculptures, recycled materials, slide and laser projections, and pyrotechnics are just some of the elements that are embraced by La Fura’s radically extended concept of muse-en-sceéne.

If there is one obsession that flows through all La Fura’s work, it is a fascination with the rapport between the human being and his or her postindustrial surroundings. In a process that begins with Accions and culminates with M.7.M., those who attend La Fura’s spectacles are implicitly asked to contemplate their roles in a visually oriented culture in which the intervention of technology leads to a problematic search for authenticity. Within the context of theatrical performance, this search is played out as a desire for unmediated experience, an echo of Antonin Artaud’s influential struggle against logocentrism, textual

authority, and the notions of repetition and representation that are embodied in this struggle.'! The presence in Accions of the live nude

body, stripped of theatrical attire and makeup, is perhaps the most vivid expression of this thirst for authenticity, for the real, for immediacy. Nothing is hidden. ‘The performer does not conceal himself behind the mask of a dramatic personage; rather, everything is plainly visible, exposed, uncovered beneath the spectator’s gaze.'? Salabert aptly equates La Fura’s overexposure with the Baudrillardean concept

of obscenity, calling it “brutal,” even “hair-raising.” In describing the nonreferential landscape of simulation, Jean Baudrillard tells us that “obscenity begins precisely when . . . all becomes transparence

78 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM and immediate visibility” and that, “the obscene puts an end to every representation.'* ‘Io violate the binary logic of theatrical representation is, for La Fura, to return to primordial origins, to a prediscursive space of silence that can only exist in the here and the now. If, as La Fura dels Baus seems to suggest, we are able locate a place where representation is completely denied, then we will have uncovered the real; pure presence in its most untainted state and a place where theater truly does equal life. It is likely that the foregoing description of La Fura’s work may elicit certain pangs of theatrical déja vu, for, as Roger Copeland reminds us, the concern with authenticity and “living presence’’—a concern that is central to La Fura’s performance practices—is certainly not a new or revolutionary concept; it is a notion that “has always been

sacred to the theater—and never more so than during the 1960s,” when it evolved into a kind of vanguardist obsession.!° This preoccupation with the “metaphysics of presence,” as Marvin Carlson would

have it, underpinned by a longing for unmediated experience, has evolved into a widely disputed issue.'® Poststucturalist theory— particularly Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive readings of Artaud, as well as the work of Herbert Blau and Baudrillard—has already cast several layers of doubt upon the idealistic claims to theatrical immediacy that emerged in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century (futurism, Dada, surrealism, Bauhaus) and persisted on both sides

of the Atlantic throughout the 1960s and 1970s in the work of performance groups such as The Living ‘Theater and the Théatre du Soleil.'7 As Blau observes, the quest tor unmediated experience will forever remain unfilled: “there is something in the very nature of performance which, like the repeated spool of the fort/da (Krapp’s extrapolated spoool), implies no first time, no origin, but only recurrence and

reproduction, whether improvised or ritualized, rehearsed or aleatoric.”!® Each performance, he maintains, exists in a “space of amorti-

zation’’; that is, ‘‘on borrowed time,” imbedded within a cultural or institutional frame that has been established a priori.'° Attacking the problem from a phenomenological standpoint, Stanton Garner conceives theatrical presence as an oscillating play of perceptual levels, whereby “actuality” alternates with, and even “infiltrates,” illusion but does not replace it: “the theatrical mode of this presence, or giveness, is oriented in terms of an experiential actuality that transgresses (while never fully erasing) the boundaries between ‘is’ and ‘as if.’’’”° La Fura’s performances, as we shall see, repeatedly attempt to rupture and confound this alternation between the actual and the virtual. When considering La Fura dels Baus, one might, therefore, be understandably inclined to view the company’s less than subtle aesthetic

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 79

allusions to the polemical notion of theatrical presence as a rather belated, or even epigonic, manifestation of the type of experimentation that characterized the 1960s’ and 1970s’ avant-gardes (happenings, “environmental” theater, “immediate” theater, “radical” theater). So, how does one begin to account for the presence in contemporary Catalunya (and, by extension, contemporary Spain) of this seemingly belated aesthetic??! And, moreover, what are the cultural and political implications of its existence? In order to address these questions, it will be necessary to backtrack several decades, to the Catalan and Spanish

cultural contexts that set the stage for La Fura’s work. On the one hand, La Fura’s appearance during the period of Spain’s democratic transition can be perceived as a response to the release of political and cultural oppression following the demise of the Franco dictatorship in 1975. ‘The company ts, in effect, a key player in a new generation of grups, troupes, and col-lectius that has been able to blossom in Catalunya

with the freedom and opportunities garnered during the democratic period. However, it is also essential to bear in mind that these groups did not spring forth from a cultural void, but that they represent the culmination of a long-standing trajectory of experimental theater in Catalunya. In the pages that follow, I shall offer a descriptive account of La Fura’s historic-aesthetic connections with the independent theater movement, with artist/poet/playwright Joan Brossa (1919-98), with the culture of the movida, with the European avant-gardes of the first half of the twentieth century, and, specifically, with the work of ‘Tapies. I shall then turn my attention to the La Fura’s artistic trajectory subsequent to Accions, pausing to examine some of the company’s most representative works in order to demonstrate how its preoccupation with authenticity is symptomatic of a desire to return to essential origins and a contemporary anxiety concerning the aesthetization and spectacularization of reality. La Fura’s performances are situated in a space of temporal flux: between a past that reveals itself through primitive ritual (an allusion to the company’s Catalan-Mediterranean ori-

gins) and a future that is portrayed through mediatized visions of a high-tech globally oriented Europe. Its spectacles thus paint an emblematic portrait of Spain during time in which unstable identities are in constant motion, competing in an ongoing struggle for legitimacy. La Fura: Herr APPARENT TO THE INDEPENDENT I 'HEATRE MOVEMENT

As I recounted in the preceding chapter, a critical interrogation and ensuing politicization of the relationship between text and perform-

30 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM ance emerged throughout Spain most intensely during the 1960s and 1970s, with the genesis of a variety of performance groups of avantgarde inclinations and communitarian conception. These so-called “independent” theater groups or collectives injected Spain’s theater scene with an air of innovation and cosmopolitanism, offering a series of artistic alternatives to what was then regarded as “official,” “‘na-

tional,” or government-subsidized theater, and to traditional textbased drama.’? In some instances, this tendency was exemplified in the

work of a particular performance artist, rather than a group, such as the case of the mime performer Albert Vidal.?? ‘The antiauthoritarian spirit that permeated the work of the independent groups extended from the aesthetic arena, where it appeared as a tension between word and image, to the political arena, where it was reflected in the conception of performance space as a site of ideological confrontation.

As an innovative branch of the experimental theater scene, the Agrupacié Dramatica de Barcelona (1955-63) took the initiative in promoting and publishing plays by several avant-garde Catalan authors who were unable to integrate themselves into the paradigms of the commercial mainstream. One of these marginalized authors was Joan Brossa, a highly innovative and prolific visual artist, poet, and playwright, who left a decisive mark on the evolution of the Catalan vanguard during the second half of the twentieth century.** It was not until after Franco’s death that Brossa’s works began to reach the stage with any sort of normalcy, and even today, it seems that they are rarely staged at Barcelona’s most “grandiloquent” public and commercial venues.”’ [he Brossa Espai Escénic, a small, charming, alternative theater (with seating for sixty) in the Ribera neighborhood, which opened its doors in 1997 under the artistic direction of Hermann Bonnin, has begun to compensate for this gap by devoting its programming to Brossa’s works and other avant-garde pieces of generally petit format. The Fundaci6 Joan Brossa, founded in 1999, inaugurated its archives and exhibition space in 2006.”° Brossa is the most notable precursor within Catalunya (and Spain) of the La Fura dels Baus, and the company’s members are undoubtedly familiar with his work. Brossa’s theater is broadly influenced by the plastic arts and the transgressive nature of Dada and surrealism. Correspondingly, his work displays a large degree of skepticism toward the communicative value of the spoken word. With an affinity for satire and a fascination with Catalan culture, Brossa appropriated and integrated a variety of popular and paratheatrical forms of entertainment into his interdisciplinary theater pieces. ‘The commedia dell’arte, the music hall, strip tease, circus, magic shows, mime, vaudeville, and carnival regularly cross paths in his spectacles, which are often purely visual, as well as

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 81

brief and minimalist. Since the late 1940s, Brossa experimented with hybrid artistic configurations, such as collages, installations, and performance art, and even invented his own lexicon to describe his work in these genres, which in many ways anticipates La Fura’s performance style: poesia visual (visual poetry), accions espectacle (spectacle ac-

tions), postteatre (posttheater), accions musicals (musical actions), fregolismes (monologues whose name pays homage to the famous Italian transformist Leopoldo Fregoli), and poesia escénica (scenic poetry).

David George and John London categorize much of this work as ‘‘quasi-happenings avant /a lettre,” which rely strongly on the physical intervention of the audience.’ In addition, Brossa is known for his artistic collaborations with major artists and composers, such as Joan Miro and Carles Santos. In 1948, he founded the avant-garde art and literary review Dau al Set (Uhe seventh face of the die) with a loosely defined group of artists that included writer Arnau Puig and painters Joan Pong and Antoni ‘Tapies.?* Like Tapies and Mir6, Brossa’s work displays an interest in the most prosaic, base, and material aspects of daily human existence—a motif that later would be taken up by La Fura dels Baus. As Maria José Ragué-Arias notes, Brossa signified, during the “period of silence” that was the dictatorship, a direct linkage between Catalunya and the most sophisticated international artis-

tic movements of his time. While he was creating and staging his “visual” and “scenic” poetry in “clandestine,” alternative spaces, attempting to evade the clutches of censorship, John Cage and Allan Kaprow were celebrating their happenings at Black Mountain College.’° The legacy of what was the Spanish independent theater movement

continues to be felt in the twenty-first century, especially in Catalunya, where economic potency and political authority, accumulated during post-Franco democratic times, have served to reinforce a strong sense of cultural identity. As Barcelona theater critic Gonzalo Pérez de Olaguer points out, the independent theater movement will go down in history as a breeding ground for some of the most dynamic and talented figures associated with the contemporary Catalan stage.*° A crucial cluster of Catalan companies—Fls Joglars, Comediants, Dagoll Dagom—that originated in the margins of Francoist oppression and censorship, continues to thrive today, having achieved an impressive degree of commercial success in postdictatorial times. ‘The economic stability and vitality of these groups is, in part, attributable to

the fact that they no longer subsist outside the boundaries of institutional support. Many of them now receive substantial subventions annually from Spain’s central government and from the Catalan government. However, as Ragué-Arias pessimistically asserts, the state, in eftect, has become the main theater impresario, and, in a sense, Fran-

32 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM coist censorship has been replaced by state control of public subventions.”?!

The early groups essentially paved the way for the appearance of a new generation of Catalan companies, which includes La Fura dels Baus. Established during the late 1970s and 1980s, La Cubana, Sémola, El ‘Tricicle, Vol Ras, and Zotal were some of the other groups whose names, like that of La Fura, have resonated far beyond the borders of Catalunya and Spain in places such as Berlin, Edinburgh, New York, and Buenos Aires. La Fura dels Baus is thus a product of the creative momentum that continues to emanate from a firmly anchored

tradition of Catalan performance and collective creation spanning

more than three decades. It is a tradition that corroborates the historical significance of the independent theater movement as a source of innovation and renovation, not only within the context of Catalunya,

but also, within the broader sphere of Spain and the contemporary European stage. As early as 1979, the year of La Fura’s establishment, the Barcelona theater scene was already immersed in a series of polemical debates

surrounding the institutionalization of Catalan art and culture. One may recall that 1979 was the year in which actor/director Josep Maria Flotats first approached then-President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Jordi Pujol, and his Minister (Conse/ler) of Culture, Max Cahner, and proposed the idea of creating a National Theatre. In April 1998, La Fura dels Baus was invited to premiere its work F@ust versié 3.0 at the ‘INC. The production was backed by not only public institutions (such as Spain’s central government, the Generalitat, and the CDN),

but also, private corporations (such as Mercedes-Benz, Iberia, and Freixenet). The setting and situation surrounding this production were certainly a far cry from La Fura’s early days at Sitges and, perhaps, a sign that in contemporary Barcelona, there is a growing phenomenon of crossover between the alternative theater scene and the mainstream.

La Fura AND L4 Movipa “Rapid,” “abrupt,” “frantic,” and “vertiginous”’ are just some of the adjectives that have been used to describe the accelerated pace of cultural, political, social, and economic change occurring in Spain following Franco’s death.*? ‘That one man’s passing, however powerful his authoritative hold may or may not have been, could bring to an abrupt halt the presence and dissemination of a deep seated right-wing ideology is indeed a mythical concept. Yet, by the early 1980s, the Consti-

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS — 83

tution of 1978 was firmly in place, affirming the unity of the Spanish nation state while at the same time reconfiguring Spain into seventeen ‘autonomous communities” with distinctive cultural (and, sometimes, linguistic) identities and varying degrees of self-governance.** If the prevailing sentiment was, in effect, that things had changed overnight, there was also a lingering feeling in the air that they could just as easily change once again. Both the fragility and strength of this young democracy were all the more apparent on February 23, 1981, when Lieu-

tenant Coronal Antonio ‘Tejero Molina, with the support of two hundred civil guards, burst into a meeting of the Spanish congress in an attempted coup that was captured by television cameras and broadcast throughout Spain. King Juan Carlos I shrewdly and expeditiously intervened in favor of democracy in a gesture that, for the moment, seemed to dispel further suspicions of governmental instability. During these later years of the democratic transition (1979-82), the period in which La Fura dels Baus made its debut, many members of the political left, who in dictatorial times had idealistically engaged in anti-Francoist activism, found themselves increasingly disillusioned with the realities of the democratic system. If some appeared to undergo a crisis of political identity as they searched for a new cause célebre, their attitude of desencanto—or “disenchantment,” as it is widely known—was also a concrete reaction to heavy unemployment, frivolous government expenditures, increasing accumulation of state and

personal debt, and escalating corruption and scandals (such as the Gonzalez government’s morally ambiguous “dirty war’ against Basque terrorism, which occasioned the death of several innocent victims during the 1980s).*4 Paradoxically, this period of disenchantment was also a time of innovative artistic undertakings. As many of the views and customs asso-

ciated with an authoritarian/Catholic Spain of the past continued to linger, a new cultural vanguard, composed primarily of artists born in the 1950s and 1960s, moved away from the fringe and into the foreground. They were members of a young “democratic” generation, armed with newly acquired political and cultural freedoms and a hedonistic desire to live in the European present. ‘This ebullient eruption of creativity, which some even refer to as a cultural “movement” and others brand as a distinctly Spanish strain of postmodernism, was aptly designated /a movida (the term was borrowed from the drug culture,

which used it to refer to the acquisition of hashish—as in, “‘irse de movida’’).>> Since its original epicenter was located in Madrid, the term

movida madrilena began to ring in people’s ears. Although the atmosphere of indulgence and permissiveness that characterized this period was also strongly prone to a decadent underside, with increased drug

34+ IN THE EYE OF THE STORM abuse and the spread of AIDS, the movida is often remembered in rather idealistic terms as a celebration of freedom of expression— artistic, sexual, linguistic—which at times resembled the countercultural movements of the 1960s. (Political apathy, rather than turbulence, however, was most often the trend.) A euphoric, sybaritic kind of energy quickly infiltrated Spain’s urban cultural life, especially that

of Madrid and Barcelona, leaving its imprint on literature, theater, performance, music, film, fashion, art, architecture, and design.*° The period of the movida was also a time in which Madrid’s Ayuntamiento (municipal government) and socialist mayor Enrique Tierno Galvan dedicated unprecedented sums of money to the city’s fall and summer arts festivals. During the fall of 1984 and summer of 1985, La

Fura dels Baus traveled to Madrid with financial support from this city’s Ayuntamiento (ironically, the company had yet to receive support from the Generalitat). The company was enthusiastically embraced by the movida madrilena. The youth culture of Madrid was excited and mesmerized by La Fura’s “actions,” which were perceived as a welcome, avant-garde alternative to the more traditional bourgeois-commercial offerings that had dominated the Spanish stage for decades. In effect, La Fura dels Baus seemed to speak and epitomize the countercultural language of the movida. ‘There were even some spectators who perceived in the group’s ritualistic vandalism of the automobile a cathartic sacrificial spectacle designed to banish corruption, bourgeois consumerism, and conspicuous consumption from Spain’s contemporary society.*’ “WHAT'S IN A NAME?”

If many critics and spectators have found themselves perplexed by La Fura’s work (the group’s enigmatic relationship with the press is bound to have contributed to the confusion), it is only natural that one would first look to the company’s name for salient clues. It is a name that has been twisted and tortured by many a theater critic. “La Fura” literally means “ferret” in Catalan, while the Baus is a reference to a ravine, now dry, that once ran through the provincial town of Moia, the birthplace of the company’s three founding members. A British theater critic once rendered his English version of the name as ‘“‘Vermin of the Sewers.’** However, as Albert de la Torre points out, the name holds more significance in terms of its poetic and onomatopoetic value than its literal meaning—a fact that is substantiated by an offhand remark made by an anonymous member of the troupe: “No ho sé; ens agrada. Sona bé, oi? I a més a algun enterao li deu suggerir al-

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 85

guna cosa aixi com Bauhaus o Pina Bausch.’’? [I don’t know; we like it. It sounds good, doesn’t it? And besides, for someone ‘in the know,’

it should suggest something along the lines of ‘Bauhaus’ or ‘Pina Bausch.’”’] It may have been an offhand comment, but the allusion to Bauhaus and Bausch is not only a reflection of La Fura’s slick cosmo-

politanism and international consciousness; more significantly, the commentary is evocative of the company’s theoretical ties with the European avant-garde modes of performance historically rooted in the first half of the twentieth century—concretely, the experimental work of the Bauhaus, Artaud, Dada, the futurists, and the surrealists.

The futuristic theater projects of the Bauhaus school of design of the 1920s anticipated and even paved the way for La Fura’s conception of spectacle as an organic synthesis of a rich variety of artistic and audiovisual modes of expression (the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk can also be viewed as a precursor). In their experimental formulations of a

“total theater,” members of the Bauhaus, such as Oskar Schlemmer, Walter Gropius, and Laszl6 Moholy-Nagy, advocated the creation of multidisciplinary fusions of color, light, space, surface, movement, sound, and the body. ‘They conceived global spectacles that attempted to portray the hallucinatory transformations of the human experience occurring within the context of a modern, mechanized, urban, industrial landscape.* In a parallel manner, the Catalan term that La Fura regularly employs to describe its eclectic language is espectacle integral (integral spectacle).

The function of the audience in La Fura’s spectacles is intensely

participatory, and the spectator often has the sensation of being plunged into a barrage of activity. Coinciding with Richard Schechner’s concept of a “environmental theater,’ La Fura’s performances tend to appropriate alternative, “found” spaces, uncontaminated by theatrical connotations, so that the spectacle itself is able to enter into a dialogue with its respective surroundings. Accordingly, La Fura dels Baus has chosen to perform in venues such as the KGB nightclub in Barcelona, the historic Barcelona shipyards (/es Drassanes), a fish market and a funeral home in Madrid, and a basketball arena situated in

the working-class Barcelona fringe town of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.*! Recalling the Dadaist performance experiments of the early part of the twentieth century, as well as the happenings of the 1960s’ avant-garde, the audience members find themselves compelled to negotiate not only the appearance of meaning, but also the environment in which they find themselves immersed. La Fura’s spectacles appear to materialize gradually as part of a never-ending and never-beginning organic process. They are conceived as entities that gush forth naturally from an indeterminate chaos, their timing and rhythm improvi-

86 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM sationally determined by the spontaneous perception and reception of

the audience. The spectators are manipulated throughout the performance space, obliged to mingle with the performers and set design, and to evolve with them. In Manes, for example, burning torches and water are used to move the crowd of spectators toward strategic locations and condition their responses. La Fura’s works, in effect, are underpinned by a search for a type of mystical alliance between performer and spectator, such as that envisioned by Artaud, whereby the audience has the impression of being immersed in a total, secondary reality. he Theater of Cruelty, Artaud tells us, “proposes to resort to a mass spectacle; to seek in the agitation of tremendous masses, convulsed and hurled against each other, a little of that poetry of festivals and crowds when, all too rarely nowadays,

the people pour out into the streets.” The ritualistic violence of the theater event would, as Artaud suggests, dissolve all boundaries of distinction between text and representation, actor and spectator, thereby thrusting the audience into a jarring, transformative experience. As La

Fura’s musical director “Miki Espuma affirms, the group’s aesthetic intentions, of Artaudian inspiration, are designed to stir up a visceral rather than cerebral reaction, one that aims at the stomach rather than the brain. Music, which has a central function in each spectacle, is,

according to Espuma, endowed with the capacity to incite a wide range of bodily-physical responses.*? La Fura’s Artaudian approach leaves the spectator no room for critical distance, no time to ponder fully the implications of what is occurring or what one is seeing while one is seeing it. Rather than emerge during the course of the performance, meaning is often delayed or evaded; it slips away, is relegated to the elusive recesses of the mind, only to be awakened retrospectively, in the hours or days that follow the performance. Francesc Cerezo points out in his analysis of Accions that this experience of deterred meaning is equally applicable to La Fura’s creative process. Even for the performers themselves, Cerezo observes, “the rationalization-intellectualization of the spectacle appeared at a point in time that was significantly posterior to the realization.’ The Bauhaus conception of total theater, the cubists/futurist/surrealist collage aesthetic, and Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty were among the many reflections of the vanguard’s disavowal of a rationally determined relationship between sign and referent, of an objective representation of reality, and of the historical and collective consciousness attached to that reality. The employment of collage was one way of

creating what Eduardo Subirats calls a “secondary” reality, which could displace and even “‘liquidate” the real, a surrogate spectacular world composed of decontextualized and recontextualized images. In

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 87

the spirit of the avant-garde concepts of total art and collage, La Fura’s aesthetic embraces a historically familiar, symbolic language of the Mediterranean spectacle, of the popular pagan rituals of Catalunya

that, once prohibited under Franco, were revived during the democratic transition as part of an open assertion of cultural identity and even nationalism. These Catalan festive celebrations are centuries old, but in the post-Franco 1980s, they began to receive significant institu-

tional support from entities such as the Centre de Promocié de la Cultura Popular i Tradicional Catalana (Center for the promotion of popular and traditional Catalan culture’’).* La Fura’s appropriations of this Mediterranean language, in effect,

can be traced to the company’s origins in rural Catalunya (in the aforementioned town of Moia), where founding members Marcel-li Antinez, Carlos Padrissa, and Pere ‘Jatifid embarked upon their artistic trajectory in the late 1970s. These three childhood friends (Anttnez, with training in the plastic arts; Padrissa, in musical composition; and ‘[antifia, in carpentry) began as harlequinesque street performers, taking part in traditional town processions known as cercaviles or passacarrers. Uhese processions and festivities, which in some cases have be-

come intertwined with the traditions and iconography of Spanish Catholicism (such as the Patum of Berga, of medieval origins, held during the week of Corpus Christi), typically incorporate symbolic elements (fire, water, earth, blood, sea, and sand), as well as fire-breathing dragons and other mythic beasts, devils, performers on stilts, and gegants (giant figures made of papier-maché and/or fiberglass). ‘They carry powerful carnivalesque connotations of anarchy and inversion, as well as sacred connotations of sacrifice and renewal, that are deeply entrenched in the cultural fabric of this part of Spain.’ The correfoc (fire run), for example, is a ceremonial rite of purification often performed around the time of the summer solstice, in which fire-breathing dragons and devils are paraded through village streets, their final destination often being a large bonfire in the town square.* Inspired by these Mediterranean/Catalan traditions, as well as the

itinerant tradition of the commedia dell’arte, La Fura dels Baus left Moia and took its show on the road with a horse and pull-cart.#? Like their predecessors Els Joglars and Comediants, the original members of La Fura were determined to avoid the pitfalls of provincialism and superficial folklorism. Accordingly, their ambulant journey eventually landed them in metropolitan Barcelona, where they were able to seek

the contributions of urban artists whose backgrounds and training were extremely varied and multidisciplinary. ‘The company is presently composed of seven principal creators: Padrissa, ‘Tantifia, “Miki” Espuma, Pep Gatell, “Hansel” Cereza, Jiirgen Miiller, and Alex Ollé.

88 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM (Anttnez has since left the group, but continues to work as a performance artist.) Today, additional performers (male and female), musicians, and technicians from Spain and other parts of Europe regularly collaborate in La Fura’s productions, making this, perhaps, the most

transnational of Catalan companies: it now has multiple touring groups that simultaneously circle the globe and feature a multinational roster of artists from France, Belgtum, Germany, Morocco, Italy, and Portugal, as well as Spain. The troupe enjoys an especially large following in Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Argen-

tina, and Brazil, and has performed in these countries on several occasions. La Fura’s visits to the United States, in contrast, have been much less frequent, in part, because of the difficulties in adapting its performance strategies to the stringent building codes and safety protocols that are so prevalent in this country. In June 1991, the company

presented Suz/o/Suz at the Kaufman-Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens, and in July 1998, it presented /@ust versié 3.0 at the Lincoln Center Festival. ‘The group has garnered a cult following in several countries, similar to that of a rock band, and has even begun to experiment with the possibility of performance via the Internet, in a cybernetic space, sans frontiers, with its website “lafura.com.’’*° AFTER ACCIONS OR A RETURN TO ESSENTIAL ORIGINS

Baudrillard and others have repeatedly described contemporary culture as a delirious, hallucinatory experience that places us in contact with a virtual reality: an aestheticized, theatricalized representation of the world, filtered through colored lenses, the internet, air conditioning, stereo systems, radio, television, and video screens. ‘The spectacularization of the real, which began during the first half of the twentieth

century, has only intensified during the latter half with the augmentation of the electronic mass media and the technological saturation of information.*! Subirats, correspondingly, speaks of the curious blend of fascination and fear, anguish and enthusiasm, surrounding the contemporary creation of ‘“‘new electronically defined social and cultural frontiers.”*? Reality is not just conceived as spectacle, but is displaced,

even “liquidated,” in favor of illusion. Consequently, our physical, emotional, and perceptual rapport with the world, with history, and with other human beings has been significantly altered and, in some instances, even nullified. Forced to confront an overabundance of new communicative media, many avant-garde artists, from the postwar period on, have felt a need

to search for a type of art that would liberate them from the tainted,

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 89

adulterated, and embellished versions of reality that have characterized their contemporary experience. A certain nostalgia for the archaic; a return to myths and to a primitive iconography; a recovery of essential truths, uncontaminated by civilization are all aesthetic practices that represent a move away from rationalization, (post)industrialization, and spectacularization. In the work of the earlier-mentioned Catalan painter Antoni [apies, it is possible to perceive an apt pictorial rendition of these tendencies, which anticipate and coincide with the aesthetic practices of La Fura dels Baus. In addition, ‘lapies’s personal observations are equally illuminating when viewed alongside La Fura’s creative endeavors. Referring to a series of works that he created between 1946 and 1947, ‘Tapies describes the “air of primitivism” with which he struggled to imbue his paintings: “I did a series of collages

using soiled papers, cardboard marked with crosses, pasted-down thread, the scrapings and peelings of ordinary materials, of burned wood, etc... . I was truly repulsed by anything that might seem derived, as Cassanyes put it, from homo faber, the human being who was

industrious, vulgar and materialistic in the worst sense of the word.’ Later on, in his study of “progressive” and “modern” art, ‘lapies comments: “If today we are touched by certain prehistoric drawings, by the shapes of some African masks, by certain carvings in Polynesian ritual objects, by some particular pre-Columbian images . . . and also by the ‘mystery’ exuded by many naive paintings, by the art of madmen... or by a great deal of street graffiti, this is essential with the cosmic order, within nature’s cycles.”*+ His paintings portray a desire to strip away the surface layers of the reality that he perceives and submerge his artistic gaze deep into a realm of primordial impulses. If Accions, in its search for authenticity, was aesthetically evocative of ‘lapies’s matter paintings, La Fura’s subsequent works, Suz/o/Suz, Tier Mon, Noun, and M.T.M., intensified this nostalgia for the primitive, converting it into a kind of anthropological journey into the past (or, as in the case of Noun, a newly configured future), a search for a pristine underlay that would be uncontaminated by humanity’s materialism and industrialism. Paradoxically, along with this search for essential origins, La Fura’s successive productions also appeared to be propelled in a contrary direction, becoming increasingly more elaborate, stylized, and technologically sophisticated. In these spectacles, La

Fura recontextualizes the Mediterranean/Catalan rhetoric of its origins within a contemporary technological environment. Poetic primitive ritual of the past intermingles with urban iconography of the present; audacious pyrotechnics clash with futuristic machinery; circus-like acrobatics overlap with recycled industrial refuse (old tires, bathtubs, wooden crates, unrecognizable scraps of metal). ‘The image

90 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM of the human being (sensual, exuberant, organic, carnal, irrational, pristine) is continually juxtaposed with the presence of the machine (metallic, robotic, contrived, cerebral, rational, industrialized). Original live music takes on a crucial connotative function by underscoring

and punctuating this juxtaposition—the most exemplary instance being the performance of Noun, in which the hypnotic rhythms and passionate moans of flamenco singer Ginesa Ortega clashed with the icy electronic sounds of heavy metal.** In a collective interview with Francesc Burguet Ardiaca, La Fura, when asked about this characteristic marriage between “modernity” and the company’s Catalan provincial roots, gave the following response regarding this ever-present motif: “Esto ya lo decia Mird, y también Raimon, que quien pierde los origenes, pierde la identidad. Y de hecho, para alcanzar un lenguaje universal, es importante partir de tus propias raices.”’*¢ [It’s what Mir6 already said, and Raimon, too—that he who loses his origins, loses his identity. And, in fact, in order to arrive at a universal language, it’s important to begin with your own roots.]| ‘The ritualistic gestures inherent in La Fura’s performances are superimposed upon a series of contemporary environments that hold historical connotations of their own, thereby creating a dialectic that vacillates between a primordial Catalan past and a postindustrial present.

Suz/o/Suz, one of the company’s most successful works (it was awarded the prestigious Ciutat de Barcelona prize and remained on tour for several years), premiered in Madrid in 1985 at the Antigua Funeraria de Galileo, an old abandoned funeral home. It is a work that

spotlights La Fura’s continued fascination with ritual—so much so that prior to its premiere, the company fabricated and issued an absurd

story to the press in which it attributed its artistic inspiration to a three-month anthropological journey through Sudan. According to the press release, several members of the troupe had been living with the Nuba tribe. They even had themselves photographed in tribal garb. The Barcelona premiere of Suz/o/Suz at the Mercat de les Flors, in January 1986, was heralded by an “action,” derived from the pro-

duction, in which furero Jordi Arus was suspended, naked, from a crane, forty-five meters high, between the two “Venetian” towers located on the Placa d’Espanya (one of Barcelona’s most prominent landmarks). Arus was covered in grease in order to protect himself from the cold, and after approximately thirty minutes, he was lowered into a tank of water.’’ It was a stirring image that was captured by and displayed throughout the mass media in what turned out to be a very effective publicity stunt. La Fura has since been known to go to great

lengths to document and commodity its performances through the

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 91

production of press dossiers, compact disk recordings of its music, DVDs, manifestos published in daily newspapers, and t-shirts.** In Suz/o/Suz, a work that partakes of a collage structure, the human figure is often subjected to violent aggressions: dangled like a puppet

from sadistic-looking pulley systems; stripped naked and exposed; placed in bondage; carried around on what looks like a rack used for dried cod; immersed in paint, blood, and water. Images that may seem shocking, disturbing, ignoble, or frightful, at the same time, acquire an extraordinary aesthetic value that many spectators have found to be tremendously inspiring and uplifting. Espuma, in fact, recounted to me the story of male and female spectators so inspired by a performance of Suz/o/Suz in Argentina, that they began to engage in sexual intercourse within the performance space.*’ In the hands of La Fura

dels Baus, the human subject, the body, is converted into a piece of living sculpture, dehumanized at times, and yet bordering on the sublime or the profoundly beautiful. In one particularly stunning ritual, nude male performers in fetal positions, breathing through oxygen hoses used by scuba divers, are immersed for several minutes in transparent cube-shaped human aquariums. Noting the “ritualistic resonances”’ of this tableau sequence, Mercé Saumell calls it “a beautiful birth of initiation.”°° At other moments, a group of performers appears nude from the waist down, dressed only in a white shirts and black ties; hence, their urban apparel assumes a symbolic role: the body of the partially (un)clothed performer is depicted in a state of undoing, a paring down to minimalist origins. At times, the allusions to this “air of primitivism,” as ‘[apies would have it, seem self-consciously parodic—almost “tongue in cheek’’—as in the body paint worn by the naked musician-warriors who play a contemporary rendition of tribal music, or when the performers fer-

vently devour large pieces of raw meat. (La Fura creates a similar image in Manes with the use of several raw chickens.) In Saumell’s words, “‘Rousseau’s noble savage is perversely converted into the component of an urban tribe within a 1980s mythology.’ Suz/o/Suz, cor-

respondingly, contains several references to the decadence of contemporary consumer society, its excessive materialism, and the commoditization of human life (common concerns in 1980s’ Spain as elsewhere): a television set that is wheeled around in a supermarketstyle shopping cart is quickly replaced by a human being. Tier Mon, the production that followed Suz/o/Suz, invoked a more

cynical, foreboding, atmosphere in which La Fura confronted the issue of power through the creation of violent images of war, death, imprisonment, entrapment, and execution.” Gone was the ebullient optimism of its previous work, only to be replaced with a notable de-

92 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM gree of disenchantment. The Barcelona premiere at the Mercat de les Flors in 1988 was preceded by a press conference at Montjuic in which the performers, in a decidedly Beckettian gesture, were buried up to their necks in sand, creating an extremely unsettling situation for all those involved. ‘The performance space encompassed several catwalks, large stadium-style spotlights, high-pressure hoses, sirens, and alarms, all of which propelled the spectator into a disturbing, chilling landscape of Orwellian overtones, which was also evocative of the experience of a concentration camp. [he immediate historical references to Spain’s not-so-distant authoritarian past were evident. The search for essential origins was portrayed in 7zer Mon in terms of an aesthetic of debasement that brings to mind Francisco de Goya’s “black” paintings. In one of the key sequences, six performers were “‘housed”’ in a “cell-block” of wooden crates. A grotesque metamorphosis converted them into swine-like animals that were fed scraps and refuse. Motivated exclusively by primal urges, their existence was reduced to the most prosaic and natural of bodily activities: eating, masticating, spitting. The scaffolding situated above the boxes was eventually ignited, creating a potent image of destruction. With 7zer Mon, La Fura had reached the end of its first trilogy. Beginning in 1990, with the production of Noun, the incorporation of female performers into the company was one change that would orient La Fura in new directions. Also, with Noun, the company’s work began to question outwardly the illusory, mythic, and idealistic assumptions surrounding its quest for authenticity. The title, an appropriation of an ancient Egyptian term, refers to the primordial waters that gave way to the origin of the universe and the river Nile, the fundamental amorphous state of chaos that existed prior to the construction of systems of representation and signification.® “Noun” is the initial magma, pure presentation without any added layers of meaning, without duplicity; just pristine water that is evocative of a desire to uncover an authentic state of being. The set design for Noun included an enormous square of scaffolding, suspended high above the heads of the spectators, who remained below and moved about freely. ‘The primordial state of disorder was conceived according to a cybernetic logic, embodied in the image of a giant machine (recycled materials, scaffolding, video screens). ‘The

spectators witnessed the birth of male and female performers who emerged from giant placentae that hovered above and spewed the audience with water and foam. Man discovered the existence of woman, or, in terms of the allegorical language of the program notes, “his own identity, and with it, his Duality.” They were depicted as having been born into a futuristic domain that was so intellectually and technologi-

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 93

cally sophisticated that the process of genesis, in the biblical sense, appeared to have come full circle—or, perhaps, to be inverted. La Fura

dels Baus created a fictional, but seemingly plausible, realm where human beings did not invent technology; rather, machines were endowed with the ability to conceive human life. As the performance evolved, Noun became a giant life-giving and breathing machine, a sacred deity to whom sacrifices were made beneath the divine electronic eyes of video screens. Technology was depicted as a symbiotic interface that mediates between life and death, between being and nonbeing. Whereas in Accions, the human subject itself embodied, or corporealized, the process of creation, in Noun, that process was embod-

ied in the machine. In the latter piece, the subject’s rapport with the world was shown to be inconceivable without the intervention of technology. By manipulating conventionally accepted ideas of genesis and

creation, La Fura dels Baus submerged the notion of authenticity within layers of machinery, where the destinies of technology and the human being seemed inescapably intertwined.

With La Fura’s fifth grand-scale production, bearing the infinitely polysemous title /.7.M._., the search for essential origins, for a pristine reality without adornments, without “layers upon layers” of cultural debris, reached a point of culmination as the company attempted to expose the politics that lie behind the aesthetics of representation. La Fura’s critical view was intricately tied to the same desire for immediacy and authenticity that it expressed in earlier works; yet, this spectacle also seemed to deliver a message that deconstructs the “mythology of presence.’’*+ La Fura dels Baus used its own aspiration for the au-

thentic in order to dispel the myths that surround this very notion, thereby showing us that the real is an impossibility, forever condemned to existence as a mere illusion. While Noun advocated a sym-

biotic relationship between man, woman, and the technological landscape, M.T.M. expressed a lack of faith in the credibility of all mediated and mediatized forms of communication. In taking up the issue of authenticity, La Fura confronted the spec-

tator with the “game” of representation, manipulation and deception that is often attributed to the culture of the mass media. The group’s earlier mockeries of the press were thus taken one step further, in that the theme of the media was self-consciously incorporated within the

performance, occupying the role of both form and content. In M.T.M., La Fura dels Baus attempted to capture the sensation of liv-

94 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM ing in a postmodern “schizophrenic” world as it forced the audience to navigate an infinitely alterable theatrical space, where reality was converted through technological mediation into a perpetual “flow” and substitution of images. M.7.M. thereby engaged the spectator in an exploration of the ontological and aesthetic consequences posed by our existence within a technological culture, a culture in which the postmodern fascination with the plainly visible significantly alters our

rapport with reality. M.T.M. premiered in Lisbon in 1994. In July of that year, it was staged just outside Barcelona at the Poliesportiu Municipal de Basquet

de L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (a municipal sports center), and it is there that I was able to see—or, more aptly put, participate in—La Fura’s spectacle. In shaping the original premise of M.7.M., La Fura dels Baus enlisted the collaboration of venerated Spanish playwright and critic Alfonso Sastre (1926), known tor his polemical and politically committed theater of protest and social agitation, which served as a vehicle for his critiques of the Franco regime. La Fura provided him with a précis and asked him to write a series of corresponding dialogues, which in the end, because of stylistic dilemmas, were only briefly integrated into the final product. Regardless, the unlikely alliance between these contrasting generations from Spain’s contemporary theater scene proved to be a rather fruitful endeavor in that it was Sastre who inspired La Fura to create a playbill for M.7.M. in the form of a press dossier, providing the audience with a (counterfeit) journalistic view of the spectacle that they had witnessed. ‘The final version of this playbill/press dossier resembles a newspaper and contains material written by troupe-members, as well as a series of unrecognizable and recognizable names: esoteric authorities from the international scientific community (such as Catalan biologist Ramon Guardans), theater critics (such as Eduardo Haro Tecglen of the Madrid daily E/ Pais), and playwrights (such as Sastre, himself). In my copy of the dossier, which I purchased for one thousand pesetas (approximately nine dollars), I am able to count no less than thirty-four articles appearing in at least seven languages (some of the articles only appear once in a given language and others have been translated several times over). Since it would be virtually impossible to read through this entire agnum opus prior to the commencement of

the performance, the dossier itself can be viewed as a work of art, masquerading as the truth, which takes on a life of its own, an artifact of the culture of the mass media that the spectator can digest and consume both prior to and after having attended the spectacle. ‘The dossier thus serves an ironic function: on the one hand, in keeping with most theater playbills, it explains and elucidates some of the major

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 95

themes present in M.7.M. Yet, ironically, after having attended La Fura’s performance, the audience will already know that they cannot trust what is on the printed page. The implicit intention is that they will have been jarred into a position of skepticism with regard to any information that is transmitted through a mediated or mediatized form of communication, such as a newspaper. In elaborating its critique, therefore, the dossier, as does the spectacle itself, appropriates in a typically postmodern fashion the very same medium that it is critiquing. It disturbs the distinction between what is actual circumstance and what is an illusory work of art. M.T.M contains no narrative plot in the conventional sense, and instead of a traditional dramatic script, the performers are guided by a kind of “story-board,” which posits a series of situations and the way

that they are to be played out in time and space. The playbill delineates the nine major sections that comprise the spectacle. First, there is a prelude, titled “Initial Magma,” which parodies the situation of a discothéque. ‘The prelude is followed by three main jocs (acts), which

introduce a series of archetypal figures—a scientist, a mother, two twins, an empress, an artist, a rich man—that are curiously reminiscent of Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s seventeenth-century auto sacramental (or, Mystery Play) titled E/ gran teatro del mundo (The Great Theatre of the World, which premiered in 1649). Each of the three acts

allegorizes the construction of a sacred institution, totem, or hegemonic power (symbolized, for example, by the pyramid-alter that is constructed and demolished during the second act). Between acts, the spectator is forced into negotiating four cataclysmic sequences— chaos, an earthquake, a plague, and a war—each of which invokes a kind of leveling and apocalyptic destruction of the previously established power structure. Ragué-Arias perceives in this format an evoca-

tion of René Thom’s theory of catastrophes: “the idea that when something reaches the limit of its possibilities, it is destroyed by a catastrophe that gives way to a new order.”®’ Finally, an epilogue, titled “Memory,” returns to the discotheque format and offers a video repri-

sal of what are supposedly the “most important scenes” in the performance. During this epilogue, a final cry in Catalan (‘an explosion of collective consciousness”’) is flashed onto the video screen, which says: “No em Ilanceu més merda a sobre.” [Don’t throw any more shit on me.] I shall return to this point later on. Despite the nine-part format, the precise temporal and spatial limits of M.T.M. are never clearly delineated for the audience. During the

opening prelude/discothéque sequence, a highly rhythmic, gutwrenching music plays as the spectators file into the pavilion and mill about randomly in the darkness. Gradually they are able to familiarize

96 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM themselves with the architecture of the performance space, which is neutral and infinitely modifiable. At one end of the room, there is a huge video screen. At the opposite end of the space, there is a large platform containing an impressive assortment of lighting equipment, projectors, sound systems, synthesizers, and video cameras. Lining the walls are 150 generic cardboard boxes, eighty cubic centimeters each. The disco sequence continues for a seemingly endless length of time, and during this period, the spectators are able move about freely with the rhythm of the music as they contemplate a series of kaleidoscopic images that unfold across the video screen. The members of La Fura dels Baus have not yet made themselves visible, so up until this point, the only performers in M.7.M. are the spectators themselves. In this manner, the conventional hierarchy of theatrical representation appears at first glance to be radically problematized. ‘The traditional spatiotemporal gap that is regularly established between actor, spectator, and theater event has been erased. The spectators’ live bodies, it would seem, constitute the theater event; their immediate presence zs the theater event, and the actions of these spectator-performers appear to be free, unscripted, and unauthorized—conditions that situate

them beyond the authoritative limits of theatrical representation. Gradually, this initial situation, which ostensibly denies repetition, is revealed to be an ulusion, and even a ruse. It is, in fact, a preordained scripted performance that is part of a larger game of deception, and the spectators are merely pawns in this game. For although they appear to be moving about freely and arbitrarily, they are in effect representing—even if they may not be the least bit conscious of this fact. Their performance in the discothéque creates an allegorical rendering of the world in its primordial amorphous state, prior to the fabrication of sociocultural order. Like the primitive waters of Noun, the discotheque of M.7.M. is evocative of a desire to uncover a “nonexcremental,” authentic state of being. An anonymous editorial published in La Fura’s playbill/press dossier further delineates the metaphoric function of this so-called discoteca infinita: “Suppose the mass of humanity were an effervescent humus evolving in all directions in an amebic movement, from where individual stories and histories emerge as if unshelled, the instantaneous flashes of unique, but already old, dramas: they are the stories belonging to the indistinct mass that, through mere concrete presentation, becomes strange and alien. In the beginning, then, it is an indefinite space in which the never-ending process of change gives way to an accumulation of layers and layers of hu-

manity.’’ After several minutes of “disco-play,” the “rules of the game” are projected onto the video screen: 1) move forward to make way for the

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 97

others who have yet to enter the space, 2) dance, and most importantly, 3) do not touch the boxes. For the spectator-performers, these seemingly benign rules represent the beginning of an unnerving game of deception that will set out to manipulate their expectations in an infinite variety of ways—visually, acoustically, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Moments later, in an unanticipated cataclysmic sequence, the cardboard boxes begin to tumble, shake, and stir. Emerg-

ing out of the darkness, several performers dressed in workman’s jumpsuits hurl themselves and the boxes into the audience, disrupting and erupting upon what was once a placid, undifferentiated space. Delirious cries are heard, evocative of collective hysteria. ‘The spectators are pushed and shoved (even trampled upon) in a chaotic mayhem as the boxes are propelled in a variety of directions. No differentiation is made between box and spectator; both are manipulated at the same level.

As a member of the audience, one has the sensation that one’s entire world is caving in. For the audience, the spectacle is converted into an intensely “‘real,” undeniably “present” experience, whose heightened

level of immediacy can be compared to the type of “frenetic gratu-

itousness” that Artaud associates with both the theater and the

plague.® ‘This collective drama is also symptomatic of a technique of manipulation commonly employed by La Fura dels Baus, which de la Torre describes as an efecte ascensor (elevator effect). It is a supposed

“syndrome” that plunges the audience into a difficult and awkward situation, comparable to the relationship between a group of strangers

who are trapped together in an elevator, a situation that implies a breach of one’s intimacy and bodily space, as well as an unexpected relationship of mandatory complicity. De la ‘Torre comments: ‘““The audience, upon feeling that its space has been invaded by the actors, backs away and, in backing away, enters into physical contact with strangers. Confronted with this surprise, the spectator seeks refuge in the embrace of a familiar friend or escort but, because of the movement of the group, is compelled toward the embrace of a stranger, and even to trespass upon the personal space of someone he or she has never met.”’”°

In M.T.M., the elevator effect is primarily achieved through the movement of the boxes during the four cataclysmic episodes. ‘These building blocks of creation are used to construct a series of monolithic formations—such as walls, fortresses and pyramids—which in turn serve as emblems of political, religious, and economic order. ‘The spectators are manipulated around the space in order to make way for these monuments. Thus, with the elevator effect, La Fura dels Baus is able to use the spectators to underscore the way in which authoritative

98 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM institutions regularly draw their strength from the manipulation of the so-called “masses.” Yet, before long, these fragile images of authority—as well as all forms of communication, theatrical and otherwise—fall beneath a subjective and illusory light. As the spectators contemplate the cyclical rise and fall of power that is taking place around them, La Fura dels Baus bombards them with a visually exhausting whirlwind of video im-

ages. In general these images fall into two major categories: readymade images that are conceived a priori (that is, before the “real time” of the spectacle) and images that are conceived during the actual performance. ‘The problem that is thus posed for the spectator is that of deciphering which images fall into which category. All sense of space, time, and objective reality is altered through the use of the video camera and video projections. Video creates a deceitful system of irony, which places into question the audience’s power of exegesis—not only with regard to the events that they are witnessing visually; but also, those they are experiencing physically through their own bodily presence as spectators who have taken on the role of performers. The spectators contemplate the rise and fall of power that is taking

place around them, a situation whose existence is dependent upon their immediate physical presence and participation. At the same time,

Hansel, one of the performers, roams about the space with a video camera in hand, leading the spectators to believe that he is simultaneously transmitting to the video screen the very same events that they are witnessing. As a spectator, one is even inclined to search for an image of oneself on the screen. Hansel’s ubiquitous presence creates, in this manner, a scenario whereby the spectator is offered multiple perspectives of a single event—conditions that are not unlike our everyday experience with the culture of the mass media. However, Han-

sel’s video versions of the events do not always coincide with the spectator’s point of view, planting doubts in the minds of audience members. The spectators are simultaneously offered both presentation and representation, the actual and the virtual, pure presence and mediatized presence; but their experience in the performance space is such that they are unable to distinguish between the two, unable to confirm the authenticity of anything that they are seeing or experiencing live.

A dramatic example of this problematic occurs during the second act, in which the audience witnesses the birth of female twins who, in a manner reminiscent of the plancentae of Noun, emerge from a set of cardboard boxes that dangle above the space. One twin hangs in an inverted position, while the other is right side up. It is a tableau that allegorizes the duplicitous relationship between the spectators and

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 99

what they are seeing. Iruth/fantasy, the real/the mediated—the metaphoric correspondences are infinite. Because the twins are identical, it is unclear whether or not the truth will prevail in this double-sided system. The audience witnesses, in the present, the “actual” death of one twin, who is mutilated by the other. Hansel appears with his video camera, and his gestures indicate that he is simultaneously transmitting a live, close-up version of the twin’s death. On the screen, the spectator sees what is supposedly Hansel’s version of the event: a disturbing bloody image of the dead twin’s mutilated mouth. However, this version does not quite coincide with the spectators’ perspective of the events that are taking place, events that they may have empirically understood to be reality. There is no blood, except on the screen in the “close-up” mediatized version. ‘The spectator, consequently, is plunged into a visual labyrinth offering a parade of images that pretend to be real—or that pretend to be more real than reality itself. An additional example of this situation occurs during the third act,

in which La Fura dels Baus creates an ironic parody of the way in which the media transmit news and information, and of the aesthetic process of invention whereby a nation can fabricate an image of itself and project it to the rest of the world. A giant wall of boxes is swiftly erected, completely dividing the space (the world) and the mass of spectators into two separate crowds. The screens and video cameras are positioned so as to create a kind of aesthetic dilemma whereby the

spectators are led to believe that the images projected on “their” screen—that is, on their own side of the wall—are faithful representations of what is occurring on the other side. Images of death and destruction correspond to one side, while it appears that on the other side, a joyful Brazilian carnival is taking place. The tableau carries spe-

cial resonance within the context of contemporary Spain, where, in 1962, the propagandistic aims of the Franco regime motivated Manuel Fraga Iribarne, former Minister of Information and ‘Tourism, to enlist the help of a North American advertising agency in an attempt to improve his nation’s image.

In the performance of M.7.M., La Fura dels Baus creates an aestheticized version of reality by appropriating the baroque conception of teatrum mundi, such as that which Calder6n created in his abovecited auto sacramental. The allegorical entities that correspond to Cal-

derén’s auto (a king, a pauper, a rich man, a child .. . ) and those of M.T._M. (a scientist, a mother, a rich man, an empress . . .) appear to emerge out of the space occupied by the audience, from the undifferentiated primordial “mass of humanity” or “effervescent humus.”’ As Subirats indicates, this teatrum mundi format, which portrays human existence as a type of spectacle, transforms the relationship between

100 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM reality and illusion: the theatricalized rendition of the world is taken to be ontologically superior to the real; it simulates and replaces the real.”! ‘The autos, as a result, were easily adapted to the propagandistic intentions of the Spanish crown and the Catholic counterreformation.

They superimposed upon the theater audience the same characteristics of collective identity that are associated with a religious mass. In a parallel sense, the electronic media that one finds in M.7.M posit a new type of invisible, intangible, faceless audience whose existence is only insinuated by the presence of this technology. ‘The audience is besieged and surrounded; it exists only in a virtual time and space, historically neutralized, decontextualized, and divorced from reality. Passive collectivity replaces individual identity since the gaze that the spectator directs toward the screen is neither acknowledged nor answered. When confronted with M.7.M.’s tragmented collage aesthetic of decontextualized and recycled images, the spectator’s fac-

ulties of cognition and perception are dramatically transformed. Rather than facilitate communication, the effect of this technological bombardment ts a collapse of meaning.”

The audience’s rapport with this spectacular world becomes a purely aesthetic experience, pointing to a potential destruction of historical memory and the creation of what Subirats calls a “mediactic totalitarianism.’’”* Baudrillard reminds us, too, that “it is zow impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real.”’* M.7.M. appears

to echo this concern when it examines this problematic within the context of the mass media. In the particular case of Spain, in the realm of film and media culture—as in the realm of the theater—a large degree of disenchantment with the dominant system has persisted since the time of Franco’s death. If it is true that the censorship codes of the dictatorship no longer exist, state and regional governments still have managed to maintain a surprisingly large measure of control over what Catalan and Spanish citizens alike see and hear on the radio, television, stage, and screen. ‘They typically approach these media with ex-

treme skepticism. As Montero recounts: “In the media, the change from dictatorship to democracy is less of a success story. ‘Television remained a state monopoly, as it had under Franco, until the early 1990s when private channels were franchised. ‘The two continuing public sector channels, despite the fact that all political tendencies are represented on their governing body, in practice are still too dependent on the government; while the new private television companies have led to a shocking lowering of standards.””> Spanish film, theater, and television producers frequently find themselves dependent upon the availability of public subsidies, tor lack of private sponsorship. Imbedded in M.T.M. is an ironic critique of governing bodies, at the level

2: AN ASPIRATION TO THE AUTHENTIC: LA FURA DELS BAUS 101

of the Spanish state and at the regional level, that are inevitably positioned to use their political power as a way of authorizing their own propagandistic versions of the “truth.” Spain, not unlike the United States and other parts of the world, has also witnessed the creation of giant media conglomerates that are perilously close to monopolizing the diffusion of information via radio, television, and the press. The concepts of “official/national culture” and “official history” may be remnants of Spain’s Franco era, but they have yet to be thoroughly negotiated and contested. ‘The so-called Tejerazo of February 23, 1981, in which a very real historical battle between fascism and democracy was aesthetically captured on television screens and projected throughout the world, was neither the beginning nor the end of what is also an allegorical battle between authenticity and illusion. In post-Franco, democratic Spain, state and regional governments, the media, and the arts continually exploit the postmodern capacity for the reproduction and recycling of images in their treatment of issues

of national and cultural identity. heir contrived, aestheticized versions of reality create an overabundant flow of images that are continually projected, accepted, rejected, and/or subverted. In M.T.M., the relationship between what is live and what reproduced is completely jeopardized, and La Fura dels Baus’s “great theater of the world” is revealed to be not an allegorical space of essential archetypes; but rather, a place that can only create a hallucination of

the truth. The production of pure presence is shown to be no more authentic than the mediated, mediatized, and theatricalized versions of the truth that we are offered. It is, perhaps, here that one can look for meaning in the final cry that La Fura dels Baus lances into this dark labyrinth of deceit. In a once-empty space, which, unlike that of Accions, is now steeped in layers of excremental versions of the truth, the phrase “No em Ilanceu més merda a sobre” is an evocation of exhaustion and a cry for authenticity. In this postmodern Catalan landscape, as in other parts of the world, collective consciousness and historical memory can indeed be conceived as, or confused with, aesthetic performance. This crisis of distinctions, combined with an ever-present fear of monopolization and manipulation of information, are what motivate La Fura’s search for

authenticity. Consequently, M.7.M is a work whose confrontation with the mass media marks not only the culmination, but also the failure of this implicit aspiration. As Blau attests, the aspiration to the au-

thentic is an impossibility, a mythical notion, for “there is nothing more illusory in performance than the illusion of the unmediated.’’”° It is an observation that is equally applicable to the “spectacular” contemporary world. The more the real becomes displaced, the more we

102 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM want to recover a semblance of its presence. During a period in Spain’s

history in which indeterminacy and cynicism are the norm, and the truth and the real reveal themselves only during fleeting moments, La Fura’s cry for authenticity is perhaps more timely than ever. Postscript: Opera, MULTIMEDIA, AND BEYOND In recent years, La Fura del Baus’s interest in “total theater’’ has led the company into the realm of opera. La Fura’s participation in June 1996 in the annual Granada Festival of Music and Dance marked the

beginning of its multimediatic experimentations with this genre. In front of this city’s seventeenth-century baroque cathedral, the company staged a contemporary interpretation of Manuel de Falla’s seldom-performed operatic poem L’Atlantida (Atlantis, 1927), based on an epic poem by Catalan writer Jacint Verdaguer (1845-1902). More than two hundred performers, singers, and musicians intervened in this production, which used computerized projections and video images intended to conjure for the audience the sensation of being immersed in the sea among the lost civilization of Atlantis. La Fura presented its second operatic production, Claude Debussy and Gabriel d’Annunzio’s Le martyre de St. Sébastien (The Martyrdom of St. Se-

bastian, 1911) in 1997 with Spanish pop singer Miguel Bosé in one of the lead roles. The company premiered its version of Hector Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust (The Damnation of Faust, 1846) at the Salzburg

Festival in 1999 with the collaboration of Catalan sculptor Jaume Plensa.’’ ‘The culmination of this operatic trajectory thus far has been La Fura’s production of D.Q.: Don Quijote en Barcelona, with music by José Luis Turina, which had its world premiere at Barcelona’s newly refurbished Gran ‘Teatre del Liceu opera house in October 2000 under the musical direction of conductor Josep Pons. ‘The opera, which featured a highly innovative experimental dimension treating perform-

ance via the Internet, garnered La Fura several international prizes, including the Prix Mébius Espafia y Portugal Multimedia Net.Art 2000, the Prix M6bius International de la Culture Artistique 2001, and

the Premio SGAE de Autores Multimedia a la Mejor Musica 2000. The year 2004 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the company, which it celebrated with the publication of a book (and accompanying compact disk), coordinated by Alex Ollé.

3

A Phenomenological Gaze: Josep M. Benet 1 Jornet I want to be sezzed by the elusive, unexpected aliveness of the moment. Surprise at the center: not the surprise of the least-

expected ..... because that (least-expected) is a reaction that “places” it and makes it no longer elusive. But surprised by a freshness of moment that eludes constantly refreshes. You go toward it

and can’t seize it? You don’t go toward it............ —Richard Foreman, “Ontological-Hysteric Manifesto I”’

From New York To BARCELONA Wir THE ABOVE-CITED WORDS AND A FREELY POETIC—AND SOME-

times, frenetic—style, Richard Foreman, playwright, director, and central figure in the New York experimental theater scene, attempted to delineate the theoretical underpinnings of his “Ontological-Hysteric- Theatre,” which he founded in 1968. Inspired by the aesthetic initiatives of Gertrude Stein (of texts such as The Geographical History of America or The Relation of Human Nature to the Human Mind), Foreman, who composed the above-cited manifesto in 1972, seeks to erase

any sense of “syncopation,” the musical term employed by Stein to denote the spatiotemporal gap that exists between the emotional experience of the spectator and that which is presented on the stage.! For Foreman, creating theater is not a matter of representing reality according to an objective (scientific) gaze, but of offering a phenomenic perspective, of presenting the world as it is revealed to the subject that contemplates it.? The mise-en-scéne, according to this view, would present the ebb and flow of our existence—its transformations relative to the perceptions of a given moment—and capture through word and image the perpetual process through which a character (or actor or 103

104 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

a“4 fhe ‘ eh k - vi Us, | 7

fh, aes % i 1 Ph gr \ ; ASAYGee |) ee

David Selvas and Cristina Genebat in Salamandra, by Josep M. Benet i Jornet, directed by Toni Casares, Teatre Nacional de Catalunya 2005. Photo courtesy of ‘Teresa Miro.

spectator) is constituted and reconstituted in the theatrical space.’ Like a painter of impressionist landscapes, Foreman endeavors to reveal the “elusive present” that is seemingly impossible for any artist to imagine or grasp: My theater has always tried to spotlight the most elusive aspects of the experience of being human. ... What I show on stage is a specific aspect of a chosen moment that suggests how the mind and emotions can Juggle,

like an acrobat, all we perceive. ... I want a theater that frustrates our habitual way of seeing... . I like to think of my plays as an hour and a half in which you see the world through a special pair of eyeglasses. These glasses may not block out all narrative coherence, but they magnify so many other aspects of experience that you simply lose interest in trying to hold on to narrative coherence, and instead, allow yourself to become absorbed in the moment-by-moment representation of psychic treedom.*

If I have begun this chapter on the other side of the Atlantic (that is, in New York, rather than Barcelona), it is because Foreman’s theo-

retical-aesthetic attitude, expressed in three manifestos from the 1970s, represents one of the most compelling descriptions offered by a contemporary playwright of the phenomenological dimension of the

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 105

theater.© Foreman’s “phenomenological attitude,” discernible on a theoretical as well as artistic level, illuminates the play of perspectives,

perception, and subjectivity that is inherent in the theater. It underscores the extent to which the body that is observed on stage is at once

an object of contemplation and a perceiving subject. Foreman, of course, does not represent an isolated case with regard to this attitude, for it is an exploration that is also present in varying forms in the theater of Samuel Beckett, Peter Handke, Bernard-Marie Koltés, David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Robert Wilson, and other playwrights associated with the post-Brechtian stage. In Spain and, specifically, in Catalunya, a clear manifestation of this phenomenological orientation has emerged in the theater of Barcelona playwright Josep Maria Benet i Jornet. ‘Traces and fragments of Benet’s phenomenological gaze, manifested as an interest in perspectivism and the dynamic relationship between subject and object, begin to emerge during the early stages of his artistic trajectory. This attitude culminates and crystallizes in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the so-called “trilogy” that is formed by Desig (Destre, 1989), Fugac (Fleeting, 1992), and Testament (Legacy, 1995) and continues to take shape in more recent works such as Olors (Smells, 1998), L’habitacié del nen (Les tretze de la nit) (Vhe thirteenth

hour of the night, 2001), and Salamandra (Salamander, 2005).° In the pages that follow, I shall center my own gaze upon these plays and upon Benet 1 Jornet’s artistic trajectory to delineate the most salient characteristics that position his most recent theater within this phenomenological context. Born in Barcelona in 1940, Benet 1 Jornet is Catalunya’s most prominent and accomplished living dramatist. If the Catalan stage has wit-

nessed a veritable “boom” in playwriting and play productions over the course of the past two decades, then Benet’s enormous contribution to this renaissance in text-based drama is unquestionable. It is not surprising, therefore, that Barcelona theater critics and audiences alike often refer to him as e/ nostre dramaturg (our playwright), an epithet that implies not only possession, but also a certain degree of national pride, fondness, and admiration. Within the theatrical galaxy of small and large stars that is the contemporary Catalan stage, Benet i Jornet is like a large comet; not one of those fleeting shooting stars that appears in one of his plays (Fugac), but a comet whose creative trajectory has been marked by a constant process of aesthetic evolution and renovation, a comet that has left an indelible streak of light, which has allowed him to bridge the gap between generations. In 1964, at the age of twenty-three, Benet irrupted onto the Catalan

106 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM stage with his first play Una vella, coneguda olor (An old, familiar smell, 1963), a work that is intimately tied to the reality of the post-civil war

period. ‘The play, which won the first annual Josep Maria de Sagarra Prize, offers a realistic portrayal of life among the interior patios of Barcelona’s working-class Raval quarter (also, the neighborhood of Benet’s youth). It premiered at Barcelona’s historic ‘Teatre Romea under the direction of Josep M. Segarra, with a set design by the venerated Catalan painter Josep Guinovart.’ Critic Joan de Sagarra, ever conscious of Benet’s place in Catalan theater history, describes the evening of the premiere on September 30, 1964 as a night in which the house was filled with intense emotion and excitement as the audience witnessed the “birth” of a new playwright: “I remember that night at the Romea, when the curtain fell, I got up from my seat and I began applauding like crazy, clamoring for the author, as was usually done back then, and once he came out for a curtain call I yelled ‘Let him speak, let him speak!’ But poor Papitu couldn’t say a word. He was weeping with emotion.’’®

Theater critics, as Sagarra notes, have often compared the impact of Una vella, coneguda olor to that of Antonio Buero Vallejo’s Historia de una escalera (The Story of a Stairway, 1949) in that it signaled a defining

moment in terms of the emergence in Catalunya of a new “generation,” or realist tradition, of theatrical writing. Benet’s dialogues, together with other scenic elements, created a vibrant and authentic rendering of the Barcelona working class. At the same time, his realism represented a distinct alternative to what had been, for example, in prior generations, the absurdism of Manuel de Pedrolo or the surrealism of Joan Brossa. In sum, it marked a significant turning point in the history of twentieth-century Catalan drama. “With our applause,”

recalls Sagarra, noting the presence of an autochthonous theatrical tradition, “we were making more than a country, we were making theater, since theater can’t be made without an audience.’” Since that momentous beginning, Benet i Jornet has written more

than forty additional plays, including Baralla entre olors (Squabble among the smells, 1979) and Olors—both sequels to Una vella, coneguda olor.° In addition to these works, his most ambitious titles include Berenaveu a les fosques (You were having tea in the dark, 1971), La desaparici6 de Wendy (Uhe disappearance of Wendy, 1973), Revolta de bruixes (Che witches revolt, 1975), Descripcié d’un paisatge (Description of a landscape, 1978), El manuscrit d’Ali-Bei (Ali Bei’s manuscript, 1984), Desig, Fugac, E.R. (Stages, 1993), Testament, El gos del tinent (The lieu-

tenant’s dog, 1996), L’habitacio del nen, and Salamandra. He has received all the major theater awards in Catalunya and Spain, including the Premio Nacional de Literatura Dramatica in 1995 (from the Span-

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 107

ish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport) tor E.R. and the Premi Nacional de Literatura Catalana in 1990 (from the Generalitat de Catalunya) when Desig was named best play text of 1988, 1989, and 1990. He has been honored on four occasions with the prestigious Premi Critica, granted by the Catalan cultural review Serra d’Or: 1970 tor Marc i Fofre o Els alquimistes de la fortuna (Marc and Jofre or the alchemists of fortune, 1968), 1986 for El manuscrit @Ali-Be1, 1989 for Desig,

and 1994 for E.R. In 2004, Benet was awarded a Premio Max (the Spanish equivalent of a Tony) in the category of “best Catalan play” of 2003 for L’habitacié del nen. Several of his plays have been produced

for television (a genre with which he has had a fruitful relationship as a producer and scriptwriter), and two of his works—E.R. (under the title Actrius [Actresses], 1996) and Testament (under the title Ammic/amat

[Beloved/Friend], 1998)—have been adapted for the large screen by Catalan film director Ventura Pons. In recent years, Benet has enjoyed a level of international projection, prestige, and recognition that has been hitherto unprecedented in his career. His works have been translated into at least thirteen languages and staged throughout Europe and Latin America in a roster of cities that includes Avignon, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Budapest, Guatemala, Hamburg, Havana, Konstanz Lima, Madrid, Paris, Santiago de Chile, Santo Domingo, Sofia, and ‘Targu-Mures.

Between 1962 and 1965, Benet completed literary studies at the University of Barcelona under the rubric of filologia romanica (Romance Philology). At that time, Catalan literary studies per se were no-

tably absent from the officially sanctioned university curriculum, relegated to an unofficial, or even clandestine, status. During this period, he began to frequent the workshops offered at the Escola d’Art Dramatic Adria Gual (EADAG), a major breeding ground for the Catalan independent theater movement, founded in 1960 by Ricard Salvat and Maria Aurélia Capmany.!! It was there that he met Pilar Aymerich, ‘Ierenci Moix (whom he had first encountered in grade school), Josep Montanyés, Francesc Nel-lo, Fabia Puigserver, Montserrat Roig,

and Carme Serrallonga—writers, artists, and intellectuals whose friendships would leave a lasting imprint upon his artistic evolution. Beginning in the summer of 1962, Benet, who still lived with his parents and sister near the Sant Antoni Market in a neighborhood that he describes as “ple de vivacitat popular, de miserables alegries i d’esqueixades tristeses”’ [filled with popular energy, with miserable grains of happiness and coarse grains of sadness], would each evening make his way up to the EADAG, located on Barcelona’s “Gran Via.” ‘The

school occupied an historic space known as the “Ctpula del Colisséum”’ (the cupola located on the uppermost floor of the Colisséum

108 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM cinema, a large movie house that is still in existence today). Although Benet was not formally enrolled in workshops at the EADAG, he was mesmerized and enthralled by the alternative cultural-political milieu that the school offered. He tound himself immersed in an artistic enclave that would, in essence, serve as a second family, not to mention a considerable source of intellectual stimulation and inspiration. His experience at the EADAG, in effect, placed him in contact for the first time with the latest aesthetic trends and inclinations of the European

theatrical avant-gardes. A life in the theater not only beckoned; it seemed inevitable. In his words: ‘“‘Ara, no hi podia esperar cap alterna-

tiva professional.’ [At the time, I couldn’t expect any other professional alternative.] Eventually, he would participate, as a member of the EADAG’s resident company, in several of Salvat’s historic stagings

and adaptations of the work of Salvador Espriu (1913-85), a major Catalan writer of the postwar period. Benet played minor roles in Espriu’s Primera historia d’Esther (The Story of Esther, 1948, first performed

by the Agrupaci6 Dramatica de Barcelona in 1957), which premiered at the Romea under Salvat’s direction in 1962; La pell de brau (The Skin of the Bull, 1960), Antigona (Antigone, 1939), staged by Salvat and the EADAG in 1963; and Gent de Sinera (Sinera people, 1963), which was

the embryonic version of what would become the Espriu/Salvat tour de force Ronda de mort a Sinera (Death around Sinera, 1965).!°

With regard to Benet’s aesthetic evolution, one could summarize with the observation that, if his first points of reference were Bertolt Brecht, Buero Vallejo, Espriu, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, and Tennessee Williams, then today they are Beckett, ‘Thomas Bernhard, Mamet, Heiner Miiller, or Pinter. Benet, in effect, is one of very few Catalan playwrights of his generation who has adeptly adjusted and transformed his artistic trajectory according to the most vital aesthetic and political concerns of each particular moment. As Jordi Coca puts it, “Benet has known how to evolve slowly and, at the same time, how to maintain to a sufficient extent a certain aesthetic and ideological complicity with a, perhaps, minority audience, but one that understands him.’’!* In addition to the above-cited playwrights and theatri-

cal traditions, Benet’s continued fondness for the expressions of popular culture that fed his imagination throughout his youth has also filtered its way into his work as a dramatist. Comic books (of which he has been an avid collector) have exerted a particular influence on the conception of his fictional worlds, as well as radio dramas, such as those of Marisa Villaroefrancos and José Marroqui. Benet’s interest in these popular genres led him to develop a penchant for melodrama, a theatrical paradigm that he has repeatedly cultivated, betrayed, undermined, and explored.

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 109

In his memoirs, Benet comments on the persistent feeling of isolation that he experienced during the early period of his career; especially during the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which only seldom did he sense an interest in his work on the part other playwrights of the so-called “Sagarra generation” —the exceptions being Ramon Gomis or Rodolf Sirera.!° ‘The mood was especially difficult during decade of

the 1970s, when the profession of playwriting in Catalunya—and Spain, in general—was widely regarded as a rather bizarre eccentricity. Throughout his career, he has frequently expressed an aspiration to affirm his role in a never-ending chain of renovation and innovation, a longing to be able to validate with certainty that his efforts as a writer will somehow yield continuity with regard to the past and, even more importantly, the future. He offers the following poetic account of this desire to connect with those who preceded him and those who will follow: Salvar-te sol, squin sentit té? Sobreviure en solitari en una illa eternament deserta no en té cap 1, diuen, condueix a la bogeria. Aixi doncs . . . Sentir-te part Vaquest flux, entendre que amb la teva feina tuneixes a un passat que no has viscut 1 4 un futur que no viuras, un passat sense el qual no existiries 0 existiries d’una manera ben diferent, saber que amb aquesta mateixa feina, per intranscendent que sigui, incideixes en un futur que no pots ni imaginar pero en el qual, Valguna manera, la teva suor continuara present."

[Io save youself alone, what sense does that make? ‘Io survive alone on an eternally deserted island doesn’t make any sense and, they say, leads to insanity. So then... Io feel as though you are part of this flow, to understand that with your work you unite yourself to a past that you haven’t lived and to a future that you won’t live, a past without which you wouldn’t exist or you would exist in a very different way, to know that with this very work, for as lacking in transcendence as it may seem, you'll have an effect upon a future that you couldn’t even imagine but in which, in some way, your sweat will continue present. ]

Eventually these preoccupations would materialize under varying guises in the thematic composition of his plays. Such is the case of Testament, in which a literature professor who is terminally ill seeks to prolong his life through an essay that he has written on the medieval

Catalan writer Ramon Llull. Benet’s plays thus plot out a recurrent yearning for spatiotemporal transcendence, a desire to seize that which is elusive or ephemeral. It is a quest for an intangible truth that is often articulated as the pursuit of immortality, an aspiration to prolong life and to project oneself beyond what is quotidian, mundane, or concrete. For Benet, literary creation indeed represents a way through

110 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM which to satisfy this very human craving. The anxiety with regard to continuity permeates each of his plays, including his frequent forays into the realm of children’s theater, such as his Catalan adaptation of the story of Cinderella, La Ventafocs (potser si, potser no) (Cinderella, [perhaps yes, perhaps not]), which premiered at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC) during the winter of 2004. His works convey the existential pain that emanates from the knowledge that, in the grand scheme of things, our mortal existence is but a fleeting instant, and the subtlest of relationships often may be the most significant factors determining the difference between love and hatred, joy and sadness, life and death. Any semblance of solace and comfort frequently derives from a seemingly trivial gesture whose repercussions, paradoxically, are capable of transcending the limits of mortality.

In Benet’s theater, the theme of immortality—that of leaving a

physical, intellectual, and/or artistic imprint upon the mortal world—is inevitably tied to the notion of salvation. Yet, his concerns are not limited to a mere individual or personal level; they are also expressed, even more significantly, in a collective sense. ‘There is in his work, as in his lite a dramatist a persistent preoccupation, even an obsession, with creating an artistic legacy that eventually will bear its own fruits in the form of successive generations: Saber o creure, doncs, que la teva salvacid, si és que res ens salva de res, no pot ser inicament individual, o millor dit, saber que la teva salvacié no sera res si només és individual, que forma una part minima pero concreta de la salvaci6 histOricament momentania d’una cultura determinada, d’un art determinat dintre d’una cultura determinada. . . . Tots aquests sentiments fragils poden constituir, davant el forat buit de la mort, un incert, evident-

ment ridicul consol per caminar al llarg del temps que ens és donat, un consol de debo risible; tanmateix l’tinic que conec.!”

[Io know or to believe, then, that your salvation, if anything can indeed save us from anything, cannot be exclusively individual, or better stated, to know that your salvation won’t be anything if it’s only individual, that it forms a minimum but concrete part of the historically momentary salvation of a specific culture, of a specific art within a specific culture... . All these fragile sentiments may constitute, when confronted with the empty void of death, an uncertain, evidently ridiculous consolation to enable us to live out the time that is given us, a really laughable consolation; nevertheless the only one I know.]

Thus, the idea of transcendence, situated within the context that Benet suggests, would have ramifications in terms of the salvation of an entire culture, specifically, Catalan culture. In this sense, his con-

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET L111

cerns are intricately linked to his Catalan-ness and his Catalanism, to an awareness of the precarious position that his cultural identity and his language occupy in Spain and in the world at large. He is forever mindful of the painful reality that both, for him, are in constant danger

of extinction. Like Mercé Rodoreda (1909-83), a Catalan writer whom he has long admired, and whose novel Mirall trencat (Broken Mirror, 1974) he successfully adapted for television in 2002, he has never written a work of literature in Spanish, nor has he translated his own works into this language. Such translations, where they do exist, have been carried out by the hands of others. It is a deliberate gesture (or nongesture) in defense of the Catalan language and culture, and it instills his work, consequently, with an air of rebellion. Benet i Jornet’s ongoing vindication of his language and cultural identity is inseparable from his equally aggressive defense of the craft of playwriting and the creation of text-based drama in Catalan. During

the 1970s and early 1980s, when a widespread shift transpired in Western theater emphasizing and empowering the figure of the director (a situation that, to a certain degree, remains unchanged), Benet came forward within the public sphere as a fervent advocate on behalf the figure of the playwright. Screenwriter and playwright Rodolf Sirera, a contemporary of Benet, was quite outspoken, as well, in his public vindication of the theater as a literary genre, publishing, on the pages of Serra d’Or, an often-cited article titled “Les miséries de l’autor teatral.”’!* In 1979, Benet published the following poignant reflections in defense of playwriting in his preface to Descripcié d’un paisatge: Pero a les nits somio el vell i bonic teatre a la italiana que em van regalar quan era petit, 1 el dramaturg que pretenc arribar a ser no renunciara als seus drets, nobles i antics, sobre la representaci6 teatral. . . . Fonamentalment, i ara com ara, el text teatral tendira a |’escenari, i |’escenari reclamara un text elaborat pel dramaturg.'’ [But at night I dream about the old and beautiful Italian-style theater that that I was given when I was a child, and the playwright that I intend to become will not renounce his rights, noble and old, to the theatrical representation. ... Fundamentally, and now as ever, the theatrical text will lean toward the stage, and the stage will reclaim a text elaborated by the playwright. |

The difficulties of being an author of text-based drama in Catalunya during the 1970s impelled Benet to begin during this decade what has since become an extremely successful parallel career as a television

screenwriter and producer. Working in conjunction with the public Catalan language television that came into being following Franco’s

112 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM death, he has been responsible for the creation of some of the most popular long-running serial melodramas in the history of television in Spain. These include Poble Nou (which takes its name from a district of Barcelona, 1992-95), Nissaga de poder (Dynasty of power, 1996-98), Laberint d’ombres (Labyrinth of shadows, 1998-99), and Ventdelpla (named for an imaginary village, 2005— ). Poble Nou, comprised of 180 episodes, was, in fact, the first daily television series ever produced in Spanish territory. Curiously, Benet’s move from drama to television, like that of the fraternal team of Josep Lluis and Rodolf Sirera in Va-

lencia, has produced intriguing relationships between the stage and small screen. ‘(he enormous success of television series such as those mentioned here has helped fuel the rise in theater spectatorship in Catalunya. The crossover has engendered a “star system’? composed of some of Barcelona’s finest stage actors, who move regularly from the television screen, to the stage, and back, enticing spectators and “‘fans”’ to move with them. Moreover, given the persistently widespread visibility of television, potential theater spectators have become more apt than ever before to recognize Benet’s name. In addition to his work in television, Benet i Jornet was a member of the faculty of the Institut del ‘Teatre, the historic Barcelona conser-

vatory, from 1974 to 1981. The late 1970s was also the period in which he became engaged in a polemical confrontation with the ‘Teatre Lliure, the major Barcelona repertory theater, established in 1976, which has built its distinguished reputation on productions in Catalan of works from the so-called “universal repertoire.”*° Benet was highly

critical of the scarcity of autochthonous drama in the Lliure’s programming and pointed to an apparent lack of energy and interest on the part of the theater’s eponymous company in cultivating the work of Catalan playwrights. He offers the following recollections regarding the evolution of the Lliure in his memoirs: Durant anys i anys no en van escenificar cap de viu i, només a partir d’un moment determinat, a penes algun de mort o de moribund... . Es a dir, quan deixant de banda un primer espectacle inaugural molt ben presentat pero d’estructura i de dialegs febles, el Lliure va renunciar a la creaci6 col-lectiva i va dedicar els seus esforcos, decididament, al teatre de text en el sentit tradicional del mot, la subsegiient bandejada de la dramattrgia viva del pais, el menyspreu davant d’aquesta, explicitat de forma franca 1 oberta, va esdevenir més espectacularment obvi, i la bufetada va ressonar de manera més aclaparadora. Es tractava de persones competents que estimaven la literatura dramatica i que, precisament per aquest motiu, no estaven disposats a escenificar literatura dramatica catalana. No pas de seguida, diria,

pero si quan el projecte Lliure es va anar consolidant, hi va comengar a haver, sobre la paradoxal qiiestid, articles, aquesta vegada si, declaracions

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 113

contrastades i polémiques als diaris. Hi vaig participar. A la llarga potser no van ser inttils.?!

[For years and years they didn’t stage any living author and, only after a certain moment, scarcely any who were dead or moribund. . . . That is to say, when, aside from a first inaugural production, very well presented but of weak structure and dialogues, the Lliure renounced collective creation and dedicated its efforts, decidedly, to text-based drama in the traditional sense of the word, the subsequent banishment of the living dramaturgy of this country, the disdain for this, made explicit in frank and open form, became more spectacularly obvious, and the slap in the face resonnated in a more crushing manner. It was about competent people who loved dramatic literature and who, precisely for this reason, were not willing to stage Catalan dramatic literature. Not right away, I would say, but when the Lliure’s project began to solidify, there began to appear, with regard to this paradoxical issue, articles, this time yes, contrasting declarations and polemics in the newspapers. I participated. In the long run perhaps it wasn’t ineffectual]

In terms of his own career, Benet did manage to prevail in his lengthy battle with the Lliure. In 1988, through the support of director/designer Fabia Puigserver (1938-91) and director Josep Montanyés (1937-2002), Benet’s play E/ manuscrit d’Ali-Bei premiered at the

theater to great acclaim under Montanyés’s direction. In time, three more successful productions at the Lliure would follow: Az carai! (Well I’m blowed!, 1988), staged by Rosa Maria Sarda in 1989; E.R., staged by Montanyes in 1994; and L’habitacié del nen, staged by Sergi Belbel

in 2003. Shortly after the Lliure’s transformation into a public entity in 1988, Benet garnered a position as a member of the theater’s prestigious Patronat, a board of trustees of approximately sixty members. Yet, notwithstanding the four productions of plays by Benet and a sprinkling of works by other Catalan playwrights, the Lliure, throughout the first three decades of its existence, continued to display a clear penchant for international drama.”? While the creation of the Centre Dramatic de la Generalitat de Catalunya (1981-98) and the ‘Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (1997) provided new public platforms for autochthonous playwrights and engendered a greater balance and variety of repertoires available to Barcelona theater audiences, the polemical atmosphere surrounding the Lliure has never subsided completely, precisely because of its status as a public institution. As a member of the Lliure’s Patronat, Benet lobbied for opportunities for Catalan

drama and dramatists, making strides during the period in which Montanyées served as artistic director (between 2000 and his premature death in 2002). Benet made a discreet exit from the Patronat in 2004,

114 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM but he returned to the board the following year, and his relationship with the Lliure appears to be in a constant state of evolution.’ In his work as artistic director of the theater, Montanyes’s relatively young successor, Alex Rigola, who began his appointment in 2003, has demonstrated signs of increasing sympathy to the cause of Catalan drama, and it even appears as though he and Benet may embark on a new relationship of artistic collaboration in the future. The productions during the mid-1980s of both E/ manuscrit d’Alé Bei (based on the lite of Doménec Badia, a spy during the early nineteenth century for Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Godoy) and Az cara! (Benet 1 Jornet’s first comedy) marked a crucial period in his career. With these two well-received productions at the Lliure under his belt, his work rose to a level of prestige that he had never before experienced. Indeed the success of these two plays at the Lliure would serve as a springboard for new opportunities.”+ One evening, while E/ manuscrit d’Alé Bei was playing at the Llture, a young playwright by the name of Sergi Belbel, still in his early twenties, arrived at the theater with a group of friends and waited after the show to speak with Benet. Not long after this initial encounter, Benet and Belbel coincided once again on an airplane, in which, quite fortuitously, they were seated next to each other as they traveled across the

country to the same speaking engagement. During the flight, Benet, showed Belbel the text that he had brought along to read. Coincidentally, it was Belbel’s Dins la seva memoria (In his memory, 1986). ‘That day, a friendship was born that would soon flourish as one of the most

fertile relationships of creative complicity in the history of the contemporary Catalan stage. About the same time that the production of AZ carai! was completing its successful run at the Lliure in 1988, Doménec Reixach assumed the

role of Artistic Director of the Centre Dramatic de la Generalitat de Catalunya (CDGC). From the CDGC’s center of operations at the Teatre Romea, he established a series of grants with the intention of encouraging the creation and production of new Catalan plays. He asked each playwright participating in the program to engage in collaborative work with a compatible director. In the most likely scenario, a young playwright was paired with an older, more seasoned director, who would serve as a type of mentor. Having seen Benet’s successes at the Lliure, Reixach invited him to develop a new play to be staged at the Romea. When Reixach inquired as to his preference regarding a director, Benet surprised him by expressing an enthusiastic desire to work with Belbel. It was a gesture of unusual modesty, whereby Benet deliberately set the stage to be openly influenced by the vision of a considerably younger artist. The result of this pairing

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 115

was Desig, which premiered at the Romea under Belbel’s direction in 1991. It represented a defining moment in the evolution of text-based drama in Catalunya and Spain, considered a revelation by playwrights in both Barcelona and Madrid. Benet’s ability to rise above generational gaps has positioned him as one of the most influential and internationally recognized contemporary dramatists on the peninsula. He is perpetually attuned to the work of younger artists and has never hesitated to assume the role of mentor to anew generation of playwrights and directors in Barcelona. In addition to his dynamic creative relationship with Belbel, which has continued to thrive for well over a decade, he has surrounded himself with an artistic entourage that includes playwrights Carles Batlle and Jordi

Galceran, director Toni Casares, composers Albert Guinovart and Oscar Roig, as well as costume designer Mercé Paloma. Hence Benet has found, in his collaboration with these artists and others, several sources of creative inspiration and reflection, as well as a multitude of ways through which to channel his interest in the future and the continuity of a Catalan theatrical tradition. APORIAS AND KALEIDOSCOPES

There is an aporetic thrust that drives much of Benet’s most recent work, as he takes us into mysterious realms and empty voids where we may easily lose our footing and have difficulty finding our way. An

atmosphere of mystery encloses a poetic transcription of physical space, whether interior, immaterial, psychic realities, or exterior land-

scapes. [hese spaces are fragile in their conception and often perilously on the verge of slipping away. he epigrammatic titles of some of Benet’s later plays offer us significant clues with regard to his dramaturgy: the theater is, for Benet, a locus of “desire” in which the spectator’s gaze attempts to grasp what is a “fleeting,” image of reality.

Not surprisingly, the image of the kaleidoscope, with its elusive and ever-changing configurations of color and light, surfaces time and again as an apt spatial, temporal, and thematic metaphor.”> ‘The phenomenological bent to Benet’s drama draws attention to the play of perception and subjectivity that is an intrinsic part of the theater. It provides us with unique insight into not only his fictional worlds, but perhaps, also, the inner workings of our own consciousness. Foreman, similarly, conceives the theatrical space as “an environment for the text to explore, a gymnasium for a psychic, spiritual, and physical work-out.” In a move that, in a sense, represents an offshoot of expressionism, what is depicted on stage becomes an exterior reverberation

116 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM or poetic transcription of an inner psychic life. With regard to his own work, Foreman observes, “As the texts of my plays became increasingly fragmented in order to echo the truth of psychic life, I wanted the scenery to do the same.” Despite the apparent stylistic differences,

both Benet and Foreman engage in varying ways of frustrating the spectator’s natural impulse to search for a sense of narrative coherence. They coincide in their interest in implicitly inviting the spectator to let go of his or her inhibitions and be carried away by a free and spontaneous contemplation of the psychic worlds that are portrayed on stage. As one of the anonymous masculine voices comments in Tes-

tament (echoing the words of both the man in Desig and the girl in Fugac), “NVhavia deixat anari... Deixa’t anar. Au, deixa-t’hi anar.””° [I had let myself go and... Let yourself go. Come on, let yourself go. ] Benet 1 Jornet’s phenomenological gaze makes itself increasingly apparent beginning with two plays that he wrote during the late 1970s: Descripcié dun paisatge and La fageda: Apunt sobre la bellesa del temps-2 (The beachwood forest: note on the beauty of time-2, 1977). Descripcié

Wun paisatge premiered in 1979 at the Teatre Romea, where it was staged by Joan Ollé (1955), a young director who had already made a name for himself with two landmark productions in 1977: Dagoll Dagom’s No hablaré en clase (1 won’t speak in class) and Rodolf Sirera’s Plany per la mort d’Enric Ribera (Lament for the death of Enric Ribera, 1972). The cast of Descripcié d’un patsatge included actors Rosa Maria Sarda, Josep ‘Torrents, and Angels Moll. In his column in E/ Pais, the

late ‘Terenci Moix declared the play to be one of the most beautiful and important texts to appear in Catalan in recent years and observed the degree to which it broke with the aesthetic lines that Benet (as well as other dramatists of his generation) had typically followed in the past.?” Specifically, Moix emphasized the degree to which Benet had gone well beyond the popular theatrical modes of earlier works, such as the “crénica de barrio” (neighborhood chronicle) and the “poética de la posguerra” (poetics of the postwar period), exemplified in Una vella coneguda olor and Berenaveu a les fosques: “Benet 1 Jornet ar-

rives, then, at his current work . . . taking a risk with a poetic experi-

ment that is unparalleled by any Catalan author of his generation. Rather than suggest that Benet 1 Jornet is making a break with his own work (an impossible thing as it is a work that is so rich in formulation), we could say that he breaks with the rigid rules that had been govern-

ing our postwar theater and imposes a personal poetic that goes far beyond that of the good posibilista intentions of the work itself.”’* Benet explains in his preface to the published text of Descripcié dun paisatge that, at the end of the decade of the 1970s, his growing dissat-

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 117

isfaction with the apparent rejection of text-based drama that was then brewing in the realm of Catalan theater compelled him to conceive a play that would be completely lacking in stage directions and indications, a text that could be adapted and transformed with radical ease according to the particular vision of each director. “Dintre del possible, i només dintre del possible, voldria per una vegada desaparéixer, amagar-me, no manifestar directament cap proposici6 escénica. Escriure un text. I prou.’’’? [Within what was possible, and only within what was possible, I wanted to disappear for once, hide myself, not manifest directly any scenic proposal. Write a text. And nothing more.] ‘Thus the deliberate gesture of writing a play without stage directions was

not intended to undermine the work of the director, but instead it merely sought to underline the literary value of the dramatic text. In Benet’s text, structured without scenic divisions, the dialogues create a “description of the landscape” and nothing more. There is no action other than that which is evoked through the words of the characters. The title of the play suggests a curious coincidence with Stein’s concept of the “landscape play,” in which time and space are static, rather than progressive. As Kate Davy observes in her vivid description of Stein’s approach, ‘“‘When reading a landscape or picture the eye moves from object to object, perceiving the relationships between individual elements presented simultaneously. In any landscape there are certain features which are always there and the relationships between these features are always, objectively, present.”*° For the spectator who contemplates a landscape play, then, all scenic elements are subjectively determined according to the movement of the eye, and it is likely that one might have the impression that the action is locked in a continuous present. Benet creates a comparable sort of stasis with Descripcié d’un paisatge. Inspired in part by Euripides’s Hecuba, Benet’s piece, which maintains

an air of Greek tragedy throughout, is set in an anonymous Arab country and expresses an attitude of skepticism with regard to political change and the fall of dictatorial regimes.*! ‘The play thus can be read as an allegory of the disenchantment that characterized the culture of

the post-Franco transition, although the possible referents are not necessarily limited to Spain or to any specific period in history. In Descripcié d’un paisatge, the characters of Zahira and Katila, daughters of a political dissenter who was killed in a revolution, have lived in exile

for several years and are granted the opportunity to return to their homeland by the dictatorial Emir who rules the country. Early on in the play, the civil servant (“Funcionari’’) observes the sisters and declares, “L’exili s’ha acabat. =Han quedat immobils elles o és el temps qui ha volgut aturar-se?’’*? [The exile is over. Have they remained im-

118 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM mobile or is it time that has wanted to stop?|] From the beginning, the dialogues, which Benet maintains throughout the play in the present tense, conjure a sensation of stillness and immobility. By the end of Descripcié d’un paisatge, a situation of moral ambiguity and incertitude emerges with regard to the meaning of justice. Political change is depicted as a corrupt, duplicitous notion in that it is shown to be more static and superficial than it might at first seem; consequently, the suggestion of a continuous present materializes not only in terms of form and structure, but also in terms of theme. The play is framed by two nearly identical declarations on the part of Bassir, Zahira’s former lover, who has been blinded in a gruesome act of vengeance. As the play opens, he exclaims with irony, “Zahira, tinc davant meu el paisatge!”? [Zahira, I have the landscape before me!] His final words are, “Zahira, estic distinguint cadascun dels colors del paisatge.’’*+ [Zahira, I’m making out each of the colors of the landscape.] Viewed within the context of Benet’s interest in the inexorability of the theatrical word, the affirmations of the blind man who, paradoxically, is able to see—and even distinguish all the colors of the landscape—become an implicit commentary on the capacity of the word to conjure all scenic elements. The title Descripcié d’un paisatge also can be regarded an echo of, or allusion to, a play titled Landscape (1967) by Pinter, a dramatist whose influence has been crucial to Benet’s artistic formation. According to Enric Gallén, Benet experienced a fundamental reacquaintance with Pinter’s literary production around the year 1976, when a new volume of plays by the British dramatist was published in Spanish in the collection “Libros de Teatro” (Theater books) of the series ‘“Cuadernos para el Didlogo” (Notebooks for dialogue). ‘The volume contained Pinter’s Landscape, as well as The Room (1957), A Slight Ache (1958), A

Night Out (1959), The Dwarfs (1960), The Caretaker (1959), Silence (1968), and Night School (1960). La fageda is a brief text that, like Descripcié d’un paisatge, is composed

entirely of dialogue and is lacking in didascalia. In the short note that serves as a prologue to the first published version of the text (here, titled simply Apunt sobre Ia bellesa del temps-2), Benet coyly hints, with-

out naming names, that he was writing under the influence of “an Anglo-Saxon playwright.” Consequently, one can easily infer that there is a Pinterian precedent here, as well.*° In addition, Gallén has underlined the extent to which Benet has openly recognized that La fageda represents an embryonic version of Desig. It presents a perplexing conversation between two nameless male characters after one of them experiences a disturbing incident while traveling along a mysterious road. Whether or not the two men have ever met before is not

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET 119

entirely clear. Referring to La fageda, which enjoyed a belated premiere at the Sala Beckett in 1990 under Belbel’s direction (a kind of practice exercise leading up to Desig), Benet explains: “Es tractava precisament, de no explicar cap historia. Que n’hi hagués una, perd que no hi accedissim.”’*’ [It was precisely about not telling any story. That

there was one, but that we not give in to it.]). In observing the thematic and structural coincidences between La fageda and Desig, Gallén indicates that the two plays propose “a profound and tense human incommunicability.’°* La fageda, like Desig, invokes an atmosphere of

mystery, in which a metaphoric relationship is suggested between physical space and another immaterial, invisible, psychic reality. Benet’s contemporary, post-Franco dramaturgy is populated with plays bearing compact, pithy, Pinterian titles, such as Desig, Fugac, Testament, and the more recent Salamandra. Here, space and time are trequently constituted as projections or extensions of interior landscapes,

at once fluctuating and disturbing. ‘This tendency arises in marked contrast with the politically committed theater of dictatorial times, in which Benet and other playwrights of his generation, writing under the influence of Brechtian epic design, would often encourage a critical, detached gaze on the part of the spectator, that of a perceiving subject that would contemplate the dramatic situation from a psycho-

logical, spatial, or temporal distance. Rather than propose, in a Brechtian manner, a series of ideological reflections with regard to a collective group or mass, Benet, writing during democratic times, proposes a more inwardly directed gaze, encouraging the spectator to reflect upon an “individualized” or “interior” world.*? One can perceive in Benet’s trajectory, then, a shift in focus that begins to emerge subtly during the late 1970s and materializes fully during the late 1980s (in part, the result of his creative complicity with Belbel).*° It is a move from exterior to interior, and from objectivity to subjectivity. This transformation in Benet’s theatrical writing can also be regarded as an expression of what Stanton Garner terms a special interest in the fluctuating “dynamics of vision,” which emerge in

the contemporary theatrical avant-garde (beginning with Beckett) (36). In his profound and thoughtful volume titled Bodied Spaces, Garner underscores the extent to which theatrical space is a function of a multifaceted “game of orientation and positionality” involving spectator, actor, and/or character (48).*! According to this scheme, the “field of performance,” is regarded as a doubly coded zone that brings into play a type of “experiential duality”: it is an objectified “scenic space”’ that can be contemplated with a sense of detachment, and it is also a subjectified “environmental space” that is “bodied forth” by the actors who occupy it. The body, in its varying positions, in this sense, func-

120 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM tions as the origin of the process of perception. Theatrical space is revealed to be a phenomenal space, whose limits are constituted as a function of the bodies that inhabit it, and where the categories of subject and object are locked in a constant and fluctuating relationship of mutual implication.

‘Phenomenological space,” as Garner summarizes, “is oriented space.” The phenomenological attitude does not attempt to offer a

universalizing, objective, all-encompassing vision of theatrical space—or the world—in its totality. Such would be the view of God,

according to the terminology of Edmund Husserl. ‘Theater that is phenomenological in its approach investigates, instead, the changes in perception and subjectivity according to a local standpoint and local instance. [hese are the same moment-to-moment fluctuations in per-

ception that have captivated both Foreman and Benet i Jornet. In Desig, as we shall see, there is a fundamental preoccupation with the body as agent and focalizer of the theatrical experience and, by metaphoric extension, the world at large.

DEsIé If Benet’s theatrical space is a locus of desire upon which the gaze attempts to apprehend an image that is momentary and fleeting, then, in Desig, this locus of desire is also an erotic (or eroticized) space of frustrated and unobtainable love. Here, the body emerges as an elusive object of desire, impossible to grasp. As noted above, Desig, written in

1989, premiered at the Teatre Romea, under Belbel’s direction in 1991 and has been one of Benet’s most award-winning plays to date. The premiere production included Angels Poch as “She” (“Ella’’), Lluis Soler as the husband (“El Marit’), Josep M. Pou as the man (“L’home’’), and Imma Colomer as the woman (‘La Dona’’), with a set design by Joaquim Roy, costumes by Ana Garay, and music by Oscar Roig—all artists who would continue to collaborate with Benet

in future productions. In addition to Barcelona, Benet has seen his play premiere in Madrid (1992); Bonn (1994); and Arlington, Virginia (near Washington, D.C.) (2004). During the summer of 1997, Desig was staged in French by Pierre Chabert in both Perpignan and Barce-

lona (at the Sala Adria Gual of the Institut del Teatre), with Marisa Berenson in the role of the woman. It is, perhaps, no accident that Chabert, who is known for his stagings of Beckett, would have taken a special interest in the play. His production of Déstr marked the debut of Benet in France.* The rave reviews that appeared in the wake of the premiere of Desig

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET 121

in Barcelona corroborate its substantial impact as a watershed production that forged new ground in the history of Catalan drama and was considered unique in terms of artistic innovation. The brilliant team of Benet-author and Belbel-director had proven itself to be a potent combination, ablaze with creativity, capable of taking dramatic realism to its limits. Benet had thus made history once again within the walls of the Romea (and, by extension, within the walls of the Centre Dra-

matic de la Generalitat). On the opening night, the future of textbased drama in Catalunya seemed especially promising and bright. Sagarra describes the premiere of Desig as an unforgettable occasion, re-

ferring to the evening as: “One of those nights at the Romea that made, as they usually say, history.”’ He goes on to note that, “Desire begins its trajectory on stage with all the nominations: best text, best show, best direction, best acting, of each and every one of them, best scenic design, best music, best lighting. . . . One, I repeat, can’t help but feel very content, very grateful.” Marcos Ord6fiez uses a quasi-mathematical equation to title his review of the play, highlighting the extent to which all the members of the production team had come together in perfect harmony: “Benet

+ Belbel + Angels Poch + Pou + Lluis Soler + Imma Colomer = Pure theatre.”” He also makes particular reference to the similarities between Benet and Pinter, a comparison that was bound to rouse attention in Catalunya, where international drama regularly occupies a position of prestige: Desire, by Josep Maria Benet 1 Jornet, having premiered the night before last at the Romea under the direction of Sergi Belbel, is not only, in my judgment, the best play by our best playwright (and the bravest, and the most intense, and the most daring) but one of the best works that I have seen in a long time, light years away from those postmodern stupidities that they sell us with the label of newness. . . . If a clever hand were to present this show in London and were to say that this is, let’s say, the latest from Pinter, ’m willing to bet everything that all the critics would proclaim that Pinter hadn’t given us such a well-rounded piece of theater since The Homecoming (1965).

In Desig, a five-part drama of rigorous structure and symmetry, the action is established in an abyss situated between desire and reality.**

Benet creates a series of minimalist, mysterious, phantasmagoric spaces, governed by the omnipresence of desire and, paradoxically, the

presence of that which is lacking or absent. These are absences that, in a manner evocative of Beckett, are filled with meaning. Practically devoid of scenic architecture, populated by a minimum quantity of ob-

122 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM jects associated with the realm of quotidian mundaness (some tools, a table, a telephone, a compact car, a few cups of coffee), they are places of darkness and shadows, of silences and pauses, of signs that appear to yearn for their corresponding referents. A recently purchased country house, an empty highway (similar to that which appeared in La fageda), and a roadside self-service cafeteria (or diner) all serve as points of rendezvous and spaces of nothingness. Within these empty spaces navigate four generically identified beings. A husband and his wife (“She”) are spending some time at their weekend country house. ‘They are a couple in their forties (she has just

recently turned forty, to be precise), and they have two daughters. Their home is situated in a somewhat isolated area—the description of rural winding roads and intermittent villages being somewhat evocative of the Emporda region of the province of Girona, where Benet, himself, has a residence. “She” finds herself perplexed and disorientated by the strange and repeated behavior of the telephone: it rings, the husband answers it, and the person on the line asks for her, but by the time he hands her the receiver there is no longer anybody on the line. “She”’ finds herself even more bewildered by another strange occurrence, which she recounts to her husband. On three separate days, she has ventured out in her compact car to buy some groceries. On the two most recent occasions that she has made the trip, she has come upon the same man, stopped alongside the same place on the road, with the same broken-down vehicle. Neither of the two mysteries— that of the telephone nor that of the man and his automobile—is ever completely resolved for the spectator, although one is invited to suspect that they are somehow interrelated. ‘The audience, nevertheless, does bear witness to her fourth journey down the same road. This time the man is there once again, and although she is anxious and confused, she decides to confront the object of her fears. She pulls over to offer the stranger help, and following an uneasy conversation with the man, she agrees to drive him to a roadside self-service cafeteria so that he can call to have his car serviced. ‘There they meet up with a mysterious woman, whose presence does not appear to be completely accidental.

The characters emerge as “opaque” silhouettes, as Batlle would have it, drawn with fine, imprecise lines.*° Benet has observed that it’s a play about human emotions.* Their yearnings, anxieties, unfulfilled desires, and passions are revealed through alternating “exterior” dia-

logues and “interior” monologues.*’ There are four monologues in all, one corresponding to each of the characters, and they appear at the end of each of parts 1 through 4. ‘They are elaborated in a space of darkness, in which only the speaker’s face is illuminated, thus faintly

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 123

recalling the famous mouth of Beckett’s Not I (1972). The monologues offer the spectator a series of diffuse details about the interior reality

of each character, while the dialogues, in turn, appear to cover up or render more opaque this interior reality. Here, there is a melodramatic undercurrent that is subverted in the sense that the threads of

mystery and dramatic conflict are never completely resolved or stitched together. ‘The characters, it would seem, are trapped in a continuous present, dominated by their hopes and memories of love. ‘The man’s face is the first to emerge in the darkness: Aquesta tarda, de nou una tarda meravellosa. I el fred humit als ossos. Fred, és espléndid saber que fa fred. Saber. Sense bufanda. La bellesa sense excuses que encara es pot veure,

sentir, olorar ... Que no ha de durar. El Paradis no durara. Lliurat a les tenebres exteriors, allf on no hi ha res. Ni tans sols dolor o enyoranga. Encara no. De moment, no. Ser aqui. Aqui, esperant. Ara, la teva feina. Li prens la ma, l’animes, I’empenys. iPer qué no? Aixi hi ha una feina a fer. En el curs d’aquesta tarda meravellosa, d’aquests ultims dies espléndids.

Entendre, sobretot, aquest fred humit que es fica als ossos, que estremeix el teu cos malalt.

La malaltia.... *

[This afternoon, once again a marvellous afternoon. And the damp cold in your bones. Cold, how splendid it is knowing it’s cold. Knowing. Without a scarf. Beauty without excuses that you still can see,

hear, smell... That should not last. Paradise will not last. Freed to the exterior shadows, where there is nothing. Not even pain or longing. Not yet. At the moment, no. Being here.

124 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Here, waiting. Now, your job. You take the hand, you excite, you urge. Why not? So there’s a job to be done. During this spectacular afternoon, these final wonderful days.

Understanding, above all, this damp cold that gets into your bones, that makes your sickly body shiver. The illness. ]

In the revealing fragments of monologue that are reproduced here, the man indicates that he has some sort of task to carry out: “la teva feina.”’ His use of the second person can be interpreted as a reference to the woman, with whom he appears to have a special complicity in carrying out the task or endeavor. The relationship between the man and the woman is not entirely clear (wife, lover, and/or companion), although, in their conversation at the conclusion of part 3, he pledges his willingness to help her, and they allude to a shared home. His monologue also suggests that he may be terminally ill. ‘Time is running out, and these are his final days. He exudes a typically Benetian element of pathos, in that he is eminently conscious of his own mortality. One can presume from the monologue and later dialogues that he is motivated by a desire to bring meaning to his life, to transcend all that is trivial and inconsequential by assisting the woman in her task. One can also conclude that the man is on a mission to intervene pre-

meditatedly in order to reunite the woman with “Her” after many years of separation. His desire, in effect, may be that of fulfilling the woman’s desire.

In the Washington-area production, directed by Paul Donnelly, costume designer Katherine Williamson accentuated the roles of the characters through the use of color: the woman (played by Laurie Sherman) was dressed in a captivating red suite, while the man (played by Anthony van Eyck) was dressed in black from head to toe, including a black trench coat.*? ‘Thus, red was equated with desire; black, with

death. Sound designer Jeff Kellum used music to punctuate the play with an ironic, melodramatic subtext. Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” (from The Gay Divorcé, with Fred Astaire) was played at the beginning of the show. Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart’s Blue Moon was used in part 3 as the blaring music during the cafeteria scene. (Chabert, in contrast, used the song “Don’t Speak,” by the rock group No Doubt,

for the same scene). Donelly and Kellum injected the performance with an element of camp, piping through the theater the familiar re-

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 125

cording of a saxophone playing Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love

You” (the arrangement performed by Whitney Houston for the soundtrack of her film The Bodyguard) at the moment that “She” aban-

dons the woman, near the end of the cafeteria scene. Vincent Worthington’s set design divided the stage into four contiguous spaces that were in constant, simultaneous view of the audience: a table and some objects carved out of wood, downstage right, signifying the country

house; a mound, upstage right, upon which the characters perform their monologues; the entire front chassis of a Mercedes automobile, downstage left, signifying the man’s car; and a platform, upstage left, containing a table and chairs, signifying the space of the cafeteria. Roy’s set for Belbel’s production was also designed in a nonrealist vein that used a relatively empty space. ‘The front chassis of a car was used to denote the man’s vehicle. Moving beams of light, such as those

that would be created by the movement of headlights, conjured the presence of the vehicle belonging to ‘Her.’ The man waits for “Her,” the woman waits for the man (and, by extension, for ‘“‘Her’’), the husband waits for “Her,” “She” waits for the man (and, by extension, for the woman). ‘Their disembodied words

float through the air. ‘heir desires and memories of elusive or failed passions, separated from their physical origins, are projected upon the empty space. According to the phenomenological perspective, the characters are also performative subjects that seem to chisel, carve out, and thus give body and form to the space through their live and imme-

diate presence. In effect, a chisel belonging to the husband is one of the objects occupying the space. During the play, he uses it to carve a wooden object, which, in Donnelly’s production, was aptly revealed to be the body of a woman. In a parallel manner, the empty road where “She” encounters the

man three times and the telephone that rings mysteriously (even though there seems to be nobody on the line) become subjective receptacles for the emotions, yearnings, and anxieties that emanate from the characters. Belbel speaks of the relationship of mutual implication between character and space when he observes: Era com si en lloc d’haver creat personatges amb cara i ulls (amb nom 1 cognoms) dins d’una habitacid perfectament dibuixada 1 completament versemblant, s’>hagués preocupat més de construir no només ’espai que els envolta, sind /’Espai (que els condueix, que els fa dir el que diuen i fer el que fan).°!

[It was as though instead of having created characters with faces and eyes (with first and last names) in a room that was perfectly sketched and completely true to life, he had been more concerned with constructing not only

126 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM the space that surrounds them, but the Space (which guides them, which makes them say what they say and do what they do.)]

Coinciding with Belbel’s point of view, Batlle comments: L’espai dramatic determina |’esséncia i Paccid dels protagonistes els explica. De fet, el lector constata aquest determinisme en tant que percep Pespai a través dels ulls dels personatges. . . . L’espai, inexorablement, retorna els personatges al lector, com un mirall: és la impressi6 crua d’una subjectivitat extrema.” [The dramatic space determines their essence and the action of the protagonists explains who they are. In fact, the reader confirms this determinism to the extent that he/she perceives the space through the eyes of the characters. [he space, inexorably, brings the characters back to the reader, like a mirror: it is the crude impression of an extreme subjectivity. |

Similarly, the contours of the characters, since they are, in effect, comparable to opaque silhouettes, are also made apparent through their relationships with other characters. ‘They are constructed as though they were fleeting, ephemeral, intangible phenomena within a kaleidoscopic world of mirrors, whose portrayal of reality is based on an oscillating system of mutual dependence and reciprocity. The subjectivity and focalization through which the scenic space is defined frustrate any attempt on the part of the spectator to acquire an all-encompassing perspective of the world that is presented on stage. [he spectator is only offered transitory visions of reality; subjective, partial, and even conflicting, comparable to the elusive and fleeting images that Foreman cultivates. Like astronomical bodies, or asteroids, the characters collide in space, in time, and in the universe in a manner that appears at first glance to be purely aleatory and arbitrary. Contemplated from another perspective, however, these same beings seem to travel in preestablished orbits, in such a way that their eventual encounter might somehow be the product of an atmosphere of determinism that imbues the stage. ‘The external world that unfolds before our eyes in Desig only exists as a function of that which is internal; it is only made present through its relationship with the immanent reality of the characters. During part 3, the man leaves the two women alone in the cafeteria.

The woman then recounts the story of a love affair with a so-called ‘person in question,” which occurred approximately seventeen or eighteen-years earlier. Ihe woman describes for “Her” the bedroom in which she and this mysterious person engaged in an intimate encounter and recalls the presence of three distinct objects: a mirrored

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 127

dresser, a child’s clock, and crocheted quilt. Curiously, even though several years have passed, the woman is still in love with the “person in question”’:

El lit no era molt gran. Hi havia un armari mirall petit, antic, de fusta negra. Hi havia un rellotge de criatura, amb una figureta, que movia els ulls a ritme dels segons, i que tenia les busques per bracos. Recordo el tictac d’aquell rellotge, la vanova arrugada que havia caigut a terra, la nostra imatge a través de l’armari mirall. Me’n recordaré sempre.” [The bed was not very large. There was an old mirrored cupboard, antique, black wood. ‘There was a child’s clock, with a figurine that moved its eyes with the rhythm of the seconds, and that had clock hands for arms. I remember the tick-tock of that clock, the rumpled quilt that had fallen on the floor, our image reflected in the mirrored cupboard. I shall always remember it.]

Might “She” be the “person in question”? ‘This is the open-ended question that Benet’s text seems to want to ask. At the end of the play, in part 5, there is a revealing moment in which the two women remain alone on stage, having been reunited once again, after a fourth and final “chance’’ encounter between the man and “Her” along the roadway. “She” holds a chisel, which she has taken from her husband’s set of tools, and in an effort to reject or to defend herself against the past, she lets the weapon fall in such a way that it injures the woman’s arm.

As Sagarra observes, the gesture represents a form of homage to nineteenth-century Catalan playwright Angel Guimera (1845-1924). At the end of Terra baixa (Marta of the Lowlands, 1897), Guimera’s clas-

sic and canonical tragicomedy, Manelic, the embodiment of untamed masculine sensuality and desire, injures Marta’s arm with a knife. Benet’s scene could be taken to be a kind of lesbian reversal of the conflicting feelings surrounding the romance between Marta and Manelic in Guimera’s play: “In that scene, a lesbian scene, of extraordinary

power, Benet connects with the great tradition of our theater: he awakens and lets loose on the stage the ghosts—and what ghosts!—of the greatest Catalan playwright, in a very distinct tone, but, I repeat, with the same power. Benet’s wink of the eye to Catalan theater, this

embrace with Guimera after almost 100 years . . . is something that acquires a very profound, very deep meaning for me, and it impels me to jump up from my seat and applaud.”** Sagarra is quick to link this intertextual allusion to Guimera with Benet’s self-conscious preoccupation with perpetuating a Catalan theatrical tradition. With this key scene, Benet indeed has succeeded in inserting himself into this historical trajectory.

128 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM “She” eventually moves nearly offstage and vomits from either anxiety or the sight of the woman’s blood, and when “She” returns, the

woman wipes “Her” lips with a handkerchief. After regaining her composure, “She” reiterates the three key objects that were recalled earlier by the woman: “l’armari, el rellotge i la vanova”®> [the cupboard, the clock, and the quilt]. ‘These are the final words of dialogue

in Desig, and with them, “She” leads the spectator to suspect that “She” may indeed be the “person in question.” If the task that the man has set out to accomplish was to facilitate a reunion between two women, then he has been successful in his endeavor. The final scene, however, does not necessarily provide closure with regard to the notion of desire, for the fragments that insinuate from multiple perspec-

tives and angles a possible amorous relationship between the two women create an indeterminate visual portrait. We never see, for instance, the image of that last kiss that we are so accustomed to witnessing in traditional melodramas. Both Belbel and Chabert underscored this subtle but significant condition in their mises en scéne of the play.

At the end of the final scene of each production, darkness fell at the precise moment in which the women appeared to be just about to embrace or to kiss each other on the lips. What emerges in Desig, therefore, is an aesthetic based upon the notion of impermanence: reality slips away; it gradually vanishes. We are only able to capture a succession of transitory, elusive instants and segments of reality, perceived from numerous fluctuating perspectives.

FUGAC

Fugac, whose title alludes to this aesthetic of impermanence, ts, like Desig, a play in which elements of form enter into direct complicity with the thematic material. ‘The three acts that comprise Fuga have as their central axis the disconcerting existential dilemma suggested by an incestuous relationship between a father and daughter. This relationship serves as a point of departure for an ontological meditation with regard to the fine evanescent line that defines our existence (to be or not to be) and our most intimate relationships (to love or not to love). Written between 1990 and 1992, Fuga¢ premiered in February 1994 at the Teatre Romea (CDGC) under the direction of Rosa Maria Sarda (who had already staged Benet’s Az, Caraz! at the Lliure). Sergi Belbel served as assistant director tor the Barcelona production, which included Pep Cruz in the role of the doctor (“Metge’’) and Meritxell Sabater in the role of his daughter (generically referred to in the text

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET 129

as the girl” [“Noia’’]). A Russian version of the play was produced in Moscow that same year, and a decade later, in April 2004, a reading of

Marion Peter Holt’s translation of the play, Fleeting, was staged in New York City by Melanie Sutherland at the Martin E. Segal Center for the Performing Arts (City University of New York). In November 2004, Hervé Petit staged a French translation, titled Pugaces, prepared by French-Catalan playwright Michel Azama, to widespread acclaim at the Théatre L’Etoile du Nord in Paris.*® “A tragic vision of daily lite” was the epithet repeatedly employed by the Barcelona press in describing Benet i Jornet’s play on the occasion of the 1994 premiere.*’ Critics generally concurred that this was his most daring work to date. Ord6fiez praised his exploration of the darkest dimensions of the human experience and the limits of taboo and transgression. He also noted a lack of sufficient appreciation of Benet’s work in Catalunya, alluding to a frequent, yet rather provincial and self-deprecating, tendency on the part of Barcelona critics to offer more generous laudatory words to playwrights from other countries than to autochthonous dramatists (an allusion to the so-called Catalan autoodi (self-hatred) with which Benet was already well acquainted): Yow’re very good, Pepitu, damn you, and too modest because they haven’t

told it to you enough, because in this damned country these things are never told enough to an artist, because you’re from here, from home. That’s why you will allow me to say it to you one more time, and I’m saying it to you, readers: Benet i Jornet is our greatest playwright and Fleeting is even more difficult after the challenge (and success) of Desire; Fleeting is another magnificent moving tragedy that you have to see and applaud; that has to be seen (and will be seen) on Spanish (how about with Emma Sudrez) and European stages.**

If Fugag is audacious in terms of its subject matter, it is also quite bold in its subversion of traditional dramatic paradigms. Although the diegetic thread of Mugag is more clearly delineated for the spectator than that of Desig, this is not to say that the textual construction is simplistic in the least. Benet employs a tripartite design but dispenses with the tightly woven plot structure of the typical “well-made play” (i.e., introduction of conflict—development—resolution). He works against the grain of theatrical convention by alternating between a naturalistic mode tinged with elements of melodrama (in acts 1 and 3) and a tragic-poetic mode (in act 2). The action occurs along two spatial planes on a single summer evening. Acts 1 and 3 portray a dinner party as it progresses within the interior quotidian space of a typical bourgeois residence. Act 2 is situated in the expansive exterior landscape of another family home where a doctor has a tragic encounter

130 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM with his daughter. Under a star-filled night sky, they converse and engage in sexual relations, after which he gives her sleeping pills and injects her with a substance that kills her instantly. He then suffocates himself to death. The shift in register, from bourgeois naturalism to poetic tragedy and back, creates the effect of an emotionally unnerving situation for the spectator, filled with unexpected twists and turns. At the staged reading of the play in New York in 2004, the audience, in general, appeared quite surprised and riveted, as what had begun as a seemingly benign naturalist play rapidly veered into the realm of dark tragedy, transforming itself into a powerful work with Sophoclean and Euripidean overtones.

The spatial alternation between interior and exterior, which Petit highlights in his program notes for the Parisian production, is a reflection of the thematic contrast between the ordinary domestic concerns portrayed in acts 1 and 3 and the extraordinary circumstances of act 2, which occur on a more lyrical-poetic plane: ‘““Then the shift of

the second act. Suddenly the open space of the starry night, which takes us out of the domestic and social confines of the first act, as though the scope of the drama to come could only be manifested in such a setting. The intimacy, although still restrained, is there, straight off, and from the beginning a bit clandestine. Alone under the starry

vaulted sky. The writing has taken on life, it become more vibrant, lyrical.” ‘The interior concrete space of acts 1 and 3 thus serves as a kind of frame for the more abstract realities that emerge in the exterior expanse of the night sky, an infinite space of darkness, akin a black hole, where inner psychic realties become discernible. The anonymous father, generically known as the doctor, serves as the connecting thread between the two planes, as he is the only character who appears in both the first and second acts. Additionally, the

sky, which the doctor (and Benet, in his stage directions) describes using the figurative expression “la volta del cel” (the vault of the heavens), functions as a unifying element for the two spaces. Both places,

in a sense, fall under the same sky, for they represent, in typically Benetian fashion, two distinct visions of a single expansive realm. As Benet indicates in his program notes for the production at the Romea, he conceived the structure as a series of three blocks, the first and third constituting somewhat autonomous entities, and the third forming a kind of epilogue, in which “tot, per preséncia o abséncia es barreja i es justifica” [everything, by virtue of its presence or absence, is mixed and

justified]. The temporal logic of the play, therefore, is such that the action of the second act (in which the audience bears witness to incest, murder, and suicide) is simultaneous with that of the third act. Conse-

quently, Benet’s play with absence and presence occurs during the

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 131

final act, or epilogue, in terms of the visibility/invisibility of the doctor

and his daughter. ‘The other characters carry on with their dinner party, unaware of the tragic events that are taking place at the other

house. As in Desig, the scenic space of Fugac is subjectively modified and

nuanced by the presence of desire and the intervention of pleasure. Furthermore, like Desig, Fugac is a key work in Benet’s ongoing exami-

nation of the theme of mortality and the innate desire for transcendence. In his review of the play, Orddofiez aptly describes the love between the doctor and his daughter as “a fatal love, the pain of cowardice, the pain of limits.’°? Pain emerges here as a natural consequence of the doctor’s defiance of boundaries, which he transgresses and propels forward. Benet injects the incest theme with an element of pathos that is akin to its treatment within the tradition of classical tragedy. The text implicitly begs the spectator to view the doctor according to an ambivalent code of mercy, to refrain from judgment and contemplate his flaws with a sense of pity, in the Aristotelian sense. Referring to this compellingly tragic element of pity, Petit quotes in his program notes a fragment of correspondence from Benet, in which the playwright makes a single plea to the director concerning his preparation of the Parisian mise-en-scéne: “Seulement .. . je te demande pitié pour le docteur. Pas compréhension, pas justification, si tu veux. Mais, a la

fin, un petit morceau de pitié pour le monstre.” [Only . . . I ask that you take pity on the doctor. Not understanding, not justifications, if you will. But, in the end, a tiny morsel of pity for the monster.] In a similar vein, Sagarra observes that /ugag demonstrates Benet’s abundant gen-

erosity toward other human beings. Such generosity, particularly toward the “monstrous” character of the doctor, naturally implies an element of risk. “Risk that is a given .. . as a result of the incursion that the author makes . . . into the territory of great tragedy. ‘Tragedy, with capital letters: incest, infanticide and suicide.” As the drama progresses, the incest motif takes on meaning as a wide-ranging metaphor for transgression, in that it creates a striking crisis of distinctions with regard to social and cultural boundaries.*! By interrogating the limit, transgression is able to defy the realm of order and reason, opening the way to a universe of excess, free of denial. For

Michel Foucault, this interrogation represents a search for totality. “Transgression,” he declares, “‘opens onto a scintillating and constantly affirmed world, a world without shadow or twilight, without that serpentine ‘no’ that bites into fruits and lodges their contradictions at their core.’ For the doctor in Fugag, the incursion into forbidden territory and the aspiration to go beyond what is permitted (or considered culturally acceptable) is a vehicle for achieving transcen-

132 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM dence. Within this context, the play becomes a space for reflection with regard to a set of disturbing contradictions that Benet unearths in contemplating the notion of parental love and the relationship between human beings and their offspring. During the first act, the longest section of the play, a group of six friends and family members gathers for dinner on a summer evening at a typical bourgeois home. It is also the wedding anniversary of a young woman (“Dona Jova’’), played by Lluisa Castell in the premiere production, and a young man (“Fill’’), played by Joel Joan. But, before

they sit down to eat, the hostess (““Mestressa’’) and mother of the young man, played by Mercé Comas in the premiere production, introduces her dinner guests to a special table that “dances” and that, when used properly, possesses magical clairvoyant powers. In a curious session of spiritualism, which proves to be more than mere entertainment, she offers them an encounter with the supernatural. ‘The table, as she recalls, has long occupied a significant place within her family as a means of bringing to the surface any hidden problems, rage-provoking issues, or desires that may exist: “Seiem junts 1 haurieu

hagut d’espiar amb quina fe ens ho preniem. La taula es posava en dansa. Recordo aquella emoci6. Preguntavem. De seguida sortien els nostres problemes, les nostres enrabiades o els nostres desigs.’’® [We would sit together and you should have seen with your own eyes the kind of faith we had in it. The table would begin to dance. I remember the excitement. We would ask a question. Suddenly our problems, our

annoyances, our desires would come to light.] Through a series of knocks that the table makes in accordance with an alphanumeric code

(A=1, B=2...), the séance that ensues prophetically reveals who among those invited to the house is presently experiencing the greatest degree of pain. It is the doctor. He suffers, according to the table, because of a mysterious love affair with somebody other than his wife. The séance, in this manner, plays a premonitory role in the play, as it helps establish the principal conflict and provides the spectator with a series of clues regarding subsequent events. In addition to this role, the séance takes on a metatheatrical function in illustrating the conditions of Benet’s phenomenological gaze. The magical table is a literal expression of how the phenomenal space of the theater is subjectified and modified by the physical presence and perception of human bodies. As an element of the material, exterior world, the table is bodied forth. It is an object that undergoes a process of subjectification, and even personification, as it takes on and reflects the dilemmas and desires of the characters. In this case, the table’s “dance” is converted into an emotional portrait, a mirror of the doctor’s anguish and suffering.

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 133

During the third act, the character known as the friend (“‘Amic’’), a young sculptor (played by Jordi Boixaderas in the premiere production) who has just been selected for a prestigious award, speaks of the distinction between love (which is fleeting) and the stone sculptures

that he creates with his own hands (which are permanent). It is another figurative expression of the dialectic between the intangible real-

ity of human emotion and the material world of objects, whereby human beings chisel and carve out their own space through their physical presence. [he friend declares: Que l’amor, per mi, és un assumpte rapid, que passa i que no deixa rastre. Deu ser alguna deficiéncia meva, alguna pe¢a que he tingut espatllada desde sempre. Pero a canvi, no sé si a canvi, tinc els objectes que surten dels meus dits. Les meves obres, vaja. . . . Jo, tot sol, i la matéria amb la qual treballo. ... Aquestes formes que acabaran suportant la pluja i el vent entre les quatre herbes d’un jardi de la ciutat, o que, en un racé de la casa, serviran perqué algui hi descansi la mirada . . . I jo ja no hi seré.* [Love, for me, is an ephemeral matter, which passes by and doesn’t leave a trail. It must be a weakness of mine, some part of me that has always been broken. But on the other hand, I don’t know if on the other hand, I have

the objects that emerge from my fingers. My work, that is... . Me, all alone, and the materials that I work with. .. . The figures that will end up tolerating the rain and wind among the four plants of a city garden, or that, in a corner of the house, will function as a place for someone to rest his gaze ... And I won’t be there anymore. ]

The friend’s observations are reminiscent of the husband’s woodcarvings in Desig. The art of sculpture thus emerges as a metaphor for the

process through which bodies give form to theatrical space. The sculpture may be a permanent, fixed object, but its essence will always

depend upon the gaze that traps or rests upon it. It is also an expression of a reality perceived and determined by the sculptor, a reality that will be, following his death, the only fragment, shred, or testament of his fleeting mortal existence. In Fugac, Benet resuscitates the image of the kaleidoscope, which first appeared in his play Berendaveu a les fosques, and he employs it as a

metaphoric expression of that which is transitory. As Mariateresa Cattaneo shrewdly observes, the kaleidoscope, with its prismatic effects and “temporal refractions,” plays a key structural role in Benet’s artistic trajectory. It reflects “the taste for hidden meanings, for imprecise situations, diffused by the change of perspectives, in sum the indeter-

minacy of a scene without limits of place or time and, sometimes, without boarders between the real and the fictitious”® Benet’s expres-

134 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM sion of a kaleidoscopic reality is a fitting reflection of the phenomenological attitude, which attempts to contemplate objects from multiple perspectives, picking them up and spinning them “with one’s mind,”

in order to contemplate them from different angles. Exemplifying this notion is a key moment of the second act, in which the daughter, situated in an exterior area, such as a porch of her family’s home, is searching for shooting stars. She recalls the kaleidoscope that, at an earlier moment in time, her father/lover gave to her as a gift: No volia adonar-me que només és un joc de tres vidres 1 m’embadocava amb el canvi de les formes i dels colors, aquell canvi constant. Si una figura que veus pel calidoscopi t’agrada, mira-la bé 1 digues-li adéu. Mai més no la retrobaras. Aix també m’ho explicaves tu. Mous el calidoscopi, es desfa una imatge 1 se’n crea una altra de tan fuga¢ com I’anterior. No sé si vas fer servir la paraula fugac. . . . 1 no et cansaves de repetir-me que no vivim sota una volta amable poblada de bombetes enceses que la guarneixen, sin6 sota un forat sense fi, un buit que no entenem. Pero també vas dir que no havia de tenir-li por, que havia d’aprendre a deixar-m’hi anar.®” [I didn’t want realize that it’s just a game of three mirrors and I| entertained

myself with the change of forms and colors, the constant change. If you like an image that you see through the kaleidoscope, take a good look at it and say goodbye. You'll never find it again. You explained that to me, too. You move the kaleidoscope, and an image unfolds and another is created that’s just as fleeting as the previous one. I don’t know if you used the word fleeting. . . . and you never tired of telling to me over and over again that we don’t live beneath a pleasant sky, populated by lighted bulbs that adorn

it, but beneath an empty hole without end, a void that we don’t understand. But you also said that I shouldn’t be afraid of it, that I had to learn to let myself go.]

Later on, the text suggests a direct equivalence between the kaleidoscope and the sky when the girl declares, “‘Faré que el calidoscopi i la volta del cel siguin una sola cosa.’ [Ill make it so the kaleidoscope and the vault of heaven become one.] And at another moment, the doctor declares, “no hi ha cap diferéncia entre el calidoscopi 1 la volta del cel; ja has trobat la llei que els uneix.’’® [there’s no difference between the kaleidoscope and the vault of heaven; you’ve already found the law that unites them.] The kaleidoscope is a concrete rendering of the play of perception that is intrinsic to Benet’s theater: of the multiple instantaneous perspectives through which the characters constitute themselves within the scenic space (a space that is also, by metonymic extension, the world, or even our world). ‘The sky, like the kaleidoscope, continues

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 135

to turn incessantly, and it is impossible to capture and fix the image that emerges from it. In a parallel manner, the boundary distinguishing taboo and transgression, between what is prohibited and what is permitted, is presented as a fine line that is equally fleeting. Filtered through the subjective logic of the doctor, incest is converted into a trivial matter that, paradoxically, within a certain context, might even be regarded as acceptable. He comments: “Un home de certa edat que desitja una noia jove 1 una noia jove que s’enlluerna amb un home de certa edat. Que tinguem o no la mateixa sang, aixo s6n ximpleries que no importen a ningt. La qiiestid és una altra.””° [A man of a certain age who desires a young girl and a young girl who is dazzled by a man of a certain age. Whether or not we share the same bloodline, that’s a piece of nonsense that’s of no importance to anyone. The issue at hand is another.] If one lets him or herself be “carried away” (to use the

doctor’s phrase) by this play of mirrors, of forms and colors that change momentarily and incessantly, the simple love between father and daughter rapidly can become confused with a prohibited incestu-

ous relationship. Only a “minor” detail—that of a blood relationship—distinguishes the two forms of love, a small instant in this rotating universe. The crux of the doctor’s interior conflict and tragic dilemma comes to light when he attempts to offer an explanation to his daughter: Ets la meva criatura, la meva unica filla, la dona que ha sortit del meu sexe, de les meves mans i de les meves paraules. No hi pot haver res que em sigui tan proper. ... Ningt ni res no pot esborrar-ho, ni tan sols tu: ets la meva filla i precisament per aixo t’estimo amb la forga més gran que té un home per estimar una dona.””! [You’re my child, my only daughter, the woman who came from my sexual organ, from my hands and from my words. Nothing could be closer to me. ... No one or nothing can erase it, not even you: you are my daughter and precisely for that reason I love you with a force that is greater than a man’s love for a woman. |

According to the doctor’s reasoning, his sexual desire for his daughter is a natural consequence of his intense love for her. Parental love is intermingled with erotic desire, and Benet appears to want to problematize the innate tendency on the part of parents to view in their offspring a means of channeling, displacing, or fulfilling a universally human urge for transcendence. Embedded in the doctor’s discourse is a curious brand of narcissism in what appears to be an inability to distinguish between his own ego and the object of his desire. Benet does not offer solutions to this problematic set of circumstances; he

136 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM merely lays open a disquieting scenario in which there is a crisis of distinctions and boundaries designated by kinship taboos. For the doctor, the only way to relieve his pain and put an end to his torment is through death. The kaleidoscopic universe depicted here is a space of desire, and in this sense, Muga partakes of an intertextual dialogue with Desig. ‘The metaphor of the kaleidoscope/sky, understood as the space of desire, suggests, moreover, a whole theory of spectatorship and the gaze. The doctor declares:

Quin cel? Milers i milers d’astres que ens envien un tltim senyal de la seva

llum. Un espectacle que de seguida degenera en forma de lirica barata. Milions i milions de cossos enormes que giravolten sense descans, un mo-

viment frenétic, una despesa extremada d’energia que es consum inttilment. ... Energia que es gasta, espasmes 1 espasmes frenétics dins un forat

negre.” [What sky? ‘Thousands and thousands of stars that send us a final sign of light. A spectacle that suddenly degenerates like a cheep song. Millions and millions of enormous bodies that revolve without rest, a frenetic movement, an extreme expenditure of energy that is uselessly consumed. . . . Energy that is spent, frenetic spasms and spasms within a black hole.]

As spectators, we contemplate this black hole or chasm “without limits,” a space of desire (and a space of eroticism) that is also the phe-

nomenic space of the theater. Visual imagery slips away in an inex-

haustible spiral, as though perceived through the lens of a kaleidoscope. Words fade away or vanish almost as soon as they are enunciated. The pleasure that derives from the act of theatrical perception, of apprehending a fleeting image, is analogous to sexual pleasure, excessive expenditure that is both momentary and intangible. In the process of the performance, the ejaculatory discharge of images carries more significance than the final product or meaning. In the play of mirrors and kaleidoscopic perception that is Fugac, human beings search for transcendence through their proximity to others. ‘They exhibit an existential necessity to achieve mortality by seeing themselves reflected in the other. It is a situation that characterizes the relationship between parents and their progeny and between lovers, as well. In the third and final act of the play, the young woman declares, in reference to her wedding anniversary: ‘“‘La passi6 amorosa; no es pot viure sense estimar. Per mi, aquesta relaci6 amb laltre justifica la vida.”’’”> [Amorous passion; you can’t live without lov-

ing. For me this relationship with another justifies life.] Her husband comments: “Els fills. Només amb els fills tenim la possibilitat d’arri-

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 137

bar, em sembla, una mica més enlla. .. . No hi ha cap consol com aquest, saber que jo moriré perd que una part de la meva memoria continuara dintre dels meus fills.’’’* [Children. Only with children do

we have the possibility of going, I think, a little more beyond... . There’s nothing more comforting, knowing that I will die but that a part of my memory will continue on in my children.] Their words acquire a disturbing, prophetic irony when they are juxtaposed with the incestuous situation of the previous act. At the conclusion of the second act, when the death of the incestuous couple is revealed to be the only solution, a shooting star passes. This same star, whose presence on the stage lasts only an instant, also appears at the end of the third act, creating in this manner an effect of spatiotemporal unity and simultaneity between the two acts. The spectator, perhaps, will have the sensation of living in a “continuous present” and that his or her own world might also be included, for an instant, under that same celestial dome. TESTAMENT

When Testament premiered under Belbel’s direction at the Romea in July 1997 (having already been staged in Spanish translation during the previous year at Madrid’s historic Teatro Maria Guerrero), it appeared to close a three-part cycle that included Desig and Fugag. Critics called attention to the mature theatrical language, drenched with hidden meanings spanning multiple layers, which emerges in all three plays.”> Benach observed in these works the common denominator of a more “reflexive” rather than descriptive language, one that probes below the surface of what is immediately visible.”° In a review ironically titled “Pares & fills S.L.,” Ord6fiez alluded to the “spiritual” kinship between Testament and the other two works, and in a move that seemed to forecast the arrival of new aesthetic winds, Joaquim Nogero titled his review of Testament “Final d’una etapa” (The end of a phase). Perhaps Noguero was writing under the influence of Belbel’s program notes, which, indeed, indicate that Testament closes a cycle that begins with Desig and continues with Fugac. In fact, as Belbel is also quick to point out, the key members of the artistic team that participated in his production of Desig at the Romea (composer Oscar Roig, set designer Joaquim Roy, costume designer Mercé Paloma, assistant director Nuria Furid, and actor Lluis Soler) had returned to the Romea once again to work on his production of Testament. El gos del tinent, which Casares staged at the Sala Beckett in 1999, in tandem with Belbel’s La sang, marked a distinct thematic shift in which Benet

138 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM chose to meditate on political issues and the manipulation of power. Yet, as Batlle has remarked on more than one occasion, there are several thematic parallels and connections between this so-called trilogy and two parenthetical intervals in Benet’s evolution: a piece for children titled La historia de Carlota quan se’n va anar a salvar el seu amic de les mans de la dona de neu (Vhe story of Carlota when she went to save

her friend from the hands of the snow woman, 1991) and an homage to the theater titled E.R.” In celebrating the world of the theatrical spectacle, Benet centers his attention in E.R. upon the lives of actresses, displaying a fascination with their eccentricities, exhibitionism, vanities, and rivalries (and, not surprisingly, inciting speculation among Catalan spectators with regard to the real actresses that he might have had in mind when creat-

ing his fictional characters). Montanyés’s production at the Lliure included actresses Marta Angelat, Mercé Aranega, Maite Gil, and Montse Esteve, while Ventura Pons cast Nuria Espert, Rosa Maria Sarda, Anna Lizaran, and Mercé Pons in his cinematic version of the play. In his program notes, Benet classifies E.R. as “una obra crepuscular” (a crepuscular play), a play written, in a figurative sense, during a period of twilight and shadows, for it emerged following the passing of several friends who had motivated, inspired, and nourished his work in the theater (they include Fabia Puigserver, Montserrat Roig, and Maria Aurélia Capmany). With an intricate metatheatrical structure, filled with circular movements, and a mode that is both comic and tragic (and more naturalistic than Desig and Fugag), E.R. depicts the quest of a young theater student who is searching for (and wanting to incarnate on stage) the authentic image of a legendary actress who has passed away. The name of Benet’s fictional actress of legend, who bears a resemblance to famed Catalan actress Margarida Xirgu (18881969), is Empar Ribera. In an intertextual twist, Benet’s “E.R.” also happens to be the literary sister of Enric Ribera, the fictional character created by Rodolf Sirera in Plany a la mort d’Enric Ribera. As the play progresses, the “real”? Empar Ribera appears to be a rather elusive

figure, whose image is never fully captured but, instead, conjured through a kind of kaleidoscopic prism, through the memories and ever-changing points of view that come to light in a series of encounters between the theater student and three actresses who were Ribera’s direct disciples. In effect, the student becomes a disciple of the disciples. Thus, in addition to the pursuit of an elusive idea or image, Benet

subtly brings into play in E.R. the notion of an artistic legacy. In a broad historical sense, one could say that, just as Sirera’s Plany a la mort d’Enric Ribera was a vehicle for expressing this playwright’s preoccupations with issues of Valencian identity and the future of the Va-

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET 139

lencian stage, Benet’s E.R., in a parallel manner, expresses an implicit preoccupation with the Catalan stage. It is a theme that he would revisit in Testament.

In Testament, a professor (“Professor”) specializing in medieval lit-

erature is struggling with the news that he is suffering from a fatal illness. He is gay, unmarried, and sentimentally unattached, with no children of his own. For the professor, as for Benet, the concept of salvation is intimately tied to that of transcendence, and he sets out to achieve continuity, to prolong and bring meaning to his fleeting life in an intangible, metaphysical sense by establishing an intellectual legacy. Specifically, the professor has written an essay about the theme of inheritance in the work of the eminent medieval writer and philoso-

pher Ramon Llull (born in Majorca in the thirteenth century). The professor targets a male student (“Noi”) of exceptional promise and talent as the metaphoric “offspring” to whom he wishes to bequeath his intellectual legacy. It is a manuscript in digital form, stored on both

computer hard disk and diskette. It is the professor’s hope that the student will be able to keep the essay in his possession and expand upon it in time, preserving the knowledge passed on to him by his mentor and, in effect, also helping to safeguard the literary legacy of Llull. The essay, fragile in the sense that it does not exist in concrete, printed form, represents not only the professor’s pursuit of immortality, but also a metatextual allusion the to the fragile vulnerability of the Catalan literary-cultural tradition. Eventually, the professor’s intellectual fascination with the student is intermingled with sexual desire, romantic infatuation, and even paternal love. Benet injects the plot with a rather melodramatic undercurrent, for the student, in addition to moonlighting as a prostitute who engages in sexual liaisons with men, also happens to be involved in a romantic relationship with the daughter of the professor’s closest friend (“Amic’’). ‘Tensions intensify as a result of a chance sexual en-

counter between the professor and the student when the former answers an anonymous advertisement that the latter has placed in a newspaper. One can infer that the suicide and absence of the student’s biological father has created lasting wounds, coloring his relationships with others. ‘Thus, in Testament, Benet introduces a level of psychological depth in his character development that was not present in previous plays.

The plot veers toward a somewhat optimistic direction with the news that the friend’s daughter is pregnant as a result of her relationship with the student. Within the context of Benet’s literary universe, the unborn child, naturally, signifies a myriad of possibilities with regard to continuity. The professor proposes an arrangement whereby,

140 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM in exchange for financial support, the student will leave his work as a prostitute in order to pursue an academic career and have the child. Un pacte. Tindras un fill. No t'entenc. No importa. Ha de ser aixi. D’aqui a..., d’aqui a centanars de milers d’anys, potser, vés a saber, només hi ha una possibilitat entre cent mil milions. . . . La possibilitat que els fills dels teus fills dels teus fills ens salvin del dolor a tu ia mi. Llavors el meu merdds i covard assaig tindria sentit. Un sentit que no puc ni somiar. Ramon Llull no podia . .. , no podiar somiar el sentit que tendrien les seves paraules a la teva boca.’*

[A deal. You will have a child. I don’t understand you. It doesn’t matter. It will have to be this way. From now to .. . hundreds of thousands of years from now .. . who knows, maybe one chance in a billion. . .. Maybe the children of your children’s children will save you and me from pain. It’s then that my shitty, cowardly monograph will have meaning. A meaning I can’t even dream of. Raymond Lully could not, could never have imagined the meaning his words had coming from your mouth.]’”

The student, nevertheless, does not overtly accept the proposed deal, and as the play concludes, and as the professor’s death looms, Benet does not offer the spectator closure. He instead leaves open the possibility that the student might fulfill the professor’s desire for transcendence, be it through the birth of the child, the publication of the essay, or both. Whereas in Fugag, desire leads to death, in Testament, it offers a small thread of hope and optimism. In Belbel’s mise en scene of Testament at the Romea, Lluis Soler, Jordi Boixaderas, and David Selvas played the characters of the professor, friend, and student, respectively. In Pons’s film version of the play, titled Amc/amat, (whose title represents an intertextual reference to Llull’s Libre d’amic e amat [Book of the Lover and the Beloved, 1284}),

the same characters were incarnated by Josep Maria Pou and Mario Gas, with Selvas reprising his role as the student.*° ‘Two female charac-

ters, the friend’s wife and daughter, are neither visible nor audible in the original dramatic text, although their presence is invoked in dialogues and telephone conversations. In preparing the screenplay for Pons’s film, Benet chose to expand these two female roles, played by Rosa Maria Sarda and Irene Montala, respectively, making them visible on the screen and incorporating them into a series of newly written

scenes. He even appropriated some of the words uttered by the woman (“Dona’’) during the final act of Fugac, giving her lines to the mother in Amic/amat. In recycling her memorable commentary about happiness, the passage of time, and the small mundane details of everyday life, he infused his screenplay with an element of postmodern

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET 141

pastiche and perpetuated the recurrent notion of continuity that is so prevalent in his work. The action of the play occurs in three alternating spaces: the student’s apartment, the home of the professor’s friend, and the profes-

sor’s apartment. For Belbel’s production, the scenic design, as conceived by Roy, was composed of a tripartite revolving structure. In this way, despite the apparent simplicity of the scenic space, Roy man-

aged to create a visually poetic metaphor that reflected the connec-

tions, correspondences and complex bonds that exist among the characters. The structure also echoed, in a spatial sense, the gyratory fluctuation that characterizes Benet’s kaleidoscopic vision. This aesthetic of impermanence is displaced to a level of verbal discourse when, calamitously, the student destroys the diskette containing the last existing version of the professor’s essay, and the electronic word emerges as a metaphor for the fragility and evanescence of life itself. Paradoxically, the intangible words will continue to live on, al-

beit in a fragmented, imprecise manner, engraved in the student’s memory. As the professor tells the student: “Tu vas Ilegir l’assaig. Ets l’Gnica persona que el coneix. Quan jo mori només en quedaran frag-

ments barrejats a la teva memoria. L’assaig és definittvament teu. Només teu. Una heréncia. La utilitzaras 0 no, pero és una heréncia que no pots rebutjyar. Ara la portes dins la pell.’’*! [You read the essay.

Yow’re the only person who did. When I die there will only be odd fragments in your memory. The essay is truly yours. And only yours. A legacy. You may use it or not, but it is an inheritance you cannot refuse. It’s a part of you.] Having already read the essay, the student has involuntarily infused himself with remnants of the professor’s intellectual legacy. The seven scenes that comprise Testament begin and end with a se-

ries of voices that emerge in the darkness, without visual imagery. They are fragments of conversations (telephone conversations, perhaps) that speak about life, death, and love. In several instances, the voices reproduce or are evocative of dialogues that belong to Benet’s earlier plays, and they represent, therefore, another instance in which he has subjected his works to an aesthetic of pastiche, resuscitating the lives of characters from the past, immortalizing them on the stage. In addition to forming a linkage between Benet’s past and present work, perhaps these voices might be regarded as a mechanism for erasing the effect of ‘“‘syncopation” of which Stein speaks, for they form a bridge

between the emotional experience of the spectator and the diegetic level of fictional drama. ‘This situation was especially apparent in Belbel’s mise-en-scéne, in which, at the beginning of the show, the house

lights were left up as the first fragments of conversation were heard,

142 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM the recorded voices resonating throughout the theater. As the lights were dimmed, a gradual transition was created that enabled the spectator to penetrate slowly the world of the fictional characters. For example, at the end of the first scene, the following cryptic conversation, reminiscent of both Desig and Fugac, transpires amid the shadows:

VEU MASCULINA: [Tenia tanta por... En sentia tanta que, per qué no acabar d’un cop? Em vaig llevar, vaig avancar per la foscor, vaig ensopegar amb

una porta... La vaig obrir i em vaig deixar anar al mal. VEU FEMININA: (riure nervids): Al mal?

VEU MASCULINA: Si. I Ilavors . . . Llavors vaig fer un descobriment meraveIl6s, el millor descobriment de la meva vida. (Pausa.) M’havia deixat anar

i... Deixa’t anar. Au, deixa-t’hi anar.*”

[Mate voice: I was so afraid . . . I was so afraid that, why not get it over with? I got up, I walked in the dark, ran into a door . . . I opened it and gave myself over to evil. FEeMaALe voice: (Laughing nervously) To evil?

Mats voice: Yes. And then .. . Then I saw something wonderful, the most wonderful thing in my life. (Pause.) I had let myself go . . . Let yourself go. Come on, let yourself go.|

The man (or, masculine voice) encourages the woman (or, female voice) to advance in the darkness, to confront her fears, (and, by exten-

sion, in Desig, her supposed past life with the woman). His words of advice are also evocative of the situation in which the spectators find themselves. ‘They must “let themselves go” in the darkness without fear, launch their gazes into the phenomenic space of the theater in order to find a reflection of their own subjective realities. The play, therefore, appears to materialize and burgeon forth in an almost organic manner, from a primordial chaos, suggesting that, perhaps, what is seen on the stage (or read on the page) is just a small sampling of the many possibilities that might have emerged at random. Belbel’s program notes refer to this condition as “una suggestiva i exhaustiva negror problada de veus anonimes que caminen aparentement independents perd que embolcallen la historia i la completen. La testifiquen”’ [a suggestive and exhaustive darkness populated by anon-

ymous voices that walk apparently independently but that tie up the story and complete it. ‘They attest to it]. In this manner, the play acquires what Sagarra called a “planetary dimension” that refers back to the concrete particulars.*? As spectators, we search in the chaotic alternation of the voices for some sort of concrete linkage to the situation that Benet presents in Testament. Evanescent and fleeting, they

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 143

evoke and suggest a series of subtle relationships, but they seem to escape our grasp. Io paraphrase the words of Foreman, they come toward us but we cannot catch or grab them. In this kaleidoscopic universe of Benet i Jornet, we can never capture with a single objective glance the “thousands and thousands of stars” that send us their lights. ‘he world continues to revolve and it is revealed to us through a series of instants, flashes of reality. The gaze that we lance toward the stage is returned to us in the darkness; it is impossible to capture it. The phenomenological attitude of Benet’s theater implicitly illuminates this problem of perception and orientation, providing us with a subjective vision, not only of his fictional worlds, but also of our own existence.

OLors Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Benet i Jornet had begun to play with an empty, unmarked spatial territory, setting his plays in indeterminate internal psychic voids or generic urban or rural landscapes. With Olors, however, he returns to a series of characters and to a small parcel of one of the oldest sections of Barcelona (a synecdochal representation of the city) that he depicted for the first time in Una vella, coneguda olor. He had already revisited this fictional world with Baralla entre olors, which was produced in 1981 under the direction of Lluis M. Giiell for the Catalan-Balearic circuit of Spanish National ‘Television.

Olors, therefore, represents the end of a three-part cycle that treats a nearly forty-year span in the evolution of Barcelona from the second half of the dictatorship to democracy. Not surprisingly, then, one of

the principal themes of Olors is the passage of time. The theme emerges in accordance with Benet’s interest in the relationship between the production of meaning and momentary changes in perception and subjectivity, While Odrs is the third play in a trilogy, Benet is quick to point out

in his preface to the published text, titled “Ciutats, sentiments i el temps” (Cities, sentiments, and time), that it can easily stand on its own: “Si aleG conegués les altres peces, es podria distreure, de toda manera, trobant al-lusions i evolucions que potser el farien somriure.”’*+ [If some are familiar with the other pieces, they can, in any case,

enjoy finding allusions and evolutions that perhaps will make them smile.] ‘he play premiered in February 2000 at the Sa/a Gran of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya under the direction of Mario Gas, with Rosa Maria Sarda reprising her role as the central character of Maria (having played the same role in both television versions of the two pre-

144 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM vious pieces of the trilogy). Sarda’s performance in O/ors marked her return to the theater following an eight-year absence from the stage. Pere Arquillué played the role of Joan, and Joan Anguera, Rosa Boladeras, and Carme Molina incarnated the characters of Manel, Maria ‘“Petita,” and Merce, respectively. This was Benet’s first experience at the INC, having forgone earlier prospects of seeing his works produced on the stages of the Sa/a Gran and the Sala Petita in order to defer to other contemporary Catalan playwrights, such as Lluisa Cunillé (whose Apocalipsi [Apocalypse] premiered at the Sa/a Petita in 1998).

In his preface to the play, Benet describes Olors as a “dated” piece of theater, grounded in localism and specifics: “Es una pe¢a senzilla, de circumstancies. Parla d’una ciutat determinada, un any determinat.” [It’s a simple play, of circumstances. It speaks about a specific city, a specific year.] In effect, his decision to name Barcelona and to write about a particular time and place represents a clear departure from much of his prior work of the 1980s and 1990s. If during these decades, the city of Barcelona (or Catalunya, for that matter), as an image, notion, rhetorical figure, or poetic trope, seemed to have all but vanished from Benet’s work and, significantly, from the realm of text-based drama in Catalunya in general, Olors was a curious and glaring exception, perhaps even a turning point in contemporary Catalan

theater history in terms of the persistent condition of invisibility. Here, Benet grants Barcelona the role of protagonist and speaks implicitly about the urban transformations and evolving cultural identity of the city. Specifically, he creates a portrait of the interior “patios” of the Raval quarter of his youth. This section of the city, still popularly known in certain circles as the Barri Xinés (red-light distinct), is a libidinous space of desire and spectacle, diversity and marginality, immortalized in the literary imagination of Jean Genet, in addition to a long list of contemporary Barcelona writers that includes Manuel Vazquez Montalban and ‘Terenci Moix.

Throughout the past two decades, the Raval, infamously regarded as a haven for prostitutes, thieves, and drug dealers, has witnessed exponential growth in terms of the cultural diversity of its inhabitants, becoming a focal point for the city’s new immigrant populations, espe-

cially those residents originally from Maghreb, Pakistan, and Latin America. In 2004, the municipal government recorded nearly half the populace of the Raval as having a nationality other than Spanish.* At the same time, an overall renaissance in construction and design has characterized the post-Franco revitalization of this area of the city. With the urban renewal projects of the 1990s, motivated in part by the Olympic Games of 1992 and the municipal government’s social democratic approach to urban development, the Raval has undergone

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 145

numerous transformations.*’ Several major cultural institutions have taken up residence in this quarter, under the auspices of the municipal and/or provincial governments, and_their physical presence in the

vicinity of the Raval’s Placa dels Angels is particularly striking. The Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona (CCCB), inaugurated in 1994, housed in the centuries-old Casa de la Caritat, renovated by architects Helio Pifién and Albert Viaplana, is a multidisciplinary cultural hub. ‘The Foment de les Arts Decoratives (FAD), inaugurated in 1999, housed in the gothic Covent dels Angels, is a chief point of reference for the study of design and architecture. The Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), inaugurated in 1995, a new construction bearing the stark, white, pristine, geometric forms that typify the work of architect Richard Meier, is a major art museum. Increased gentrification and tourism have accompanied the emergence of these cultural focal points within the Raval, and many of the old taverns and bordellos that for decades attracted sailors landing at the port of Barcelona have been replaced with fashionable cafés and galleries. Dilapidated buildings in disrepair have been demolished to pave the way for new apartment blocks, and a new tree-lined promenade, the Rambla del Raval, now traverses the center of the quarter. This striking quantity of construction and reconstruction, coupled with the cultural and economic diversity of the Raval, make this district a site of continual change and displacement, as captured by director José Luis Guerin in his documentary film of the same period En construccion (In construction, 2001).

Olors is one of very few contemporary plays from this period that have dared to touch upon the multicultural realities of Barcelona (and, by extension, Catalunya) and its status as a transnational space. In Olors, Benet presents a possible way of negotiating, through theatrical representation, the literary dilemma underlined by Julia Guillamon in his cultural analysis titled La ciutat interrompuda, of portraying an urban landscape that is in the midst of rapid transformation. ‘The problem of capturing the passage of time emerges metaphorically in Benet’s play through the central character of Maria, who creates, with her photographs, each day at the same exact moment and in the same exact place, a somewhat nostalgic portrait of the changing reality of the patios of the Raval. Her snapshots become a metaliterary device within the play, for the gesture of taking them replicates the way in which Benet himself portrays reality as a series of flashes that the spectator must fit together like pieces of a puzzle. It conveys metatheatri-

cally his concern with capturing and making visible on stage the sensation of temporal flux that characterizes our existence, the subjective transformations relative to the perception of each moment.

146 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM The play is structured in such a way that the two major plot lines, one situated in the immediate past and the other in the present (or, viewed another way: one situated in the present and the other in the immediate future), alternate and crisscross in time, giving way to a convergence of two generations, that of Maria and that of Joan. He is a young architect who is the son of her deceased lover, and the slight hint of an attraction between them tinges the plot with incestuous overtones. Not only does Joan bear the same name as his father; he is also identical to him—so much so that, the first time that Maria sees him, she confuses him momentarily with his father, calling out his name as though they had previously met. ‘The initial encounter between them, which occurs in the first scene of the play, is repeated in the last scene, and their union (or, reunion) conjures a sense of déja vu, as though Maria were encountering a ghost from the past. It brings a sense of circularity and continuity to the play and to the trilogy at large. This repetition and doubling is reinforced at the end of Olors with the revelation that Maria’s niece, “Maria Petita,”’ aspires to be-

come a photographer and thus perpetuate the legacy of her aunt. There is also a suggestion of a possible relationship blossoming between the young Maria with the young Joan. Olors subtly alludes to the secret—or less visible—life of the old city

and its entrails: the physical demolition of plazas and entire city blocks, and the construction of architectural ‘‘marvels” such as the Rambla del Raval, which are the result of the Ajuntament’s so-called esponjament, or “opening up,” of less prosperous sections of the city. For Benet, such a transformation also signifies a disfigurement of historical memory, of a section of Barcelona, which, as he explains, is—in spite of its more demure facades and humble, working-class inhabitants—yjust as representative of the city’s history as the more renowned

landmarks that include the church of Santa Maria del Mar or the

buildings of Antoni Gaudi.*® With her photographic montage, Maria attempts to seize any remaining vestiges of the past, to conserve for posterity and immortalize the fragments of reality that reflect the desires and memories of those who occupy these interrupted spaces. ‘The play, consequently, is a painful ode or elegy for the older, poorer sec-

tions of the city, as their past falls away and veers toward a state of disappearance, of invisibility, buried beneath the rubble of the wreck-

ing crews. At the beginning of several scenes, Maghrebian music blares in the background, as though it were wafting through the ruins, connoting the presence of a multicultural urban population, soon to be displaced. In Olors, the city of Barcelona is personified, or bodied forth, constituted and reconstituted within the space of the theater as a being with

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 147

a large, gaping wound. Benet’s lyrical stage directions create a poetic personification of the city being devoured by a monstrous being (a possible reference to the Barcelona city council): Porta balconera per on es passa a un pati interior, als darreres d’una illa de cases, al barri vell de Barcelona. . . . Galeries, finestres, canonades, ferros i fills d’estendre la roba. Abando total. Ni un signe de vida. A les galeries

només queden andromines inttils; alguns balcons no tenen porta i ofereixen a la vista el badall dels seus interiors; d’alguna finestra n’han saltat els vidres. Perd a més, i sobretot, els patis han estat ferits, al fons, per un esvoranc enorme, com si un monstre hagués queixalat i devorat cases senceres

i d’algunes n’hagués deixat, de moment, restes convertides en munts de runa.®”

[Door with a balcony through which one passes through to an interior patio, behind an island of houses, in the old quarter of Barcelona. . . . Galleries, windows, pipes, ironwork and clotheslines. ‘Total abandonment. Not a sign of life. In the galleries only useless pieces of junk remain; some bal-

conies do not have doors and seem to yawn, exposing their interiors in plain view; the panes are gone from some of the windows. But also, and above all, the patios have been wounded, in the background, by an enormous gaping hole, as though a monster had taken a bite and devoured entire houses and had left some, for the moment, leftovers converted into piles of ruins.]

Director Gas, scenic designer Jon Berrondo, and lighting designer Ignasi Camprodon created an immense and highly elaborate, threedimensional backdrop for their mise-en-scéne at the TTNC.% So sophisticated was the design, that some critics, including Francesc Massip, considered the set to be overdone. ‘The abandoned buildings, half destroyed, were constructed of semitransparent tulle, and in the midst of these structures, Berrondo placed a cavernous hole, filled with rubble and debris. It depicted, what Ord6fiez described as an urban landscape immersed in a process of obliteration: “with the empty and abandoned buildings, like the vertical cadavers of a city immersed in war. In the midst of this landscape there is a large empty vacuum where before there was a street, like a tooth pulled out of the mouth of a cadaver; a vacuum in which there are tons of rusty, twisted iron piled up, with the profile of a ship that has run aground or an incongruent alien spaceship that doesn’t come from the future but from the past: a ghost ship, a votive monument in memory of the past.’’”! In addition, Gas added a visual prologue and epilogue that were not present in Benet’s original text: at the beginning of the spectacle, images of the city in its various stages of demolition, which were evoca-

148 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM tive of Maria’s photographs, were projected upon the metallic frontal curtain (the type normally required for fire prevention). At the end of the play, Maria and Joan remained frozen on the stage, positioned in a type of tableau vivant, while the photographic images were projected once again, as the theatrical space was inundated by the roaring crescendo of demolition machines. Benet’s endeavor to convey poetically, visually, and emotionally the pain of the passage of time evokes a set of curious parallels, perhaps even an intertextual dialogue, with Rodoreda’s La placa del Diamant (The Time of the Doves, 1960). In scene B-6 of Olors, there is a key mo-

ment in which Maria attempts to elucidate for Joan, who is working with the demolition crew, the connection between memory and the most mundane places and spaces: No sé si entendras qué vull dir, pero hi ha aqui dintre cases amb un guix

historia que no ’ha pogut ensumar mai ni el Palau Giiell ni... , ni tan se val! (Transicio.) A escala de casa. . . . D’aquesta. A la paret de l’escala el

meu germa i jo, aviat deura fer cinquant anys, vam gravar-hi amb poca tra¢a aixO que avui en diem un grafit. Encara hi és. Una mena d’huri boteruda i, a sota, una mena de paraules que diuen “Viva la Gilda, Viva Catalunya.” Pujo l’escala, el toco, 1 la memoria se’m desboca. ‘Té, ara se n’anira a la merda. (E/ mira als ulls.) Que no en quedi cap memoria. Si tan li fot! (De sobte canvia 1 es regira per darrera vegada.) Arquitectes cultes, d’idees avanc¢ades! Sabeu a qui serviu!””

[I don’t know if you'll understand what I mean, but here inside there are homes with a piece of history that even the Palau Giiell hasn’t been able to come close to..., not even... , it doesn’t even matter! (Transition.) In the stairway of the building. . . . Of this one. On the wall of the stairway my brother and I, soon it will be almost fift years, we clumsily engraved there what today we’d call a graffiti. It’s still there. A sort of fat houri and, underneath, some kind of words that say “Long live Gilda, Long live Catalunya.” I go up the stairs, I touch it, and the memories come flowing back to me. Here, now it will go to hell. (She looks into his eyes.) Let there be no more memories. If no one gives a damn! (Suddenly she changes and turns around one last time.) Sophisticated architects, of advanced ideas. You know what yow’re good for!]

Maria’s description of the “graffiti” engraved in the stairway of her building in the Raval resembles a similar engraving on the wall near the staircase of the home of Rodoreda’s heroine Colometa/Natalia. With the ritual of rubbing her hand along the indelible engravings on the wall, and in touching this never-changing detail, she is able to return to the past and, in a sense, arrest the passage of time. The ghost of Rodoreda is present as well (perhaps, unconsciously)

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET 149

in the titles of all three plays of Benet’s trilogy, for the connection between memory and smell, though not a new literary motif, is a striking feature of La placa del Diamant, as well as many of her other novels. The smells and aromas that emanate from Benet’s Raval, as from Ro-

doreda’s Gracia, transport us into the past and create linkages among cities, sentiments, and time. Wafting through the streets, plazas, rooftops, stairways, and inner courtyards of Barcelona, they are a reminder of all that has vanished. L’HABITACIO DEL NEN

In L’*habitacié del nen, the anxiety of maintaining connections with both the past and the future emerges within the context of a family. Here this anxiety stems from the possible tragic loss of a child. Benet’s emotionally powerful and captivating drama, which premiered under the direction of Sergi Belbel at the historic ‘Teatre Lliure de Gracia during the winter of 2003, was awarded a Max prize for the best Catalan play of the year. As Benach noted in his review, L’habitacié del nen adeptly interweaves elements from several theatrical genres: “it puts a lump in the throat of the Lliure’s audience members. Drama, tragedy, Theatre of terror .. . the mixture emerges, here, inevitable.’”’* ‘The play possesses an intricate three-part structure with a minimalist cast of three: a mother (““Mare”’), played by Emma Vilarasau in Belbel’s

production, a father (“Pare”), played by Pere Arquillué, and their nine-year-old son (“Nen’’), played on alternating nights by Daniel Casadella and Albert Capdevila. On the occasion of the premiere, critics offered generous praise for the text, as well as the work of the director and cast. In his review in E/ Pais, Pablo Ley declared Benet’s play

to be “in the line of his best theater,” and Maria José Ragué commented, on the pages of E/ Mundo, “The text is by one of our great authors, one of our best directors directs it, two of our most convincing actors interpret it.”” An imaginative set design by Estel Cristia and Max Glaenzel, a complex lighting design by Xavier Clot, a sensible costume design by Mercé Paloma, and an acoustically menacing musical score by Oscar Roig contributed to the overall success of the production. With L’habitacié del nen, Benet returns to an interior space of ethereal otherworldliness, conjuring in silhouettes and shadows the figure of an anonymous city of apartments with French doors and balconies. To some, this mysterious realm might be hazily reminiscent of Barcelona, but it could also be, in effect, any modern city. Benet situates much of the action not only in the space designated by the title of the

150 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM play (a boy’s bedroom), but also in the space designated by the aptly enigmatic subtitle: Les tretze de la nit. The thirteenth hour of the night signifies a subjective space of spatiotemporal suspension, and in keeping with this context, the play is saturated with references to asteroids, celestial bodies, planets, alien spaceships, far-off galaxies, and black holes. It is a world that is evocative of contemporary science fiction

films and novels, as well as other popular cultural genres, such as comic books (Flash Gordon, tor example), which have often invaded Benet’s literary imagination. ‘The metaphysical context of the play is also vaguely suggestive of the abstract realm, far removed from time and space, that Belbel had explored in his musical melodrama E/ temps de Planck (1999).

Emerging in this enigmatic space is a married couple, along with their young son, who may or may not have suffered a fatal fall from his bedroom balcony as he chased across the room the meteorite that his father had given him for his birthday. ‘The play presents a powerful

enigma: is the child really dead, as the mother believes, or is he still alive, as portrayed through the eyes of the father? ‘The spectators are placed in the perplexing situation of having to sit in judgment of the subjective renditions of reality that are played out before them. Like a meteorite colliding with Earth, two divergent attitudes toward life, optimism and pessimism, come crashing together on the stage. ‘The conflict, as well as the task of the spectator, therefore, centers on an existential search for the truth with regard to the boy’s mortality. It is a search that is carried out amid a play of perspectives, analogous to the image of the planets revolving around the sun or the impression of an ever-changing sky. ‘The play presents the spectator with an unstable portrait of reality that is modified with each successive gaze. The cosmic metaphors, threaded throughout Benet’s text and reminiscent of those that surface in Fugac, are equally evocative of the fan-

tastic realms that frequently inhabit the imagination of children. Accordingly, in an early scene, the father tells his son a story that (as the stage directions indicate) he has told on several occasions: “‘Hi ha la nostra galaxia. Centenars de milers d’estrelles. I després hi ha, al darrere, un nimero gairebé infinit d’altres galaxies, la majoria més grans que la nostra. ‘Tu qué seras?”’™ [There is our galaxy. Billions of stars. And then there is, beyond it, an almost infinite number of other galaxies, most of them larger than ours. What will you be?] The son replies that one day he will be an explorer of galaxies, invoking an image that, as Miquel M. Gibert notes, might be viewed as an echo of Benet’s earlier play La nau (The Ship, 1969): “a metaphor for knowledge as a utopia and as a dream.” It can be taken to be a reference to

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 151

the existential process of exploration and adventure that 1s analogous to both Benet’s work as a dramatist and the task of the spectator. Moreover, Benet’s fascination with a child’s imaginary also shapes the structure of L’habitacié del nen. In what is a kind of prologue to the first part, the play begins with an anonymous voice (“Veu’’) that immediately situates the play within a fantastic milieu, narrating a Catalan nursery rhyme that is typically employed at the closing of fairy tales: Aixo era un gat, alxO era un gos, I aquest conte ja s’ha fos.”

[That was a cat, that was a dog, And this story is not here anymore.|

The tripartite structure contains a total of five episodes that are titled successively “A, Be, Ce, Da, and Ri,” creating a configuration that

spells out the word “abecedari,” which refers to a child’s alphabet book or chart. The first part (which is also the longest section) contains “A,” the second part contains “Be, Ce, and Da,” and the third part contains “Ri.” Episode “A” begins as a typical domestic morning scene, worthy, at least at first glance, of any bourgeois family drama, naturalistic in form

but shaded with elements of melodrama. The mother and father are preparing to celebrate their son’s birthday and surprise him with various gifts, which include the meteorite and a mobile in the shape of the solar system. ‘The mother awakens her son with a nursery rhyme, which she sings: “Lan petitet, maridet m’heu dat.’’” [I had a little husband no bigger than my thumb.] (It is a gesture that, within the context of the Benetian literary universe, is subtly imbued with incestuous connotations.) In this episode, the mother also surprises her husband with the revelation that she is pregnant with their second child. ‘Together, they contemplate, from the balcony of their son’s room, the spacious apartment that they would like to buy, which 1s situated directly across the street. Yet, intertwined with the apparent mundaneness of this opening dramatic situation, Benet inserts a series of premonitory gestures and clues, seemingly minor peculiarities that serve as elements of foreshadowing and set the stage for the major changes that will occur in the two subsequent parts of the play. References that begin to hint at an imminent move toward atemporality surface in the first part when the mother asks her son about his dreams and when it is revealed that his bedside clock appears to be missing: ““I”has menyat el rellotge,

152 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM mentre dormies?”’®* [Did you eat the clock, while you were sleeping? ],

she teases. Furthermore, neither the father nor the mother is wearing a watch. An ordinary ham sandwich, wrapped in foil, which the boy is supposed to take with him to school, will become a metaphor for the passage of time, as it remains in the boy’s room throughout subsequent episodes (having metonymically replaced the meteorite) in an apparent state of decay. In a somewhat ominous conversation with his mother, the boy discusses his anxiety with regard to cosmic forces and the possibility that a large aerolite might one day collide with Earth: Nen: Un aerolit de debo no destrossa la ‘Terra. Maze: Si fos gros, un meteorit, la podria destrozar. Nen: Gros, si? Mare: Hi ha mons que xoquen els uns amb els altres. Al nostre planeta hi va caure un meteorit, hi va haver una gran destrossa 1 el mon va canviar. De dalt a baix.” [Boy: A meteorite really won’t destroy the Earth. Mortnuer: If it were big enough, a meteorite could destroy it. Boy: Big, really?

Mortuer: There are worlds that crash into each other. A meteorite once fell down to our planet, there was a big amount of destruction and the world changed. From top to bottom.]

Ley fittingly titled his review “Cuando el mundo se rompe”’ (When the world comes apart), for, in effect, beginning with the final moment of episode “A,” when the child disappears into the void as he slips over the railing of his bedroom balcony, the commonplace world of bourgeois domesticity seems to explode and split apart at the seams.

During the four remaining episodes, a transformation occurs whereby the scenic elements of dialogue, space, and time become progressively less naturalistic and more expressionistic in form. Dialogues between the characters eventually give way to two highly lyrical, emo-

tionally enthralling monologues in which the mother and the father express their conflicting visions. ‘The mother declares, with a chilling, cynical tone: Sancionavem la seva definitive desaparicid. Va desaparéixer. On tenim las cendres? Qué n’hem de fer? Bé, el nostre fill no hi és. (Pausa. Adopta un altre to.) I Valtre fill, el que ha de néixer, el que em d6éna un embaras de vomits i de malestars constants, no serveix de consol. Em fa terror.”’! [We validated his definitive disappearance. He disappeared. Where did we

put the ashes? What should we do with them? That’s it, our son is not

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 153

there. (Pause. She adopts another tone.) And the other child, the one who is yet to be born, the one who’s given me a pregnancy filled with vomiting and constant unrest, doesn’t provide me with any comfort. It terrifies me.]

The father counters the mother with a monologue that begins with one of the most poetic expressions of pain to be found in Benet’s theatrical repertoire: ‘““Aquesta mena de bestia fastigosa que no para de

furgar dins del teu cap. . . . He de poder arrancar-te-la, he de poder. ...”!°! [That disgusting sort of a beast that won’t stop rummaging through your head. .. . ’ve got to be able to get it out of you, Pve

got to be able... ] Benet is especially skillful at striking and sustaining a balance with regard to the plausibility of these contradictory points of view. A typical spectator might be inclined, upon first examination of the situation, to believe that the father, who continues to see and talk to his son, is experiencing hallucinatory visions. ‘The spectator, however, sees the son, too. Furthermore, the father’s potential delusions are juxtaposed with the mother’s potential delirium, which is suggested early on in the first part of the play. At one point, she declares that she has spotted a man standing on the terrace of the supposedly vacant apartment across the street. [he man, she alleges, laughed at her and made an obscene gesture; however, neither the father nor the spectator is able to see this mysterious neighbor. In his mise-en-scéne at the Lliure, Belbel transferred to the theatrical space the search for the truth and for the real that 1s imbedded in Benet’s text. He seated the spectators on two large sets of mobile risers

that were pushed around by stagehands in the darkness between scenes. In so doing, they created a spatial gap or fracture that widened with each successive scene. Belbel’s spatial metaphor transformed the theater into a locus of desire in which the spectator’s gaze attempted to grasp what was an elusive, fleeting, image of reality, comparable to the equally fleeting images that emerge in Benet’s plays. ‘The spectators

confronted each other in the darkness, from opposite ends of the room, faced with the task of searching for the truth that lies somewhere in the midst of the spatial void. ‘The itinerant set design and the

large fissure that it created hence evolved into a metaphor that reflected the confrontation that transpires in Benet’s play between two opposing versions of reality. During the dénouement of episode “Da,” the father says goodbye to his wife and announces that he is moving with son into the apartment across the street. The mother subsequently slits her own throat in a dramatic suicide. The final episode (“Rv”) is situated in a neutral,

154 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM indistinguishable “no place,” far removed from any rational notion of space or time: “potser de color gris, potser amb una mica de boira... I potser sentim sorolls de carrer, reals o deformats.”' [perhaps grey

in color, perhaps with a bit of mist . . . and perhaps we hear street noises, real or deformed.] ‘The mother’s body remains on the floor, and the father and son, holding hands, disappear into the haze, their conversation echoing earlier references to alien ships, space adventures, and the “thirteenth hour of the night.” The stage is thus immersed in uncertainty, converted into an empty space of oblivion, a fleeting image of a subjective realm that is, perhaps, an exterior projection of the interior regions of consciousness. At the same time, in spite of this seemingly grim dénouement, Benet paradoxically leaves open a

window of optimism. The ambiguous image of the father and son, walking off into an eternal anyplace suggests that, perhaps, they have found a way to achieve immortality, and that through them, Benet has found a way to transcend that which is elusive and ephemeral. SALAMANDRA

Salamandra, one of Benet’s most thematically rich and structurally complex works, carries us away from the unmarked territory of interior psychic realities, such as that which we have seen in L’habitaci6 del nen, and transports us on a spatial journey, mapping out a scenic geography comprising a series of locations that are situated at various points across the globe. Staged by ‘Toni Casares at the TNC in 2005, the play is set during the springtime of an unknown year but sometime in the early twenty-first century. While Benet’s stage directions call for a nearly bare scenic space, they also indicate that the setting be depicted through the use of a large screen, positioned upstage, displaying projected video or digitized images of specific landscapes. ‘The

written indications at the beginning of each unnumbered scene, twenty-eight in total, designate the changes in scenery. Benet’s incorporation of this cinematic technique within the context of his theatrical text acts as an expressive framing device that creates a special coincidence of form and content, for one of the underlying themes of Salamandra is the very task of conceiving and making a film and mapping out its locations. ‘This theme functions as a metaphor for the creative process and foregrounds the relationship between narrative and spatial trajectories. Pondering the notions of space and place, Michel de Certeau has observed the extent to which all stories, in a

sense, “‘traverse and organize places,” selecting and intertwining them, creating with their itineraries a kind of spatial syntax. For de

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 155

Certeau, “Every story is a travel story—a spatial practice.” Benet’s characters embark on a spatial journey, or odyssey, that begins in the Southern California desert and takes them subsequently to Idaho, Germany, Greece, France, and, finally, Catalunya (specifically, Barcelona), with references to New York and Egypt surfacing in between. The relationship of these characters with the world, in both dreams and life, is closely tied to their relationship with space and with the landscape. As de Certeau reminds us (in a reference to the phenomenological writings of Merleau-Ponty), “‘space is existential’ and ‘existence is spatial.’ ”’!°

Landscape, as Elinor Fuchs, and Una Chaudhuri would have it, has emerged on the modern stage as a kind of “new spatial paradigm.’’!® Understood as “the framing, or staging of geography,” landscape is an innately flexible concept that reconciles the notion of space (more general) with that of place (more specific) and mediates between the stage and the world. The origins of landscape, as Chaudhuri points out, are to be found in renaissance painting, and throughout its evolu-

tion in the plastic, visual, and theater arts, it is possible to detect a persistent economic, political, and cultural coding of the landscape genre. In the rhetoric of romanticism, to cite a familiar example, landscapes acquire nationalistic connotations, portraying distinctive features and unique physical characteristics of the natural environment that bring into play issues of subjectivity and identity. Landscapes, in effect, give body, form, and face to nations, frequently creating equiv-

alencies among the concepts of land, mother, and nature.'°° Within the context of Catalan literature, the relationship between landscape and homeland becomes especially apparent during the nineteenthcentury renaixenca, tor example, in the plays of Guimera or the poetry of Jacint Verdaguer. Landscapes are therefore capable of conveying a wide range of emotions regarding the interaction of people and places and the conception of collective and/or cultural identity.!” The text of Salamandra conjures a series of landscapes that speak of desire and of memory, of a longing for continuity, and of cultural identity. In a sense, one could say that, with this play, Benet’s theatrical trajectory has come full circle and returned to the concept of landscape that he began to cultivate in Descripcié d’un paisatge, for both

plays bring to light problems of dislocation and transcendence. Chaudhuri employs the term “geopathology” in reference to this struggle with place (in effect, a hallmark of modern drama), which takes shape as ‘“‘an incessant dialogue between belonging and exile, home and homelessness.” In Salamandra, an adopted son, Claud (of

US nationality, in his mid to late thirties), returns to his childhood home to visit his adoptive mother Emma, a woman in her sixties.

156 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Emma’s home is located in the California desert, near the Santa Rosa Mountains. A male character (“Senyor’’), also in his sixties, is Emma’s companion. (As the text implies, the same actor will incarnate several anonymous male roles that surface throughout the play, all generically known as “‘Senyor.’’) Shortly after Claud’s return, ‘Travis, a family friend, whose relationship with Claud resembles that of a brother, arrives at the home of Emma. ‘Travis brings with him a female compan-

ion, Hilde, of German nationality. The scenario, which contains echoes of Pinter’s The Homecoming (1964), immediately sets up a dialectical relationship between the idea of home and displacement, between locality and transcendence.!” Salamandra begins and ends in the desert, and in this expansive, barren environment we can read, paradoxically, the early stages of the dis-

course on identity that permeates the play. Benet’s desert landscape exhibits parallels with the images described in Jean Baudrillard’s America, in which the French intellectual offers a European poeticphilosophical perspective of this vast undifferentiated territory: The grandeur of deserts derives from their being, in their aridity, the negative of the earth’s surface and of our civilized humors. ‘They are places where humours and fluids become rarefied, where the air is so pure that the influence of the stars descends direct from the constellations. . . . The silence of the desert is a visual thing, too. A product of the gaze that stares

out and finds nothing to reflect it. Desert: luminous, fossilized network of an inhuman intelligence, of a radical indifference—the indifference not merely of the sky, but of the geological undulations, where the metaphysical passions of space and time alone crystallize. Here the terms of desire are turned upside down each day, and night annihilates them. But wait for the dawn to rise, with the awakening of the fossil sounds, the animal silence.1!

Baudrillard’s portrait of the desert of the American Southwest, like Benet’s theatrical landscape, resembles an arid void upon which one could easily project any yearning or desire. This curiously cinematic, almost otherworldly, setting brings to mind the panoramic backdrops of Hollywood “westerns,” as well as films such as Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas (1984) (which, incidentally, contains a character by the name of Travis) and Sam Shepard’s play and eponymous film Fool for Love (1983/1985).!"! The image of the desert, bereft of cultural signs and likewise devoid of spatial distinctions, surfaces frequently as a postmodern strategy whereby the concept of America becomes a figure of “dispersal” and “dissolution,” the “ultimate placelessness.”!!” This is the same type of placelessness that defines much of Benet’s theater from the 1980s and 1990s. As I have suggested earlier, it might

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET I JORNET 157

be possible to view cultural identity in contemporary Catalan drama as being inscribed not through location, but rather through its avoidance or displacement, that we might view in the lack of spatial geogra-

phy, or in the geopathological evasion of signs of identity, how Catalan-ness is established elliptically or even aporetically, in such a way that its flagrant nonpresence acquires strong connotative powers.'!> Given the paradoxical presence of this “invisible Catalunya,” as well as Benet’s preoccupations with cultural identity, evident, for example in Testament and Olors, one might be compelled to contemplate his portrait of the California desert and wonder how it might be possible to read signs of presence in what is seemingly an absence, how this undifferentiated space, the natural habitat of a salamander, might resonate with Catalan-ness. In effect, as the play progresses, the image of Catalunya and of the Barcelona landscape gradually will come into view.

Both Claud and Travis are filmmakers, each specializing in a distinct cinematic genre and each genre signifying, in turn, a distinct approach to life and rapport with reality. Claud is a successful Hollywood director specializing in fictional melodramas and accustomed to the opulence, excess, and public recognition that such success naturally would entail. He mentions at the outset of the play that he plans to travel to Barcelona to scout out locations for his next film. Travis, in contrast, is a specialist in documentary filmmaking, accustomed to a more dis-

creet, private, down-to-earth existence that is anchored in reality. Thus, in typically Benetian style, a play of perspectives unfolds through the dichotomy Claud/Travis. Fiction/reality, melodrama/ documentary, public /private—the dichotomy functions as a metaliterary device that not only alludes to the process of artistic creation, but also paints a self-conscious portrait of Benet’s double-sided artistic personality as a creator of television melodramas, as well as a politically and socially engaged playwright. As the action develops, elements of reality from ‘Travis’s universe gradually begin to color and taint the melodramatic realm that Claud inhabits. In the desert of Salamandra, the landscape is burning; it is in danger of disappearance. In order to arrive at the home of Emma, Hilde, and

‘Travis have had to circumnavigate what appears to be a perilous brushfire. Moreover, in all the landscapes that surface throughout the play, there is a recurrent suggestion that nature is ablaze. Fire becomes a Jeit motif that lingers in the background of each successive scene and garners special significance in connection with the salamander. Hilde and ‘Iravis have brought with them a wounded salamander from the Santa Rosa desert. It is a rare variety, in danger of extinction, and, because it is wounded, its own life, as well as the continuity of the

158 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM species, 1s in a precarious state. While it is sometimes said that, in Berber culture, salamanders signify dreaming, here, Benet invokes a legend according to which salamanders are resistant to fire and known to feed off it. It is a legend that, coincidentally, Rodoreda also recreated in her short story “La salamandra.” As Hilde recalls, ““Abans es deia que les salamandres s’alimentaven del foc.’''* [They used to say that salamanders fed off of fire.] ‘The implicit question that the legend in-

vokes, therefore, is whether the desert salamander will survive and whether the fire will contribute to its survival. In a conversation with Claud, ‘Travis explains his ideas for a new documentary about different

species in danger of extinction. It will begin with the salamanders of Santa Rosa: La idea és tornar a parlar de l’extincid. Ara de manera més . . . ambigua. Comencant per les salamandres que hi ha aqui, a Santa Rosa, explicant qué era per mi sentir-ne parlar a la teva mare. ‘Te n’has adonat que lhe gravada mentre remena el terrari? . . . Doncs, de manera boirosa, és aix6 el que pretenc. Comencar amb petits amfibis, réptils. . . . Després altres formes de vida; humans, fins i tot. A Phora d’editar ja ho veuré.'" [The idea is to go back to talking about extinction. ‘This time in a more ... ambiguous manner. Beginning with the salamanders that are here, in Santa Rosa, explaining what it meant to me to hear your mother talk about them. Did you realize that I taped her while she stirred the terrarium? .. . Well, in a vague manner, that’s what I intend to do. Begin with small amphibians, reptiles. .. . Then other forms of life; humans even. When it’s time to edit I’ll see.]

‘Travis’s commentary is saturated with metatheatrical allusions, for in Benet’s play, as in ‘Travis’s documentary, the salamander takes on a metaphoric function as a vehicle though which to ponder questions of mortality, disappearance, transcendence, and salvation. ‘The figure of

the salamander thus will set into motion a multilayered metonymic chain of images, people, and places, all of which, in varying degrees, speak to the precariousness of existence and the dignity and continuity of life.

The plot that forms the framework for this chain is triggered by a kind of Pandora’s box containing fragments of memories left to Claud by his recently deceased biological father. As a result, Claud finds himself in the dramatic situation of trying to unravel the mystery concerning his origins and his cultural identity. He learns that his biological father was named Joe Bennet, a significant clue, from the perspective of the spectator, as the name bears both an etymological and phonetic

correspondence with “Josep Maria Benet i Jornet.”’ Both the playwright and the fictional personage also share the same year of birth:

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET 159

1940. In the box are pieces of correspondence and some toys, including a wolpertinger, a German stuffed animal depicting a mythical beast native to the region of Bavaria. ‘The wolpertinger is an emblem of German nationalist sentiment, and for Hilde, who, coincidently, was born in Mittenwald, Bavaria, and raised near Dachau, the site of a Nazi extermination camp, the toy generates conflicting feelings with regard to her own relationship to the past. As she eventually reveals to Claud, her grandfather, the man who raised her, had once given her a wolpertinger. When he was on the verge of death, he disclosed the shocking news that, throughout his life, he had concealed his Jewish identity, and that, during and after the war, he had lived a comfortable existence, having turned his back on his Jewish friends. She feels both attraction and repulsion for the wolpertinger, tor she identifies with her grandfather’s Jewishness but not with his method of survival. ‘Through the allusions to Germany and the extermination camps, Benet’s text, consequently, establishes a metonymic connection between the precarious condition of European Jewish culture, nearly reduced to a state of disappearance at the hands of the Nazis, and the endangered salamander of Santa Rosa, on the verge of extinction. In true melodramatic form, a tension-filled love triangle develops

whereby Hilde becomes the object of affection of both Travis and Claud. ‘The rivalry that ensues culminates in a violent confrontation, in which ‘Travis gives Claud a serious blow to the groin. Subsequently,

Claud departs on a journey in search of additional signs of identity, and Hilde eventually will join him. The first stop on their itinerary is the home of Joe Bennet, a trailer located in the midst of a rural landscape near Boise, Idaho. ‘There, upon examining Bennet’s papers, they are able to conclude that Claud’s grandmother was Parisian. Although the identity of his grandfather, whose name was Claude, spelled with

an “e,” remains an enigma, among the papers are several letters that he wrote to his wife. One of them is inscribed in a puzzling, seemingly Romance language that they are unable to identify. ‘They also learn that Claude Bennet was involved in the French resistance and that eventually he died in Dachau; therefore, they assume, at first, that he was Jewish. On the pretext of scouting out locations for a film, Claud and Hilde will depart tor Europe: first to Munich (via New York), then on to Dachau, Mittenwald, the Greek island of Milos, Paris, and finally Barcelona. In the meantime, they will try to answer questions with regard Claud’s past and his cultural identity. In the whirlwind of smoldering landscapes that appear before the spectator’s eyes, the city of Barcelona emerges as a final link in the mystery, the referent upon which all previous signs converge. In a circumlocutory, elliptical fashion—in effect, through a phenomenologi-

160 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM cal play of positionality and perspectives—Claud and Hilde arrive at the conclusion that Barcelona is the birthplace of Claud’s grandfather,

whose real name was not “‘Claude Bennet,” but rather ‘“Claudi Benet.” Claudi Benet, they learn, was a Catalan Republican, or Loyalist, who, like many of his countrymen fleeing Francoist oppression, made his way across the border from Catalunya to France. Eventually, he was captured by the Nazis and interned in Dachau, becoming, consequently, one of thousands of Spaniards—many of whom were Catalans—who suffered a type of double persecution; first in their own

country and then in exile, in both places defending freedom and human dignity. Benet’s text, consequently, establishes a series of poi-

gnant and timely connections with regard to the recuperation of a painful historical memory in Catalunya, Spain, and Europe, reminding us of a shared collective history of Fascism and oppression and the extent to which Spain was implicated in the Holocaust. In so doing, he recuperates a segment of Spanish and Catalan history—the exile and persecution of Republican refugees—that has often remained buried beneath the rubble of the Second World War. Here, as in Benet’s theater as a whole, memory becomes a way of perpetuating life. As Hilde poignantly observes, “Els records s6n una mica més que res. Diem que un mort, mentre algt el recorda, no esta mort. I les persones que han causat alguna mena de dolor. . . . Almenys, que els seus noms quedin escrits.”!'6 [Memories are little more than nothing. We say that a dead person, as long as someone remembers him or her, is not dead. And the people who have caused some type of pain... . At least let their names remain written. | The desert salamander, the Jews, and the Catalans, links that Benet weaves together in a kaleidoscopic succession of people, cultures, 1magery, and landscapes, share in varying ways a common trajectory with regard to displacement, the perils of extinction, and the painful struggle for survival. (Even the salamander has been removed from its natu-

ral habitat.) Benet uses this metonymic progression to express his artistic anxieties with regard to transcendence, mortality, belonging, and the perpetuation of an artistic legacy. Back at home, in California,

the salamander escapes, and Emma declares that she finally understands the meaning of a vivid dream that she has had: Aquesta nit he somiat que era a Egipte, amb el meu home. Potser al Ramesséum, no me’n recordo de com és el Ramesséum. Només veia una paret enorme que ho ocupava tot. Plena de relleus. Batalles. El fara6, al

seu carro, sense expressi6 a la cara... . I havien tallat els genitals als vencuts. Una pila de genitals tallats, perqué els vencuts poguessin ser esclaus, pero no poguessin deixar hereus. Un somni for¢a realista. Només

3: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL GAZE: JOSEP M. BENET IJORNET 161

que la salamandra es passejava per la paret, per damunt dels relleus. De color incert, i amb la seva Ilarga cua intacta.!"”

[Last night I dreamt that I was in Egypt, with my lover. Perhaps it was Ramses, I don’t remember what Ramses is like. I could only see an enormous wall that took up everything. Filled with bas-reliefs. Battles. ‘The pharaoh, his chariot, without any expression on his face. ... And they had cut off the genitals of the vanquished. A pile of cut-off genitals, so that the vanquished ones could be slaves, but could not leave heirs. A pretty realistic dream. Only the salamander moved along the wall, above the bas-reliefs. Of an undetermined color, and with its large tail intact. ]

The dream allegorizes the dénouement of the play, for in the face of difficulties (castration, impotence) that threaten to bring to a halt the perpetuation of the species, the salamander continues to thrive. In Paris, in a strangely parallel situation, a bookseller by the Seine sells Hilde an epistolary novel, a melodrama from the nineteenth century titled “Ultimes cartes de dos amants de Barcelona’”’ (Last letters between two Barcelona lovers). ‘The title has a premonitory value, for shortly after Hilde purchases the novel, Claud abruptly and devastatingly ends his affair with her in an excruciating climactic scene. Although he does not offer her a clear explanation regarding his sudden decision, the audience learns that his injury to the groin had com-

pelled him to seek a private medical consultation in Paris. Unbeknownst to Hilde, Claud has been diagnosed with a serious illness, leaving him the (melo)dramatic choice of either castration or death. Emma’s dream, consequently, appears to have a certain resonance that connects it with Claud’s tragic fate.

While the salamander appears to live on, as evidenced by an enlarged image of the amphibian that appears on the background screen, Claud’s fate, however, is not as certain. What is clear, nevertheless, is that without progeny, his family legacy is doomed to disappear. He travels on to Barcelona alone, where his assistant (another “Senyor’’), who is helping him scout out locations for his next film, shows him an

intriguing plaza. According to Claud, the film will be a melodrama about a species on the verge of extinction and will include a plot that echoes the story of his love affair with Hilde. The plaza, which Claud’s

assistant describes, bears a resemblance to the placa del Pedré in the Raval quarter (the setting of O/ors, and the neighborhood of Benet 1 Jornet’s youth). Aquesta placa podem considerar-la com una entrada a la mena d’ambient. ...ATambient que em demanaves. Darrera teu una església de principis del XX, al davant una altra de medieval. ... La imatge femenina que co-

162 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM rona la font és una santa que protegia la ciutat.... Pero la gent que vivia aqui, la que va fer tot aixo, ha desaparegut, s’ha extingit, 0 gairebé, potser exagero. Se’n va anar a d’altres bandes de la mateixa ciutat 0 va desapareixer. Es un barri que sempre va ser habitat per families de baix poder adquisitiu. També ara. Pero ara el canvi és brutal. . . . Gairebé tot s6n immigrants recents, immigrants africans, asiatics, llatinoamericans... . Et situes? Han fet seu el barri pero no saben ni qué son aquestes esglésies ni qué significa aquesta font.!"

[We could consider this plaza like the entrance to a kind of environment. ... [he environment that you asked me for. Behind you there is a church from the early twentieth century, in front of it, another one that’s medieval ... [Lhe feminine image that crowns the fountain is a saint that protects the city... . But the people who live here, who built all that, have disappeared, they’ve been extinguished, or maybe I’m exaggerating. They went to other parts of the very same city or they disappeared. It’s a neighborhood that was always inhabited by families with limited income. Now, too. But now the change is extreme. . . . Almost all of them are recent immi-

grants, African, Asian, Latin American immigrants. ... Do you get the picture? ‘They’ve made the neighborhood their own but they don’t even know what these churches are or what this fountain means. |

In a manner similar to Olors, the Barcelona landscape portrayed in Salamandra is a spatial representation of the precariousness of life, a neighborhood in the midst of transition, plagued by a phenomenon of displacement, in danger of losing its historical memory and its ties to the past. As the assistant notes, it is “un fenomen en vies d’extinci6.””!!? [a phenomenon on the way to extinction] It is a landscape that is, likewise, culturally coded, for the Barcelona plaza that is approaching dis-

appearance is also a metonymic figure of Catalan identity and of the Catalan language, under continual threat of extinction. Both ‘Travis’s documentary and Claud’s melodrama are threaded together in a single film narrative that contemplates issues of continuity and transcendence and mirrors the plot of Benet’s play. The structure thus takes form as a kind of postmodern mise en abime, a metatheatrical device that has the effect of drawing the spectator’s attention to the representational frame and the artistic processes of representation that are at

work in the play. Perhaps, as Benet’s play appears to imply, in a vaguely Unamunian turn, it is possible to achieve transcendence through the very process of artistic creation, through words, images, and landscapes that are immortalized on the page, the screen, and the stage. In the spatial practices of Salamandra and throughout his theatrical trajectory, in all the fragile landscapes and spaces that his characters traverse and body forth, Benet i Jornet has, in a sense, achieved a form of transcendence and has shown us that, through such transcendence, one can bring meaning to life.

4 Theater of Pain: Sergi Belbel I’ve been telling you the whole time that yes I have to tell you something, that yes, yes, you too know that what’s really happening is that I don’t know how to say it, how to begin, how to treat the subject, now come to think of it. . . —Sergi Belbel, Elsa Schneider'

A SHORTAGE OF Worps Dns LA SEVA MEMORIA (WITHIN HIS MEMORY), A CATALAN PLAY WRIT-

ten by Sergi Belbel in 1986, begins in total darkness, an imprecise empty void in which the spectator hears only the deep, rhythmic gasps and sighs of the anonymous protagonist.* As the stage lights slowly rise during this “preliminary” scene, Ell (or, “He,” as the protagonist is generically called) is depicted on his knees, masturbating with his back to the audience. At first glance, his violent, self-inflicted pleasure may be interpreted as an ultimate affirmation of life; yet, his autoerotic gestures are also imbued with memories that carry with them tremen-

dous pain and torment, for as he gazes at his reflection in a mirror hanging above the stage, he sweats blood (according to the stage directions) and is reminded of the tragic death of his identical twin brother in an automobile accident some years earlier. It is a gaze that induces an overwhelming sense of anguish: feelings of guilt for having lent his

brother the keys to his car after buying him several drinks at a bar, disgrace at the thought of confronting his sister-in-law with the identical face—in effect, the mirror image—of her dead husband, and a disturbing blend of desire and shame as he recalls the uncommon ‘sentimental education” that was his first incestuous encounter with his twin.? He can gaze into the mirror and try to relive that dangerous love affair, but his hands and, 1n essence, his entire body, are now stained with blood. This powerful game of mirrors and incestuous doubling may at first 163

164 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

||

} “Ss Mi

a | | ae Jordi Martinez and Francesc Lucchetti, in Forasters, written and directed by Sergi Belbel, Teatre Nacional de Catalunya 2004. Photo courtesy of Teresa Miro.

sound like melodramatic excess or, perhaps, a perverse reinscription of the story of Cain and Abel, but the tale that I have just told is actually situated prior to scene | (or even, “scene 0”’) of Belbel’s play; that is to say, the action in this play precedes the word (or the diegetic space/time of Belbel’s text), alternating in time between one month and three years prior to the manifestation of spoken language on the stage.+ The precarious identity of the anonymous protagonist hence becomes visible to the spectator in subjective fragments and shreds; not through a naturalistic psychological portrayal (though, one might hasten to impose upon him a psychoanalytical interpretation), but through the use of three other characters, or voices, that emerge in the darkness. Generically numbered 1, 2, and 3, they are the exterior projections of his severed conscience and interior anguish, the inner voices of an enigmatic dissected memory. With a frugal, repetitive mode of expression reminiscent of the theater of Samuel Beckett and a poetic, rhythmic form of linguistic phasing evocative of the monologues of Bernard-Marie Koltés, the three voices persuade and compel the protagonist to remember, to traverse multiple levels of space and time, despite his resistance.

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 165 3: Ara.

1: recorda’t del passat dins la teva memoria; 2: ja ha arribat el moment. 3: Es ara el moment. 1: Quan aquest temps 2: ja tha paralitzat 3: 1 consumit. 2: Molts dies! 3: Tants dies! 1: Pots comptar-los. 3: [ants dies. 2: Molts. 3: [ants dies.’

[3: Now.

1: remember the past in your memory; 2: the moment has arrived. 3: Now is the moment. 1: When this time 2: has already paralyzed 3: and consumed you. 2: Many days! 3: So many days! 1: You can count them. 3: So many days. 2: Many. 3: So many days.]

The action of the play, which on the surface appears static, shifts back and forward in time throughout the process of remembrance, and as a result, Belbel is able to construct a theatrical universe that is, as José Sanchis Sinisterra observes, compact, expansive, reiterative, and progressive.® With this play, Belbel engages in a formal exploration of identity, subjectivity, memory, and the dramatic monologue, transferring to the context of the theater what would be the equivalent in nar-

rative writing of an interior monologue. It is an exploration that situates him within a significant cluster of modern (and postmodern) playwrights—among them, the aforementioned Beckett, Koltés, and Sanchis Sinisterra—who have confronted, often through monologue, the traumas of remembrance and forgetting.’ Belbel’s continued interest in monologue—a preference for narrativity over action—is reflected in successive works, such as Elsa Schneider (1987), which is composed of three contiguous monologues, and is symptomatic of his ongoing preoccupation with the theatrical word; not only its potential

166 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM during a period in Catalan, and Spanish, theater history in which textbased drama is enjoying renewed prestige, but also the extent to which verbal language is essentially ineffectual in apprehending reality. The notion that subjective, psychic realities—thoughts, emotions, desires, and passions—can garner material presence on stage is a prin-

ciple of theatrical representation that has informed the work of numerous playwrights and directors, from Shakespeare and Calderon to David Mamet and Peter Brook. For Mamet, our response to drama is

a function of the extent to which it corresponds to our dream life. “The life of the play,” he tells us, “is the life of the unconscious.’® Brook has emphasized on more then one occasion that the theater is a place where the invisible, unknown side of reality can unexpectedly materialize, making itself visible and known to the spectator.’ As for Belbel, the role that verbal communication may play in bringing forth these realities has always been a matter of investigation and even a

point of contention. In essence, his theater is about pain, for it is within the realm of anguish and affliction that the fissure between the visible and the invisible, sign and referent, becomes most unmistakably apparent. For all its richness and rhetorical twists and turns, verbal language can only begin to offer a partial, momentary impression of the experience of pain. From the grand-scale trauma that was the Holocaust, to the intimate drama that is the doctor-patient relationship, those who have contemplated the erratic inexpressibility of pain have observed how it universally triggers an abundant use of rhetorical strategies of substitution and avoidance.!° As David Le Breton observes in his ‘‘anthropology” of pain, ‘“The metaphors proposed to the doctor or to those who surround him, the adjectival richness of the words tries to isolate with small brushstrokes the glints of a pain whose image is the insufficiency of language.’’'! In his “‘archeology of medical perception,” Michel Foucault expresses a desire to uncover the vestiges of a

prediscursive moment when “seeing and saying are still one.” For Foucault, the doctor-patient relationship is thwarted by a persistent gap between the visible and the invisible: “‘the presence of disease in the body, with its tensions and its burnings, the silent world of the entrails, the whole dark underside of the body lined with endless unseeing dreams, are challenged as to their objectivity by the reductive discourse of the doctor.”'? Both Le Breton’s anthropology and Foucault’s archeology remind us that pain is not just physical and emo-

tional, but also spiritual, cultural, social, and political, capable of signifying an “unmaking” of the world, such as that described by Elaine Scarry in The Body in Pain.

It is, of course, also the quest of the artist, the poet, the painter, the

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 167 dramatist, the metteur en scene, to express pain. Indeed, Scarry is quick

to invoke the reminder offered by ‘Thomas Mann’s Settembrini that “there is virtually no piece of literature that is not about suffering.” Belbel expresses through his theater an implicit desire to return to that preverbal point in time that Foucault describes, to liberate himself and his dramatic personages from the burdens of verbal language and create a phenomenal space where the Cartesian categories of perception—body, consciousness, and world—would flow into a coherent whole. His plays, in an ironic way, speak to the inarticulate nature of pain: a pain that is symptomatic of our contemporary culture, a pain that invokes the presence of death and reminds us of the finitude of our existence. In Elsa Schneider, he intertwines the lives of three female

protagonists with the common thematic thread of suicide. In Caricies (Caresses, 1991), he stages within multiple contexts the painful lack of

communication between human beings that presumably love each other. In Morir (To die, 1993), he contemplates the inexpressibility of death and the impossibility of staging the process of dying. In La sang (Blood, 1998), he offers an uncommonly nonmoralistic approach to the

theme of terrorism and torture. In the musical E/ temps de Planck (Planck Time, 1999), he situates much of the dramatic action within an infinitesimal fraction of a second located between life and death. Finally, in Forasters (Strangers, 2003), he demonstrates the capacity of

pain to demolish cultural barriers and transcend the boundaries of space and time.

In the pages that follow, I shall offer a descriptive account of the essential elements of Belbel’s artistic trajectory, focusing on the circumstances that have given rise to an investigation in his work, as both director and dramatist, of the rapport between visibility and invisibility, between the what is representable and what is not. I shall then turn my attention to the aforementioned plays to show how this investigation comes to light in his work as a writer.

Born in Terrassa in 1963, Sergi Belbel is presently at the forefront of his theatrical generation. He is a highly accomplished playwright, director, translator, and educator, who has injected the Catalan (and Spanish) stage with a strong dose of originality and vitality while continuing to cultivate his profound interest in classical authors. He has translated and staged with resounding success plays by Moliére, Jean Racine, Pedro Calder6én de la Barca, Carlo Goldoni, and Eduardo de Filippo, among others, and has served as an associate director of the Compafiia de ‘Teatro Clasico. Other achievements include the miseen-scéne of his own translation/adaptation of de Filippo’s Sabato, do-

168 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM menica e lunedi (Saturday, Sunday, Monday), which premiered at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC) in November 2002. The show was so well received during its two-month run (winning the Ciutat de Barcelona Prize 2003 and eight Butaca prizes, and packing the 900seat Sala Gran each night), that is was reprogrammed for the winter of 2004.'° In addition, in 2003, Belbel staged his first classical opera, Gioacchino Rossini’s I/ viaggio a Reims (The Fourney to Reims, 1825) at

the Gran Teatre del Liceu in collaboration with musical director Jestis L6épez Cobos.

Belbel began to garner widespread critical attention in Spain in 1985 when, while completing his studies in French literature at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), he received the first annual Marqués de Bradomin prize for André Gide/Virginia Woolf, calidoscopios y faros de hoy (André Gide/Virginia Woolf, kaleidoscopes and lighthouses of today).'° The play, originally written in Spanish, loosely recreates segments drawn from the lives of the two historical figures named in the title. It then posits a romantic encounter in a more contemporary setting between two fictitious characters, Alfred Geis (AG) and Veronica White (VW), who function as reflections, or possible reincarnations, of the past.!’ Since Calidoscopios y faros, Belbel has authored more than twenty plays and has received a seemingly infinite succession of theater prizes. Critics and spectators who follow the Barcelona theater scene still recall with a curious combination of nostalgia

and disbelief the so-called “Operation Belbel” of January 1989, in which two of Belbel’s plays premiered almost simultaneously: En companyia @abisme (Deep Down), which he directed himself at the Sala Gran of the Institut del Teatre de la Diputacié de Barcelona, and Elsa Schneider, directed by Ramon Sim6 at the Teatre Romea. Concurrently with these premieres, the Institut del ‘Teatre organized a Belbel retrospective. Devoted solely to the work of a playwright who was, at the time, only twenty-five years old, it included round-table discussions, the performance of Belbel’s translation of L’augmentation (The Raise), by Georges Perec, play readings, and video projections. ‘The “operation” as a whole prompted one journalist for the Catalan daily Avui, to declare, “Catalan theater is called Sergi Belbel.’’'® It was an auspicious beginning that would augur well with regard to the future, for since that time, Belbel, who also leads workshops in

playwriting and translation at the Institut del Teatre and the Sala Beckett, has played a leading role in reinvigorating the tradition of text-based drama in Catalan on stages throughout Catalunya. ‘This is a theater community that witnessed throughout the 1990s a large outpouring of new playwrights and new plays. In 2002, in conjunction

with his work on the advisory board of the TNC, Belbel initiated,

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 169 along with Simo (one of Barcelona’s most accomplished directors) a project known as ““T6,” a theater laboratory designed to nurture and stage the work of six dramatists per year, mainly from Catalunya.'? In July 2006, Belbel assumed the weighty role of artistic director of the

TNC.

In addition to his work in encouraging and promoting the production of text-based drama, he has demonstrated an enthusiastic interest in cultivating a whole new generation of young actors, many of whom began working with him on the stage and have gone on to enjoy success in television and film, as well. He prefers not to distinguish among his many roles as director, author, translator; what interests him, on the contrary, is “el hecho teatral en su globalidad””° [the theatrical act in its globality]. It is a perspective that has proved attractive to the many artists who have participated in his theater projects on repeated occasions: actors Pere Arquillué, Roser Batalla, Jordi Banacolocha, Jordi Boixaderas, Jordi Bosch, Imma Colomer, Laura Conejero, Pau Dura, Anna Lizaran, Francesca Pifién, Angels Poch, David Selvas, Lluis Soler, Emma Vilarasau; composer Oscar Roig; costume designer

Merce Paloma; and set designers Max Glaenzel, Estel Cristia, and Quim Roig.?! Belbel, the son of immigrants from Andalusia and Castile, also oper-

ates without geographic or linguistic borders and has seen several of his works garner success in translation throughout South America and

Europe—especially France, Germany, and Austria. He routinely translates his own works into Spanish. In the spring of 1999, Marion Bierry’s Parisian production of Belbel’s Després de la pluja (After the Rain, 1993), which premiered in French (as Apres Ja pluie) at the ThéAtre de Poche-Montparnasse in November 1998, won the Moliére prize for best comedy produced in France during the 1998-99 season. (There was even an off-Broadway production of John London’s English translation, titled After the Rain, which went largely unnoticed.) In 1996, Belbel was awarded the Spanish National Prize for Dramatic Literature for Morir, and, soon afterward, Catalan film director Ventura Pons adapted two of his plays for the screen: Caricies (Caresses, 1997) and Morir (1999).?? In July 2000, Belbel received the National

Theater prize from the Generalitat de Catalunya for his mise-enscene of Goldoni’s Trilogia della villeggiatura (Holiday Trilogy, 1761), adapted into Catalan by Jordi Galceran as L’estiueig), which premiered at the IINC in November 1999. In the spring of 2002, he received the Premio Max (the Spanish equivalent of a Tony award) when Després de la pluja was designated the play with the largest international presence. His musical E/ temps de Planck (Die Zeit der Plancks, in German) pre-

miered at the prestigious Burgtheater in Vienna during the spring of

170 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM 2003.73 It would appear that Belbel’s presence on the international theater scene continues to be unrivaled by that of any other living playwright from Spain. Belbel’s theater in general echoes the concerns of the European and North American theatrical avant-gardes with the process of communication (the degree to which language determines dramatic action) and

the phenomenology of theatrical space (the relationship between physical space and invisible, subjective, psychic realities). In keeping with the minimalism and economy of expression that many have come to associate with Beckett and Mamet, as well as Harold Pinter, Belbel’s characters employ a paradoxical brand of verbal discourse, marked by frequent elliptical clauses, doubles entendres, and misinterpretations. These linguistic tendencies are coupled with a seemingly magical ability to transform verbal detritus into lyrical poetry and a fine-tuned capacity to detect and reproduce the rhythms and syncopations inherent in ordinary daily speech. However, what seems like everyday, prosaic language also acquires an unexpected plasticity in his theater; it is converted into a work of art in which the expression of a fixed meaning is not always a primary concern. Eduardo Galan has underlined the way in which Belbel’s plays stress the musical and acoustic qualities of language: “Belbel plays with words: form and substance, signifier and sig-

nified, they are the two faces of the same coin, which B. tries to separate artificially to play with the value of words.””+ In his preface to Després de la pluja, Carles Batlle, correspondingly, observes in Belbel’s

theater “una sensibilitat aguda per transitar agilment, ironicament, a través de registres idiomatics variats.”’’* [a sharp sensitivity for moving in an agile, ironic manner, through various linguistic registers. | For Batlle, Belbel’s theater has succeeded in restoring the word to a level of prestige that it had seemingly lost: “Una paraula que és poética sense ser retorica, que és oral sense ser trivial, que és densa sense ser

tensa.”’° [A word that is poetic without being rhetorical, that is oral without being trivial, that is dense without being tense.] It is a return to the word in which, paradoxically, silence and the dramatic pause acquire strong subversive powers capable of dismantling any realist mechanisms that are already at work in the mise-en-scéne. Indeed, silence, as Pinter himself has noted in an essay titled “Writing for the Theater,” is not just a situation in which words are not spoken; silence also occurs when there is “‘a torrent of language,” a explosion of verbiage in which the speech we hear functions as a “necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen”’ that is used to cover nakedness or vulnerability.’”? Pinter’s observations are equally

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 171 applicable to Belbel’s work, for communication (or a lack there of) is a theme that emerges obsessively in his plays. Quite often Belbel’s

characters gush “torrents” of language, but these torrents are not mere noise; his dominant rhetorical strategy is a variation on aporia, the trope of doubt and communicative ineffectualness. ‘This is the term used by ‘Toby Silverman Zinman when she speaks of the Jewish)

rhythm of talking in Mamet’s drama. One might also say that this strategy of aporia is, in effect, a component of what Sanchis Sinisterra has termed, in speaking about the theater of Lluisa Cunillé, a poética de la sostraccié (a poetics of subtraction).** Opaque, perplexing, and enigmatic, Belbel’s characters, accordingly, run verbal circles around an absent referent that seems to have fallen into a semantic void. ‘The result is a kind of contemporary aphasia, or an inability to express verbally the conditions of a culture that has become morally bereft, ethically corrupt, spiritually dispossessed, and wholly void of compassion. The typical Belbelian characters are often solitary beings, generic and anonymous, who find themselves victims, thrown into a space that is not at all hospitable. In such plays as Caricies, Després de la pluja, and La sang, they inhabit an urban landscape of harsh, aggressive realities reminiscent of the theater of Koltés: opulence and prostitution, consumerism and corruption, illness and decadence, moral ambiguity and brutal violence. As Belbel explains, “Mis obras analizan sobre todo el horror cotidiano, un tema que, por supuesto, ya han tratado antes en los escenarios; es la forma de enfocarlo, de plantarlo sobre las tablas lo que me interesa.’’? [My plays analyze above all quotidian horrors, a

theme that, of course, has already been treated on the stage; it’s the way of focusing on it, of placing it on the stage that interests me.] Cen-

tral to this “quotidian horror,” is, as Batlle notes, an investigation of the violence hidden, yet implicit, in our most mundane actions.*° Often this violence gives way to aphasiac inexpressibility.

In commenting upon his creative trajectory and artistic formation, Belbel has described quite vividly the extent to which he feels a significant debt, on the one hand, toward the Catalan theater companies, such as Els Joglars, Comediants, and La Fura dels Baus, which he watched as a child and student. ‘These are companies that, in general, have been known to emphasize the energy emanating from the theatrical image over that of the text. At the same time, he is quick to acknowledge the degree to which his exposure to the diverse, text-based,

international repertoire of Catalan companies such as the ‘Teatre Lliure has also shaped his attitude toward the stage: Y si me gustan al mismo tiempo La Fura dels Baus y Moliére, no es una contradicci6n. Entonces, yo conjugo un poco todo y es porque llego al tea-

172 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM tro después del Teatro Independiente, después de la revolucién del teatro no textual—que es el teatro que yo he visto—. Claro, yo de pequefio he visto Els Joglars, Comediants, La Fura dels Baus y he visto, al mismo tiempo, el Teatre Lliure, y para mi no son contradictorios. Es mi educacidn. Mi educacion es mucho mas ecléctica.*!

[And if I like La Fura dels Baus and Moliére at the same time, it’s not a contradiction. So, I combine a bit of everthing and that’s because I’ve come to the theater after the Independent ‘Theater, after the revolution of nontextual theater—which is the theater that I’ve seen—. Of course, as a child I saw Els Joglars, Comediants, La Fura dels Baus and I saw, at the same time, the LTeatre Lliure, and for me they are not contradictory. That’s my education. My education is much more eclectic.]

Belbel attributes an additional set of influences to his experience as a spectator abroad, especially during frequent trips to Paris, which he began making as a young student: El teatro de texto que yo habia visto a principios de los 80 aqui, en Barcelona, no me acababa de interesar. Y fui yendo al extranjero, viendo espectaculos de Pina Bausch, de Peter Brook, donde ese impacto emocional me hizo ver que el teatro era algo mas alla de unos actores que recitan un texto y que explican una historia de manera convencional, con tres actos, un argumento, un nudo y un desenlace. En ese magma de los espectaculos de Pina Bausch, que no sabes por dénde empiezan ni por dénde acaban, en los que todo se repite, se juega con la emocion directa, sin filtrarla por un esquema aristotélico. Eso era algo que quise investigar.*? [The text-based theater that I had seen at the beginning of the 1980s here, in Barcelona, didn’t really interest me. And so I went abroad, to see shows by Pina Bausch, by Peter Brook, where the emotional impact made me see that theater was something more than some actors who recite a text and explain a story in a conventional manner, with three acts, a plot, a turning

point, and a dénouement. In that magma of shows by Pina Bausch, in which you don’t know where they begin and where they end, in which everything is repeated, they play with direct emotion, without filtering it through an Aristotelian scheme. That was something that I wanted to investigate. |

Belbel’s eclectic education in the theater continued at the UAB, where, in 1983, he and Toni Casares helped found the Aula de ‘Teatre at the encouragement of Professor Jordi Castellanos. At the UAB, Belbel also had the opportunity to study under playwright/director José Sanchis Sinisterra and eventually became a key participant in the ac-

tivities of the Sala Beckett, the experimental theatre laboratory that Sanchis founded in 1989 and which is, today, under the artistic direc-

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 173 tion of Casares, one of Spain’s most prominent and prestigious alter-

native theater venues. Belbel engaged in collaborative work with Sanchis’s artistic project known as El ‘Teatro Fronterizo, as well as Pausa, a timely and insightful theater review established at the Beckett in 1989. In addition to his collaborations with Sanchis and Casares, Belbel’s friendship and creative association with playwright Josep M. Benet i Jornet has mutually nurtured the artistic trajectory of both dramatists. One of the most significant experiments to grow out of Belbel’s association with Sanchis was a spectacle titled Minim-mal show (1987), which he created with Miquel Gorriz and the Teatro Fronterizo.*? In his program notes and preface to the published text, Sanchis Sinisterra aptly characterized the spectacle in the following way: “L’escenari és sols un espai en qué tot es mostra 1 es demostra, encara que regit per estrictes regles que el converteixen en aparador, passarel-la, pista o podium, 1 al qual convergeixen, desfasats i desajustats, els signes de la nostra lamentable i jocosa trivialitat, i els codis que regulen l’exhausta convivencialitat contemporania.”*+ [The stage is just a space in which everything is shown and is demonstrated, although governed by strict

rules that convert it into showcase, runway, court or podium, and upon which converge, out of step and maladjusted, the signs of our lamentable and funny triviality, and the codes that regulate our exhausted contemporary coexistence. |

Minim-mal show was composed of twenty-three sequences, or vienettes, portraying situations taken from everyday life that, when placed within the representational frame of the theater and subjected to the scrutiny of the spectator, were suddenly “made strange,” imbued with absurdity or awkwardness. The spectacle, which emphasized gesture and movement, was reminiscent of the “visual poetry” of Joan Brossa, or the visual theater of Peter Handke. More concretely, though, it reflected Belbel’s fascination with dance-theater, especially the work of Pina Bausch and her ‘Tanztheater Wuppertal. Following the experience of Minim-mal show, Belbel went on to search for ways to articulate his interest in the rapport between textuality and physicality, between discursivity and spatiality. Indeed, his work as both a playwright and director has displayed an increasingly intense awareness of the possibilities engendered by creating intriguing relationships between plot and space, and between space and spectatorship. In his work as a director (in the past, in collaboration with designer Quim Roy and, more recently, with the design team of Glaenzel/Cristia), he has shown a penchant for selecting a significant aspect or anxiety present in the plot, which he then superimposes upon the theatrical space or elucidates through a spatial configuration.

174 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM The mise-en-scéne, for Belbel the director, is always a direct function of the text; it is conceived 1n such a way that it is placed at the service of the text. (This may seem, at first glance, to be an obvious point, but this is not always the case in the work of many contemporary directors, who, in an overly zealous desire to leave their own signature upon the mise-en-scéne, are quick to dispense with certain crucial textual asects.)

’ In Belbel’s staging of his own translation of French Canadian dramatist Normand Chaurette’s Fragments d’une lettre d’adieu lus par des géologues (Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists, 1988) at the

Sala Beckett in 1999, the characters were seated around a circular table, which slowly revolved at a speed that was nearly undetectable by the audience—until, that is, the spectators realized, to their surprise, that the characters had become repositioned. It was a spatial strategy that subtly underlined the issues of perspective imbedded in Chaurette’s text. At the end of E/ temps de Planck, which premiered under Belbel’s direction at the Teatre Romea in June 2000, the character of Maria (through the use of two actresses) appeared to be in two different places at the same moment. This was one of several spatial devices that served to express the anxiety of time that underpins the

plot. In Belbel’s staging of La dona incompleta (The incomplete woman), by David Plana, at the Sala Beckett during the spring of 2001, the audience was seated upon a diverse group of chairs and sofas,

which were set on wheels. Between—and even, during—scenes, the actors maneuvered the spectators (by rolling and manipulating their seats) about the theatrical space, thus allowing them to view the space, and Plana’s play with fiction and reality, from a variety vantage points. In his mise-en-scéne (and translation) of de Filippo’s Sabato, domen-

ica e lunedi at the Sala Gran of the TNC, Belbel created a self-conscious allusion to the multiple layers of theatricality embedded in the play. With the aid of designers Glaenzel and Cristia, he used a box set, complete with old-fashioned painted exteriors, which was positioned on an elevated platform and framed within the proscenium arch of the Sala Gran. The gap between theatrical frames (between the curtain flanking the proscenium arch and the perimeter of the box set) was left unmasked so that, as the characters moved in and out of scene, they stepped up to and down from the embedded stage in full view of the audience, thus calling attention to their condition as fictional characters and to the mechanics of the representational process. During the final moments of the play, Rosa, the Neapolitan matriarch (played by Mercé Sampietro), reminds Elena (played by Angels Poch) that, contrary to what she might believe, the story has not ended, but indeed is just beginning. While this thought-provoking exchange marks the end

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 175 of de Filippo’s text, Belbel added a small coda to the performance whereby the characters, with the exception of Rosa, stepped down from the platform upon which they had been playing and waved farewell to her (and, by extension, to the audience). Gradually, the platform upon which Rosa remained began to move upstage, into the distance, amid resounding applause from the audience. (Such was the case on the night that I witnessed the production in January 2003.) With this poignant self-conscious gesture, Belbel created a subtle homage to the Italian tradition of metatheater and thereby accentuated the intrinsic condition of the stage/world as artifice that de Filippo, as well as his predecessors Goldoni and Pirandello, had so deeply understood. In his production of Benet 1 Jornet’s L’habitacié del nen (At the Thir-

teenth Hour of the Night), which premiered at the ‘Teatre Lliure de Gracia during the winter of 2003, Belbel incorporated a play with theatrical space whereby the spectators’ seats were set on two large sets of risers, which, in turn, were set on wheels. ‘The show began with a frontal stage format and no visible gap between the risers. In the darkness between scenes, however, the stagehands were charged with pushing and dragging the risers and thereby creating a fracture down the center of the theatrical space. With each successive scene, they widened the gap and modified the set design in such a way that, by the final scene, the action had shifted from the front to the center of the space. [he spectators confronted each other in the darkness from opposite ends of the room, faced with the task of searching for the truth that lay somewhere in the spatial void. ‘The itinerant set design and the large fissure that it created hence evolved into a metaphor that reflected the confrontation that transpires in Benet’s play between two opposing versions of reality.

Through the process of mise-en-scéne, and in productions such as those described here, Belbel skillfully creates a distinct tension between image and word, which serves to augment the semantic power of the text and underline its most meaningful points of conflict. Esa SCHNEIDER Elsa Schneider is an early reflection of Belbel’s deep-seated preoccu-

pation with structure and with the play between content and form. The text, which was awarded the Premi Nacional Ignasi Iglésias in 1987, premiered in January 1989 at Barcelona’s ‘Teatre Romea (at that

time, the seat of the Centre Dramatic de la Generalitat de Catalunya [CDGC]) under the direction of Ramon Sim6, with a set design by

176 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Quim Roy and costume design by Mercé Paloma.** ‘The production at the Romea also served as an important platform of recognition for actresses Laura Conejero (whose depiction of Elsa garnered her the

Premi Revelaci6 de la Critica Teatral 1988/89) and Rosa Novell (whose portrayal of Schneider earner her the Premi Margarida Xirgu 1989).

Elsa Schneider is composed of three monologues that are thematically interlaced. Roy employed the same minimalist design, with a

wood-paneled backdrop, for all three scenes, creating variations through the use of different lighting techniques.** The first part, “Elsa,” is derived from Arthur Schnitzler’s 1924 novella Fraulein Else. Thus, a work of literature, as in Calidoscopios y faros, is Belbel’s main source of inspiration.*’ Belbel based the second monologue, “‘Schnei-

der,” not on literary fiction, but on the tragic life of Austrian-born actress Romy Schneider (Vienna 1938—Paris, 1982), a woman whose “larger than life” tale very well might have been a work of literature. Finally, the third part, a brief epilogue titled “Elsa Schneider,” repre-

sents a sort of archetypal fusion of the two previous monologues. Again, as in Calidoscopios y faros, the character of Elsa Schneider is a possible “reflection,” or reincarnation, of the past; yet, she also represents the future lives that are part of a repetitive cycle. As in Dins la seva memoria, Belbel conceives memory as a subjective, creative act. The events of the past are resuscitated and re-created in the present, in the here and the now. Elsa Schneider presents three women whose destinies are marked by tragedy and misfortune; three women whose lives become undone, and who disintegrate upon the stage before the spectator’s eyes. The stories that they recount and represent are tales of exploitation and objectification. Pain traverses their lives; it even replaces them. Throughout the play, Belbel intertwines the lives of all three protagonists with a /ezt motif that is a glass of champagne. ‘The image of champagne appears for the first time in scene 2 of Elsa’s monologue, ‘“Cambra @’hotel nim. 77” (Hotel Room Num. 77), in which she declares, “Ah, quin vespre més meravell6és. L’aire sembla xampany, . . . si, l’aire sembla xampany 1 respirant-lo m’embriago.’”* [Oh, what a

marvelous evening. The air seems like champagne, . . . yes, the air seems like champagne and breathing it I become tipsy.] She will refer

to this air, or ambience, of champagne on several occasions, and as the play progresses, the metaphor becomes more than merely a way of characterizing an ebullient or effervescent atmosphere; it is a connecting thread that refers to the cycle of pain and suffering that all three women will experience, for the champagne is a harbinger of self-destruction and suicide. ‘Io drink from the glass is to convert one’s pri-

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 177 vate life into a public spectacle, to surrender to a seemingly inevitable fate, and to become caught up in a cycle of exploitation that ultimately will lead to death. Part 1, Belbel’s theatrical adaptation of Schnitzler’s novella, follows the original work quite closely. Elsa is a sexually inexperienced, nineteen-year-old woman, vacationing in San Marino with a wealthy aunt at the Hotel Fratazza. While there, she receives an urgent letter from

her mother in Vienna explaining that her father is, once again, in a humiliating state of financial debt. Having exhausted all possibilities of a loan from family members, her mother insinuates that she would like Elsa to offer her body (and, by extension, her soul) to an old family friend, Herr Von Dorsday, a sixty-something man with an intimidat-

ing, lecherous gaze. In exchange, Elsa is to receive 30,000 florins, a sum of money that, in a subsequent letter, will increase to 50,000. The pressure is especially strong, as Elsa is told that her father will be sent to prison if he is unable to pay his enormous debts. Elsa may be sexually inexperienced, but she is nevertheless quite aware of the power of her sensuality: “Potser no m’enamoraré mai. . . Tot 1 que crec que estic bé... que sdc.. . sensual. . . . Sensual.’? [Perhaps [Il never fall

in love! ... Although I think I’m fine... that ’m... sensual... . Sensual.] As the monologue progresses, a feeling of disgrace and betrayal comes over her, while she begins to comprehend the demeaning and corrupt implications of her parents’ request. Elsa would rather die than suffer the humiliation of prostituting herself for her parents’ solvency, and, in an effort to maintain her dignity, she finds herself propelled toward suicide. The seven scenes the comprise Elsa’s monologue are structured according to their setting in different rooms and locations throughout the hotel. The monologue is, in reality, an exterior manifestation of Elsa’s tormented interior stream of consciousness, reminiscent of the Joycean Molly Bloom, as Castellanos notes in his preface and Marcos Ordojfiez observes in his review of the debut production.” She is alone on stage, but the presence of several other characters is conjured in such a way that the spectator has the impression that the stage is populated with a myriad of bodies and voices. On occasion, she uses the audience as her interlocutor, implicating the spectators in her story,

such as in scene 1, “En direccié a hotel” (In the direction of the hotel), in which, according to the stage directions, she is depicted in a tennis outfit, holding a racquet, and flirting with a pair of young Italian men: “(S’atura de sobte. Mira de retill el public. Somriu. Veu més baixa:) Per qué em saluden aquests dos joves? (Desfa el somriure. Veu normal:) No els conec de res . . .”*! [(She stops suddenly. She looks at the audience out of the corner of her eye. She smiles. A lower voice:) Why are

178 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM these two young men greeting me? (She undoes her smile. Normal voice:)

I don’t know them at all... ] When she reads her mother’s letters, it is as though she were entering into a dialogue with her: “Perdona’ns si t’esguerro les vacances amb una noticia tan dolenta .. . l’estil és hor-

rords, mare . . . pero, després de reflexionar, no hi veig cap altra sortida .. .”#” [Sorry if ?'m spoiling your vacation with such bad news ... the style is horrible, mother . . . but, after some reflection, I don’t see any other way out .. . | At other moments, such as scene 3, “Davant la porta de Photel” (In front of the door to the hotel’’), she invokes the presence of other characters by engaging in a one-sided dialogue. Here, for instance, her cousin Paul, with whom she is secretly infatuated (and whom she suspects of having an affair with a married woman, Cissy Mohr), has noticed Elsa’s sudden change in mood after receiving the first letter from her mother: “Paul? Qué vens

a fer, aqui? ots s6n al menjador sopant. Vols seure? . . . Per qué? Si...Nores...No, no somio, per qué ho dius, aixo? . . . Que estic absent?’ [Paul? What have you come to do, here? Everyone is in the dining room eating. Would you like to have a seat? ... Why? Yes... Not anything ... No, ’m not dreaming, why would you say, that? . ..

That ’m absent? By the end of scene 6, “Cambra nim. 77” (Room number 77), Elsa decides that the only option left to her is suicide. From this point on, she will convert her situation into a tragic spectacle: “Estic Llesta, només em cal la roba adient. . . . Que comenci l’espectacle!’* [?'m ready, I just need the right clothing. . . . Let the show begin!] Having spilled the entire contents of a jar of Veronal into a glass of water, Elsa throws the empty container into the audience, thus leading the spectator to believe that she is on the verge of taking an overdose of

the hypnotic drug. She has agreed to meet Herr von Dorsday later that evening, but she will never make it as far as his room. In scene 7, “Sal6 de ’hotel” (The hotel parlor), the action reaches a tense climax and an emotional dénouement. At this point in the play, one finds an early manifestation of Belbel’s interest in spatial strategies

and metaphors that implicitly invite the audience to take part in the spectacle. In an atmosphere ‘“‘of champagne,” and with the gradual crescendo of Robert Schumann’s Carnival for piano heard in the background, Elsa, wearing only a coat, walks slowly downstage with her hands folded across her lapels. She smiles as she descends a staircase leading down from the stage to the space occupied by the audience. Her demeanor is described in the stage directions as “‘provocative”’ and “‘savage.”’ Finally, she exclaims “Ah, senyor von Dorsday!”’ (as though she were greeting him) and casts off her coat, letting it fall to the ground, revealing her nude body. ‘The music comes to an abrupt

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 179 halt, she laughs hysterically, and then faints upon the stairs. ‘‘Fosc sob-

tat’ [Sudden darkness].*> Following this fainting spectacle, the remainder of the scene takes place in complete darkness. With the exception of the voice of Elsa, all voices that are heard (Elsa’s aunt Emma, Paul, Sissy, a hotel porter, and other anonymous hotel guests) have been previously recorded. The audience listens to the interior voice of Elsa, who, in a state of semiconsciousness is, for the time being, still quite aware of what is happening. The darkness, with its suppression of visual imagery, creates the impression that Elsa’s body (exterior world) and voice (interior consciousness) have become two separate entities. Paul and some of the other guests transport her up to her room, where the glass of water containing the overdose of Veronal still sits upon her nightstand, waiting to be consumed. There 1s

a point at which von Dorsday, apparently suffering from pangs of guilt, enters the room and then leaves: “Dorsday, Dorsday, Dorsday, encara no has pagat, no m’has pagat l’espectacle, Dorsday, Dorsday!’’* [Dorsday, Dorsday, Dorsday, you still haven’t paid, you haven’t paid for my show, Dorsday, Dorsday!] A dim light comes on and, for a moment, the audience sees Elsa in her bed, as she drinks the glass of Veronal and then lets it drop to the floor. ‘The remainder of the scene is a delirium of voices in the darkness as Elsa drifts away toward death,

less conscious with each passing moment of her surroundings and what is happening to her. Finally, she smells the aroma of candles and hears the organ music that has begun to play. As she bears witness to her own funeral, her only desire is to fly and sleep and dream. At the

end of this first monologue, a single beam of light focuses upon an empty chair that remains on the bare stage. Its presence is a reminder

of Elsa’s absence.

The eight scenes that comprise the second monologue are organized according to the dates that they portray in the life of Romy Schneider. Belbel depicts a series of emblematic moments in her life, as though he were capturing snapshots from the past. Some of these images are not unlike those that would have been taken by the papa-

razzi. He offers the spectator a series of photographs and then, through Schneider’s interior monologue, answers the question of what the actress might have been thinking at the moment at which each image was captured. On other occasions, he provides the specta-

tor with the voyeuristic opportunity to spy upon Schneider, as she contemplates her image before a dressing-room mirror. ‘These are moments of self-introspection and despair, in which she reflects upon some of most difficult episodes of her life. Belbel is thus able to portray the process though which Rose Marie Albach-Retty, who was born into a family of actors, gradually assumes the celebrity persona

180 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM of the European cinematic luminary known as “Romy Schneider.” As

her monologue makes clear, Schneider is not only an object of affection, but also of avarice, exploitation, and the ambitious desires of others. The first scene, ‘22 de setembre de 1956,” depicts the young actress early in her career, during the year in which she filmed Szssi die Funge Kaiserin / Sissi impératrice (Empress Sissi), one of several popular films

portraying young European royalty in which she incarnated the Austro-Hungarian Princess Elizabeth. In her hands, she holds a pile of letters from her devotees and admirers. As she prepares to confront the press, she refers to the ambitious desires of her mother and her stepfather “Daddy Blatzheim”’: “Daddy voldra . . . que ensenyi bé les dents, que per aixo les tens, em dira d’aqui a un no-res—si, les meves dents, el meu somriure, somriure per a tot Europa, sense fums, sense xampany, seré innocent, seré innocent, seré. .. . No faré pas que pug! l’éxit al meu cap com el xampany.’’’ [Daddy will want... me to make sure I show my teeth, that that’s why I have them, he’ll tell me in no time—yes, my teeth, my smile, smile for all of Europe, without smoke, with champagne, I'll be innocent, Il be innocent, I'll be. . . . I won’t let success go to my head like the champagne.] Again, Belbel employs the metaphor of champagne in reference to Schneider’s success. In subsequent years (and scenes of the play) she will become the object of desire of several other men. Among those referenced are directors Luchino Visconti, Orson Welles, and Andzej Zulawski, who used the camera to manipulate her screen depictions, as well as three men with whom she was romantically linked: actor Alain Delon, theater director Harry Meyen, and her assistant Daniel Biasini. One may add to this list the journalists and paparazzi (especially the German press) whose ubiquitous presence throughout Schneider’s monologue is indicative of their relentless, parasitic, pursuit of her image. In the second scene, “‘22 de mar¢ de 1959,” Schneider contemplates her image in a mirror and recalls the filming of Pierre Gaspard-Huit’s Christine (1998). ‘This was the film, based on Schnitzler’s play Liebele? (Playing with Love, 1895), which led to her widely publicized love affair with co-star Delon, notorious for his womanizing ways. Schnei-

der had moved to Paris to be with him, and the popular press continually photographed and chronicled their frangailles. In this scene, her monologue resuscitates the disapproving voices of her mother and Blatzheim, as well as the gossip of the press, with regard to her relationship with Delon: “la bona nena s’ha deixat seduir pels encants felins de l’enemic, la bona nena ja no és verge 1 passeja pels Champs Elysees amb el salvatge, l’envejat, l’enfant terrible.’’** [the good girl has let herself be seduced by the feline charm of the enemy,

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 1s] the good girl is no longer a virgin and walks down the Champs Elysées with the savage, the envied, the enfant terrible.| Champagne surfaces as a kind of Faustian metaphor for the temptation to which Schneider is gradually yielding. “Sou vosaltres qui em doneu el xampany, jo no el vull beure.’’*? [You’re the ones who give me the champagne, I don’t

want to drink it.] She invokes the voice of her mother, who warns, “no saps qué és viure amb un actor, filla estimada . . . i els periodistes perseguint-te pels carrers, perseguint-te i humiliant-te i humiliant-me, oh i ja estic tipa d’aquest noi tan repel-lent, . . . aquest noi francés, que com el xampany li puja l’exit al.’>° [you don’t know what it means to live with an actor, my dear daughter . . . and the journalists pursuing you through the streets, pursuing you and humiliating you and humiliating me, oh and I’ve had it with this repulsive boy, . . . this French boy, who like champagne the success goes to.]

The years pass, and each successive scene brings more intrusive flashes and clicks of the camera. ‘There is the occasion of the birth of

Schneider’s son David Christopher, whom she had with husband Harry Meyen; Schneider’s divorce from Meyen and subsequent marriage to Daniel Biasini, with whom she had daughter Sarah Magda-

lena; and the death of Meyen by suicide in 1979. These intimate moments are converted into public spectacles. At the end of scene 4, in which Schneider announces the birth of her son to the press, she becomes faint and falls to the ground. It is a moment that parallels the climactic fainting scene of Elsa’s monologue. In scene 6, “12 de abril 1974,” Schneider, speaks of her controversial role in Zulawski’s L’tmportant c’est d’aimer (The Main Thing is to Love, 1975), a film for which she won the César for best actress in 1976. She is no longer Sissi, but rather the emotionally complex Nadine Chevalier, an aging, want-to-be movie starlet who thus far has only been able to find work in cheap exploitation films. Nadine finds herself in a film in which she is forced to make love to a cadaver, and Schneider feels a special identification with her character, for she, too, perceives herself as an exploited object, compelled to participate in compromising situations. “Nadine Chevalier s6c jo mateixa, Nadine la dona-objecte. Nadine la desgraciada, Nadine I’actriu de merda, l’ac-

triu de cine porno, l’actriu dintre del fang, dintre la merda.... La meva veritat, la meva veritat, la meva veritat!!’’>! [Nadine Chevalier is me, Nadine the woman-object. Nadine the pitiful one, Nadine the shit

actress, the porn actress, the actress in the mud, in the shit... . My reality, my reality, my reality!!]

It is in scene 7, “5 de juliol 1981,” that Schneider’s monologue reaches a point of maximum tension, as she vividly recounts the excruciatingly horrific circumstances of the accidental death of her teenage

182 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM son, who was impaled on a garden fence at the home of his father. “Va relliscar. (Pausa.) Una de les punxes de la reixa li va travessar tot el cos. (Pausa.) Aixi de senzill. (Pausa. Sense entonacié:) La reixa gotejant, jo ja

la veig, David cridant, patalejant, ja el veig, . . . Ja ho podeu veure. (Pausa.).”*? [He slipped. (Pause.) One of the tips of the grating went through his entire body. (Pause.) It’s that simple. (Pause. With intonation:) Uhe grating dripping, I can see it now, David screaming, flailing around, I can see it now, . .. Now you can see it. (Pause.).] Although, in reality, she was not present at the scene of the accident, arriving at the hospital only to find her son already dead, through the strategy of monologue (as in Dins la seva memoria), Belbel has his character visualize the scene and relive the pain of the tragic incident.

The eighth and final scene takes place on the day of Schneider’s death (29 de maig de 1982”), which Belbel, in keeping with widely held views, imagines as a suicide. Schneider occupies a chair on an empty stage (the same chair that had remained on stage at the end of Elsa’s monologue), and in her hand there is a container of pills. She invokes the memories of the men whose presence in her life has left her with an empty void, and she swallows the pills, one by one: “Om-

bres... dels homes... que han dit... que m’estimaven...ino...

m’han donat res.” [Shadows ... of the men... who have said... . that they loved me...and... have not given me anything.] After she walks upstage and vanishes into the darkness, light falls, once again, upon the vacant chair as a sign of her absence. The epilogue of Elsa Schneider is a monologue that might be characterized as more exterior than interior. ‘The character of Elsa Schneider

(played by Imma Colomer in the debut production) is sitting in the once-empty chair, facing the audience, with a glass of champagne in her hand. ‘Thus, the glass of champagne whose presence the other two women had suggested only with words has now materialized upon the

stage. Behind her, in the shadows, are the two actresses who performed the previous monologues. Each appears to be hiding something behind her back. Elsa Schneider addresses the audience directly, self-consciously referring to the role that she is supposed to play at the end of this three-part drama; however, she is at a loss for words: “‘se’m recargoli encara més dins el cap, Ilavors les paraules se’m bloquegen i ve el moment de dir-vos que, senzillament, realment, no sé qué dirvos, que tampoc no és veritat, o millor dit, que no sé per on hauré de comeng¢ar, per on comengaré.”* [they become even more mixed up inside my head, so the words have me blocked and the moment arrives to tell you that, simply, really, I don’t know what to tell you, which is not true either, or more well put, I don’t know where I should begin,

where I will begin.] She knows that she needs to tell the audience

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 183 something, but she cannot find a way to express what she has to say. She also wonders about the meaning of the glass of champagne in her hand, calling attention to its significance. After much ado about what seems, at first glance, to be a trivial matter, she realizes that in order to begin, it is only necessary to tell the audience that her name is “Elsa Schneider.” In effect, that is all that she needs to say, for, as she puts it “el principi és el final!’’>* [the beginning is the end!] The stage lights come on and they seem to beckon for Elsa Schneider to introduce the other two figures situated behind her. She presents each to the audience but is puzzled as to why the lights have not gone down. In a comical metatheatrical moment, she calls out to the control booth for instructions. Both Elsa and Schneider then reveal what they have been concealing: Elsa holds the glass of water containing the Veronal, and Schneider holds the container of pills. Without speaking, they repeat the suicidal gestures that the spectator has seen them carry out earlier, as though they were beckoning and enticing Elsa Schneider to follow their cues: “FExsa es beu el liquid 1 SCHNEIDER es pren les pastilles.”°> |Exsa drinks the liquid and SCHNEIDER takes the

pills.| Elsa Schneider, in the end, understands that it is her fatal destiny to drink the glass of champagne that she holds in her hands. After she falls to the ground and dies, Belbel’s play acquires an even more ironic, metatheatrical tone. She opens her eyes and declares, “‘Que no ho he fet tot ja, potser? Quin avorriment! Voleu apagar els llums d’una vegada, ja? Que no ho he fet tot, potser?** [Did I not already do every-

thing? How boring! Will you turn out the lights already? Did I not already do everything?] She stands up and stumbles. The final image that the audience sees is that of the empty chair that has been toppled over on its side. Elsa Schneider’s ineptness of expression can be interpreted, within

the theoretical context that I have proposed, as an inability to articulate her pain. Upon enunciating her name, she is converted into what Castellanos calls un personatge sintesi (a synthesis character), for she is the summary of all three characters.°’ As Joan de Sagarra puts it in a review titled “Elsa al desnudo” (Elsa nude), she is “the ghost, the syn-

thesis, the mirror of the two women who committed suicide.” With this final speech act, Elsa Schneider’s pain becomes that of all women who have suffered under circumstances of exploitation and/or objectification. Sim6, in the eloquent program notes accompanying his miseen-scéne, proposes the possibility that the three stories might really

be viewed as one: the story of a single woman and a single person. Accordingly, Joan-Anton Benach titled his review of the play “Tres mujeres y un destino” (Three women and one destiny). In effect, Elsa

184 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Schneider’s presence suggests that she might be a kind of everywoman. Throughout the duration of the play, each of the three protagonists maintains a strongly self-conscious sense of her own theatricality, as

each of their lives in varying ways has been converted into a public spectacle. A sense of voyeurism permeates the play and their monologues, as the spectator is offered the opportunity not only to listen to their most intimate thoughts, but also to witness their most personal and private moments. Elsa, for example is seen masturbating as she becomes increasingly aware of her sexuality, while Schneider’s private

tragedies are exposed to the eye of the camera and, hence, the world at large. For Elsa Schneider, in her synthesizing role, this element of theatricality is expressed in the most literal sense: her world is the stage and the stage is her world. ‘The line between the individual and the world at large has become completely eroded. She is thus overtly conscious that her primary function, her raison d’étre, is to engage in a process of theatrical representation. Her pain, as well as that of her two predecessors, emerges as a result of this process of theatricalization, of an inability to escape the prison of representation. Sim6, similarly, observes that ‘Elsa Schneider neix de la combinacio de I’tis interior 1 exterior de la paraula, de l’intent de col-locar en un mateix nivell expressiu l’audible 1 Pinaudible, de travessar la frontera que separa el mon i l’individu” [Elisa Schnieder is born out of the combina-

tion of the interior and exterior use of the word, of the attempt to place on the same expressive level the audible and the inaudible, to traverse the border that separates the world and the individual.] Sim6’s focus on the role of verbal language is significant, for while verbal communication dominates throughout the play (the word, quite often, is the action), at the same time, Belbel’s three monologuists transmit an implicit awareness that the language of the stage, as natural as it may seem, is forever weighed down by a lack of authenticity. Pain, like the theater, creates an “‘as if’’ structure; it establishes a metaphoric substitute for reality.** Yet, in the realm of the theater, the notion of performance is underpinned by a desire to remove the “‘as if,” to “resist” the binary structure of representation under which all theatrical illusion operates. ‘The aversion to theatricality, a frustrated desire for “the real,” (quite often, juxtaposed with the concept of performance) is a recurring preoccupation on the contemporary Western stage—not to mention a widely debated issue in contemporary theater studies.*? Belbel’s work displays an overt consciousness of this representational dilemma: the notion that, in the realm of theatrical illusion, it is virtually impossible to undo the tyrannical hold of the “‘as if.” ‘To avoid the “‘as if” —that is, to avoid metaphor—is to traverse the

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 185 barrier between the individual and the world at large, to go beyond the threshold of pain and that of the stage, to a space of pure presentation.

C'ARICIES

Caricies continues Belbel’s investigation of the capacity, or failure,

of verbal language to seize hold of reality. It is a text that strives to uncover the pain and violence implicit in the most mundane actions and human relations. Here, violence gives way to aphasiac inexpressibility. ‘he premiere of Caricies in February 1992 under Belbel’s direc-

tion at the Teatre Romea inspired great interest and expectation on the part of the Barcelona theater community and press. First of all, the event coincided with the unveiling of the expansive renovations of this historic locale. Belbel was granted the honor of inaugurating the Romea’s newly rehabilitated space, which, in its contemporary function

as the CDGC, was regarded as the cradle of the Catalan stage, intended to preserve the historical repertoire and nurture the work of new playwrights. In addition to Elsa Schneider, Belbel had already seen his existential comedy Ta/em (Fourplay, 1989) premiere at the Romea under his direction during the spring of 1990. Caricies, then, was the third piece by Belbel to grace the stage of this prestigious house. Dur-

ing these post-Franco years, Belbel represented the strongest ray of hope with regard to the future of Catalan drama, and critics wondered whether he would be able to repeat his earlier successes and take his creative trajectory in new directions. He did not disappoint. Caricies, as Enric Gallén notes in the preface to the published text, would be his most mature work to date.*! On the occasion of the premiere, poet/playwright Joan Casas went so far as to compare Belbel’s

theatrical trajectory to that of modernist innovator Adria Gual and also cited the influence of Sanchis Sinisterra:

Aquesta manera de posar-se davant la feina del teatre no té gaires antecedents en la nostra tradicid, si és que en té aleun. Hauriem de remuntarnos a Adria Gual o, sense anar tan Iluny, haurfem de recordar la influencia que va exercir sobre Belbel, en un moment donat, la figura de Pepe Sanchis Sinisterra.” [This way of confronting the work of the theater does not have very many precedents in our tradition, if any. We would have to go back to Adria Gual 0, without going so far, we would have to remember the influence that, in a given moment, the figure of Pepe Sanchis Sinisterra exercised upon Belbel.|

186 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM As Casas’s comments confirm, Belbel’s thorough and sustained commitment to the theater, in all its multiple facets and dimensions, was (and still is) regarded as a unique phenomenon, unprecedented in contemporary Catalan theater history.

Ordofiez, in his typically colorful vein, published the following commentary in E/ Observador addressing the sense of “urgency” surrounding the premiere of Caricies: It’s a text that has an urgency: the urgency of Belbel to pull them off of him, like leeches, the accusations of being cold, abstract, formalist—“‘Me, cold; me, a formalist; who me, who is tout feu, tout flamme? Now you'll see the meat that’s being sold at this counter.—A laudable urgency, very generative, as one semiologist would say: it will always be better to take a risk and take a plunge, in spite of the wobbly leg and of sensing the blow— this is what risk consists of, my fine friends—, than remain another two years sitting with one’s legs crossed in the same designer chair.

Ordojfiez is referring to the tendency on the part of critics and colleagues in the theater profession to jump to conclusions in classifying Belbel a “formalist’—an overly simplistic label that later would be employed as a cliché to describe not only Belbel, but also the entire eroup of Catalan dramatists who studied playwriting with Sanchis Sinisterra at the Beckett.*+ Belbel’s earlier existential comedy Talem (which had launched the stage career of actor Pere Arquillué), in effect, had been an intriguing experiment in form: in mathematics, sym-

metry, and repetition. (The first part, composed of nineteen brief sequences, is replayed during the second part in reverse order, with small changes and omissions.) However, in his review of the published text of Caricies, Batlle addresses what was essentially the failure on the part of many critics to perceive the relationship between form and the-

matic content in Belbel’s work: “La musicalitat, la fragmentacié seqiiencial, els principis de repeticié 1 variacié en el Ilenguatge 1, sobretot, en I’estructura no s6n un simple joc formal sino una via de pro-

jecci6 dels continguts cap a un nou horitz6 perceptiu.”® [The musicality, the sequential fragmentation, the principles of repetition and variation in language and, above all, in the structure are not a simple formal game but a way of projecting the content toward a new perceptive horizon.] As Caricies would confirm, Belbel’s theater is much more than merely a play with structure; his experimentations with form function as visible manifestations of invisible aspirations and anxleties.

The title of Caricies is an ironic allusion to an unfulfilled desire for human contact and intimacy, symptomatic of contemporary (urban) society. Che play is composed of ten scenes and an epilogue, each con-

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 187 taining a pair of generic, nameless characters. ‘[ogether, they portray eleven different variations on the theme of human relationships, in which no type of liaison is taboo. ‘The scenes are arranged in a linear, “chain-link” format, reminiscent of Schnitzler’s Reigen (La ronde), whereby one character from each pair moves on to the subsequent scene, in such a way that each successive scene incorporates a new character.® In the final epilogue, the circular format is brought to clo-

sure as the woman from the tenth scene (“Dona”) shares the stage with the young man (“Home jove’’) from the first scene.

Once again, as in the case of Elsa Schneider, Belbel’s reading of Schnitzler has left a significant imprint upon his theater. In addition, Belbel has credited Benet i Jornet with helping him conceive the struc-

ture of the play. After writing what he thought were two disparate scenes, he read them to Benet, who suggested that the two scenes were, in fact, linked by the presence of the same female character.*’ What unites the characters of Caricies is not only the structural linkage, but also the existential void that they share. Gallén describes their lack of understanding, their inability to communicate, and their overwhelming loneliness as the fundamental axes upon which their relationships revolve.® An additional unifying aspect, I would add, can be found in the setting, which the stage directions describe as “Diferents espais d’una ciutat.” [Different spaces of a city.] It is a contemporary urban anyplace that, while lacking in any specific cultural references, is nevertheless a shared /ocus horribilis, what Gallén describes as a cruel, violent, dehumanized space into which the characters find themselves hurled. Unlike the literariness of Calidoscopios y faros and Elsa Schneider

or the abstraction of Dins la seva memoria or Talem, Caricies comes closer to representing a contemporary urban reality that the spectators might be able to identify or recognize as their own. In his cinematic adaptation of Caricies, filmed entirely at night, Pons, situated the action in a more specific cultural space, making use of the urban scenery of the city of Barcelona. In the rapid transitions between scenes, the director offers nocturnal glimpses of the city—not just as the backdrop but, perhaps, as an additional character—creating the point-of-view effect of a camera speeding through the urban streets. In the opening scene of Caricies, of Beckettian overtones, a nameless young man (“Home jove’’) tells his female lover (“Dona jove’’): “Es extrany ... Tinc la sensacié . . . L’extranya sensacié ... Es com si Ja no tinguéssim ... Res a dir-nos”’ [It’s strange . . . ’ve got this felling that... This strange feeling . . . It’s as if we didn’t have . . . Anything to say to each other any more].° With all possibilities for verbal expression exhausted, it is as though, with a single metatheatrical speech act, Belbel were able to bring to a screeching halt an entire cycle of

188 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM tumultuous love affairs on the Western stage: from Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra to August Strindberg’s Dodsdansen (The Dance of Death), to Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. What follows

is quite literally a “torrent” of language, a veritable Pinterian “silence”

composed of empty words, in which she gives him several violent physical blows and kicks him in the groin as she sends him off to borrow some olive oil from a neighbor so that she may finish preparing a salad.

In a culture already numb from the overwhelming presence of analgesics, pain and suffering ironically have infiltrated the most banal and seemingly trivial scenes of daily life; they serve as ways of affirming

human existence and identity, of filling the void engendered by the absence of love and affection. As in the theater of Mamet and Koltés (two dramatists whose work Belbel understands quite thoroughly as a result of his work as a director and translator), language in this play becomes a weapon. Batlle accordingly underscores the function in Caricies of words as instruments of power and seduction: car, quan es dialoga, és més important obtenir alld que volem dels altres que no pas intentar comunicar els nostres desigs. La paraula, com a tltim

refugi de ’home insegur i desencisat, és nic mitja capa¢ de crear una il:lusi6d de domini del mon i dels altres, també de nosaltres mateixos.%

[because, when one enters into a dialogue, it is more important to obtain what we want from others than to try to communicate our desires. ‘The word, as a last refuge of the person who is insecure and disillusioned, is the

only means able to create an illusion of domination of the world and of others, also of ourselves. ]

If the characters live in a culture that is dominated by pain, verbal lan-

guage, then, becomes a means through which they will endeavor— through a series of frustrating attempts—to seize hold of their reality, to objectify their world and thus make sense of their existence. Following the first scene, the young woman is depicted on a park bench with a middle-aged woman (“Dona gran’’). ‘They appear to be mother and daughter. By the end of their conversation, however, the

middle-aged woman will have revealed that, in fact, she is not the young woman’s birth mother, and their lives have been predicated upon a lie. At the suggestion of the young woman, the middle-aged woman will move into a residence for the aged, and it is there that we see her in the midst of a romantic encounter with an old woman (“Dona vella’’), who, it is suggested, might be a lover from her past. They kiss and dance. In the scene that follows, the old woman is seen

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 189 conversing on the street, in front of a dumpster, with a man who we are led to believe is her former husband. He is a drunken vagabond (“Home vell”’), whom she hasn’t seen for ten years, who doesn’t seem to recognize her, and who is also the brother of her former female lover. Before the end of the scene, she informs him that that she has contracted a fatal illness. The fifth scene takes place in front of a bar that is closed (it is, apparently, very late at night or very early in the morning). A little boy (‘““Nen’’) harasses the old man and robs him of his wedding ring, but first he will recount the story of a nocturnal odyssey of drugs, alcohol, and delinquent behavior in the wake of the death of his brother in a traffic accident. In scene six, we see the little boy in the bathroom of the downtown apartment that belongs to his parents. As he attempts to persuade his father (““Home’’) to join him in the bathtub, their mundane conversation becomes a synecdochic representation of the larger absence of communication that has permeated the entire play: New: Vols banyar-te? Home: No. Nen: I la mare? Home: Esta dormint. New: No vols banyar-te? Home: No. New: Esta molt bona. Home: Qui? Nen: A tu qué et sembla? L’aigua. Home: Ah.”

[LirrLe Boy: Do you want to have a bath? Maw: No. LittLe Boy: And mum? Man: She’s sleeping. Litt e Boy: Don’t you want to have a bath? Maw: No.

Lirtte soy: All right, eh. Man: Who? Litt Boy: What do you think? ‘The water. Man: Oh.]

It is possible to glean from even this small extract that much of the dialogue in the play takes the form of questions that are not thoroughly answered. ‘Che man, at first, appears to assume that his son is alluding to his mother; however, the little boy is referring to the water (“Paigua’’), which is also a feminine noun. Throughout the play, in a style reminiscent of Beckett and Mamet, Belbel creates swift rhythmic

190 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM games of verbal ping-pong in which at times, for a brief moment, it is as though the ball, or the referent, has gone astray. He takes full advantage of the possibilities and pluralities of meaning engendered by the Catalan language to create these moments of semantic disjuncture.

It is evident from Belbel’s mise-en-scéne of Caricies, and of other plays, that dialogues such as these are intended to be delivered at a surprisingly rapid tempo that does not necessarily resemble “normal”’ speech but, nevertheless, creates the impression of realism. The brief moments of confusion and doubt seem to beg for an immediate reac-

tion on the part of the spectator, who may be tempted to pause and reflect upon the meaning of these semantic voids. Belbel, however, leaves no time for reflection, fostering aspects of uncertainty that are carried over to successive scenes in a process of deferral.

At times, the resolution of this uncertainty comes as early as the next scene. Such is the case of scene 7, in which it is revealed that the man has been having an extramarital affair; hence the woman who was on his mind at the time of the conversation with his son, in effect, may

not have been his wife at all. At the end of scene 6, just before the man finally joins his son in the bathtub, he shares the news that he has purchased a new automobile for his family, “fully loaded” with all the trimmings and frills—including a “high fidelity” stereo system. Perhaps he intends to use the automobile to fill several voids in his life, such as the absence of his dead child or the lack of a relationship with his wife. As scene 7 begins, and the man Is seen in a train station, in the midst

of ending an affair that he has been having with a girl (“Noia”), it becomes clear that his use of the term “high fidelity” in reference to the stereo may have been an ironic choice of words that is not equally applicable to his private life. The scene opens abruptly with the following exchange. Again, as in scenes 5 and 6, Belbel begins the scene with a question. In this case, the response contains a frankness that is not apt to leave spectators indifferent: Nota: I com ho ha sabut? Home: L’olor del teu cony. Nota: Vés a la merda.”! [Girt: How did she know? Man: The smell of your cunt. Grr: Fuck off.]

The man goes on to explain in further detail that his wife discovered his clandestine relationship with the girl after noticing on him the lingering, pungent odor of his lover’s genitals.

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 191 Following their breakup, in what is perhaps the most brilliantly written scene of the play, the young woman has an encounter with a middle-aged man (“Home gran’’) in his kitchen. As he prepares a lunch of filet of sole, their real relationship—that of father and daughter—is not immediately revealed. ‘The true motives of their conversa-

tion (or confrontation)—anger, passion, frustration, and fury with regard to failed relationships, loss of love, and feelings of abandonment—remain hidden beneath layers of commonplace domesticity. The middle-aged man has a penchant for cooking, while his daughter (like her mother) does not. Near the end of the scene, she asks him about his interest in gastronomy: Home Gran: Una heréncia. Nota: Perduda. Perduda. No et suporto. Una heréncia perduda. Jo no la tinc, no l’he rebut, no he volgut aprendre. Home Gran: No es pot aprendre, en el fons. Nou: Per tant, sé que no the fallat, com penses tu. Home GRAN: Son tan petites, les patates.

Nota: No the fallat.

HoME GRAN: Costen tant de pelar.

Nota: La teva heréncia acaba amb tu. Hoe GRAN: Crec que arriba la mare. Nota: Acaba amb tu. Home Gran: No sents el soroll de les claus al pany de la porta? Nota: Absolutament res. Home Gran: Notes ja el seu perfum? Nota: Estas sol. [MiDDLE-AGED MAN: An inheritance.

Girt: A lost one. A lost one. I can’t stand you A lost interitance. I don’t have it, I didn’t receive it, I didn’t want to learn. MIpDLE-AGED MAN: It’s not something you can learn, really.

Girt: So I know I haven’t failed you, as you think. MrppE-AGED MAN: They’re so small, the potatoes.

Girt: I haven’t failed you. MipDLE-AGED MAN: they’re so difficult to peel.

Girt: Your inheritance stops with you. Mipp1LE-aGED MAN: | think your mother’s coming.

Gir-: It stops with you. MIpDLE-AGED MAN: Can’t you hear the noise of the keys in the door-lock?

Girt: Anything at all. MipDLE-AGED MAN: Can’t you tell her perfume?

Girt: You’re alone.]

192 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM On the surface, it may appear as though they are engaged in a conversation about cooking, potatoes, and filet of sole, but in this allegory of existential anguish, one must read between the lines, in the communicative cracks and fissures, to find the true referents. The theme of

inheritance, which emerges concretely in reference to the middleaged man’s cooking skills, may be taken, on the one hand, as a subtle

insinuation that the daughter is ending her relationship with her father and thus rejects any sort of legacy that she may have inherited from him. It may also be her way of telling him that she does not plan

to have any children (hence, her reference to the fact that she has somehow “failed him”’). Stated another way, the middle-aged man’s pain stems from his own failure and frustration with regard to his capacity to transcend his own immediate present.”? In a sudden rage, he sweeps all the kitchen utensils onto the floor with a paroxysmal gesture that Belbel describes as a gran estrépit (large commotion). The stage subsequently is imbued with silence. The situation is such that reality, as Batlle observes, does not exist as an a priori in relation to the spoken word; rather in Belbel’s theater it is the words themselves that endeavor to construct reality.” In this case, the violence inherent in this reality resists language and gives way to aphasiac inexpressibility, a metaphorical “unmaking” of the contemporary world, analogous to that described by Scarry. Language is “shattered” and the silence that we are left with calls attention to the insufficiency of the spoken word. Pain, as Le Breton tells us, “‘assassinates the word” and, with its eradication, brings about a destruction or suppression of identity.”* The middle-aged man’s identity, his own sense of self, is reduced to a minimal essence of oneness. With no possibility for transcendence, he is a single mortal individual, and his image on the stage becomes the figure of isolation and aloneness. In the ninth scene, Belbel reveals the middle-aged man’s attempt to resolve this sense of isolation and create a meaningful connection with

another human being. He is seen at the apartment of a young man (“Nov’), with whom he apparently has an ongoing sexual relationship (it is unclear as to whether there is money involved). ‘There is, there-

fore, irony to be found in the young man’s comment regarding the difficulty of maintaining discretion and keeping their relationship a private affair: ““Hauriem de viure més Iluny. . . . Quina merda de barri. Tothom es troba tothom. Ja no hi ha intimitat.”’> [We should live farther away... . This area’s a dump. Everybody’s always bumping into everybody else. ‘Chere’s no privacy.] As the young man mechanically offers him oral sex, the middle-aged man watches as their images are doubled in a mirror that he has brought the young man as a gift. As he approaches the point of orgasm, the middle-aged man exclaims, “Estic

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 193 viu. . . . Nosaltres quatre tot sols. Els quatre només. Només? No, si som quatre! Aixi. Aixi. Ah. Vosaltres tres . . . els inics que m’estimeu.’’”¢ [I’m alive. .. . Just the four of us, all by ourselves. Just the four of us. Just! No, there really are four of us! That’s it. That’s it. Oh. You

three . . . the only ones who love me.] Intimacy, for the middle-aged man, is converted into a pathetically narcissistic endeavor, and the fact that two out of the four images are mere reflections creates for the spectator the ironic effect of amplifying his desperate loneliness. He may cry out that he feels alive, but his affirmation of existence is, ironically, predicated upon mere simulacra. In the tenth scene, the young boy visits a lonely woman (“Dona’’)

at her apartment. She is his mother. He leaves her money (perhaps, his earnings from the relationship with the middle-aged man), but not before we see her disingenuously pinch an additional bill from his wallet while he 1s in the bathroom. As it happens, the woman is also the neighbor of the young couple who appeared in scene 1. In the epilogue, then, the young man from the first scene, bruised and battered, arrives at her apartment to ask for the olive oil. In joining these two characters—one from the first scene, the other from the last—Belbel brings together the entire circle of relationships, creating an effect of spatiotemporal simultaneity. It is an aesthetic illusion, or structural

joke, that implicitly tempts the spectator to try to situate scenes 2 through 10 in the brief interval of time that has elapsed between the moment that the young man left his apartment at the end of scene 1 and the moment that he appeared at the door of his neighbor in the epilogue. An alternative interpretation would be to imagine that scene 1 and scene 10 correspond to the same moment in time and that the other scenes form a circular progression that begins and ends with that moment. The woman’s maternal instincts awaken as she notices the young man’s wounds and, thinking that he has had an accident on the stairs, offers to clean his bleeding face. She then gives him the only genuine caress of the entire play. As they offer each other gestures of tenderness and affection, the meaning of the play (and the title) crystallizes upon the stage. The circular structure of deferral, whereby meaning is

held in suspension from scene to scene, is revealed as a signifier of the problem of communication, as well as the existential void that the characters share. Just as each signifier pursues a corresponding signified and a corresponding resolution of meaning, each character aspires to a human need for love, affection, sincerity, and authenticity. Belbel postpones the fulfillment of this desire until the final scene; hence thematic content coincides with form in a single instant, a single human caress.

194 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM It would be difficult to call this a “happy ending,” although the structural-thematic dénouement may provide the spectator with a sense of relief and resolution. ‘The ending, as well as the play in general, eludes any sort of slick categorization, and it is perhaps in this ambiguity that one can locate the power of Belbel’s dramaturgy.” In his program notes for the 1994 Madrid production of the play at the Sala Olimpia (Centro Nacional de Nuevas ‘Tendencias Escéncias), director Guillermo Heras observes Belbel’s ostensive interest in creating hybrid theatrical forms that avoid fixed definition: “Beyond the blows, the punches, or the broadsides, there exists a metalinguistic fabric that ignites the passion of the relationships underneath the frigid appearance of a polar desert. Fire and ice in a strange mixture that continu-

ally situates this work in an uncertain intersection of styles. Is it a tragedy, a satirical comedy, or a melodrama? Perhaps a realist portrait of a society that never wants to assume the sickness of solitude and disenchantment.” This ambivalent blend, or “odd mixture,” of “‘fire and ice,” a keen ability to find humor and absurdity in the most desperate of situations, cruelty and despair in the most comical of circumstances, and melodrama and quirkiness in the most prosaic dimensions of reality, would become a defining characteristic of Belbel’s theater. He understands well the degree to which sorrow and laughter essentially originate in the same place. Tragedy, comedy, and melodrama intersect and inter-

twine in such a way that members of the audience may easily find themselves laughing and crying in the same sitting. Belbel has spoken on occasion of his pursuit of an indescribable aesthetic-emotional effect: “Creo que hago teatro porque viendo teatro, buen teatro, he recibido impactos emocionales y estéticos dificiles de explicar y eso es mi suefio: llegar a que tan sdlo un espectador Ilegue a sentir eso.””’® [I believe I create theater because seeing theater, good theater, ’ve been affected emotionally and aesthetically in ways that are difficult to explain and that is my dream: to make just one spectator able to feel it.] INCONGRUOUS COMBINATIONS

The interest in traversing and layering theatrical genres, in creating unique, indefinable results and sensations would continue with subsequent plays, such as Després de la pluja, Belbel’s most prize-winning

piece to date.’? It premiered under Belbel’s direction at the Centre Cultural de Sant Cugat del Vallés during the fall of 1993. ‘The produc-

tion subsequently landed at Barcelona’s ‘Teatre Villarroel and then toured Catalunya for several months. Belbel also directed a Madrid

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 195 production of his own Spanish version of the play. It premiered at the Teatro Albéniz in February 1996, with a cast that included four popular Spanish actresses from stage, screen, and television: Natalia Dicenta, Amparo Larrafiaga, Paloma Paso Jardiel, and Maribel Verdu. Després de la pluja conjugates dark humor and absurdity with existen-

tial anguish and pain. It is set amid a generic, urban postindustrial landscape that represents an imprecise, but, perhaps, not-so-far-off future. The action of the play is situated on the rooftop of a forty-ninefloor skyscraper owned by a large a multinational firm, a phallic metaphor of patriarchal power. In this empty exterior space, whose limits are marked by guardrails of containment, and where the characters are often both literarily and figuratively “on edge,” eight office workers (four secretaries, a computer programmer, a messenger, an administrative head, and an executive director) cross paths in their semiclandestine attempts to dodge the firm’s prohibition on smoking. Beneath

a sky that hasn’t seen rain for two and a half years, they grab a few furtive puffs, and their shared transgressions open the way for them to share, likewise, their interior feelings of angst, desire, and dissatistaction. In this mythical-allegorical context of severe draught, existential pain, sexual tension, and hierarchical oppression, a space in which the dreams and imagination of the characters often intersect with reality,

Belbel offers an at once bleak and comical portrait of the games of power that people play. Després de la pluja, however is not without a certain hopefulness that emerges at the end, symbolized by the storm that finally bursts through the clouds in an almost orgasmic explosion of relief, a liberation that coincides with the arrival of the rain and then the sun that peaks through after the rain has gone. Belbel may have begun his career on the alternative theater circuit, but he was rapidly demonstrating that his work was capable of attracting a varied gamut of spectators and even of garnering significant attention on the commercial circuit. His interest in reaching a large and varied audience has been quite evident in his collaboration with the Companyia T de ‘Teatre, a collective formed by a group of five young female graduates from the Insitut del Teatre. Belbel directed and contributed textual material to T de Teatre’s widely successful assemblage of humorous vignettes titled Homes! (Men!, 1994), which premiered at

Barcelona’s Mercat de les Flors in 1994 and enjoyed long runs in Spanish translation on the commercial theater circuit in Madrid and Buenos Aires.*°

Séc Hetja (Vm ugly, 1997) represented Belbel’s first foray into the

realm of musical theater. Written in conjunction with playwrightactor Jordi Sanchez and composer Oscar Roig, and produced by the Companyia Krampack of television fame, it was another far-reaching

196 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM endeavor in terms of its quest for broad audience appeal and Belbel’s desire to create original and uncanny theatrical cocktails. Séc /etja premiered under Belbel’s direction at La Sala in Rubf, just outside Barcelona, in March 1997 and then went on that summer to fill the 699seat Teatre Condal on Barcelona’s Avinguda Paral-lel. The production starred Sanchez, Monica Glaenzel, Laura Conejero, and Joel Joan, with Conejero and Sanchez seamlessly incarnating a total of nineteen different personages. Séc //etja is a modern-day version of the “uglyduckling” parable, which offers a surprising hybrid blend of terror, gore, comedic satire, and melodrama. In contrast with Homes!, the production offered a sophisticated brand of humor in its toppling of clichés, maintaining a certain intellectual undercurrent without becoming overly esoteric. Morir (UN MOMENT ABANS DE MORIR)

“Ambitious” and “twisted” were the oddly incongruous adjectives that Benach employed, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner, in his review published in La Vanguardia on the occasion of the premiere of Morir (Un moment abans de morir) in 1998.8! With this play, Belbel

continues to cultivate his interest in creating works that disturb the parameters of traditional theatrical paradigms and conventions and generate unique and unpredictable relationships between content and form. As Ordofiez is quick to remind the readers of his review, Morir has a rather atypical history within Belbel’s trajectory as a writer, for although it was written in 1993 and subsequently awarded two of the most coveted and lucrative theater prizes of the Spanish state—the “Born” Prize 1994 (granted annually by the Cercle Artistic de Ciutadella de Menorca to a Catalan- or Spanish-language play text) and the

National Prize for Dramatic Literature 1996 (granted annually by Spain’s Ministry of Culture)—the play, nevertheless, did not finally premiere until April 1998, when Belbel was granted the opportunity to stage it at the Romea.* (This was, in fact, the last play to be produced at the Romea during its span as seat of the public CDGC.) “Asi que pasen cinco afios” [“Once five years pass”, notes Orddfiez, ironically invoking Federico Garcia Lorca’s well-known title and imagining the gap, in terms of artistic evolution, that may have existed between the Belbel of five years earlier and the Belbel who finally directed the play. Not withstanding this possible inconsistency (upon which Ord6fiez places a seemingly inordinate amount of emphasis), when the play was finally brought to the stage, it was done so under exceptionally

propitious conditions, with a lavish cast that included a long list of

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 197 established luminaries from the Catalan star system. Many of the actors had worked with Belbel before and/or established their reputations with prestigious companies such as the Lliure: Pere Arquillué, Jordi Banacolocha, Jordi Bosch, Imma Colomer, Laura Conejero, Marta Domingo, Pau Dura, Santi [bafiez, Anna Lizaran, Francesc Orella, Francesca Pifi6n, Angels Poch, and Lluis Soler. By 1998, many also had participated in several widely successful Catalan television series; hence their notoriety among potential theater audiences was quite ex-

tensive. In addition, the cast included popular Catalan singer Lidia Pujol, who, accompanied by four musicians, performed a musical score composed by Oscar Roig. Costume designer Merce Paloma also participated in the production, as did set designer Quim Roy. Belbel’s mise en scene of Morir, then, would prove to be a foolproof recipe for a large box-office draw during its two-month run at the Romea.

The principal theme that Belbel explores in Morir is the arbitrary distinction and the miniscule thread that separates life from death. The subtitle of the play, Un moment abans de morir, is significant in its reference to this infinitesimal space, a place whose boundaries Belbel would later navigate in further depth in E/ temps de Planck. Morir thus attempts to reveal to the spectator an invisible space of pain, of inexpressibility and ineffability. His interest in theatricality, consequently,

is also present here, as he engages through the text (and, most especially, through the mise-en-scéne) in an implicit exploration of the im-

possibility of staging death and the process of dying. In typical Belbelian fashion, these themes are replicated in the structure of the play, creating an intriguing experiment in form (in mathematics, symmetry, and repetition) that investigates the arbitrariness of human destiny and the role of chance or fate in producing unforeseen cause-andeftect relationships.

The first half of the play, titled “Morir...” (Io die... ), presents a series of seven seemingly independent scenes, each containing between one and three characters. Each scene culminates with the death of one of the characters. While some of the scenarios are more commonplace than others, on the whole, the circumstances—at least, at first glance—appear to be far from remarkable: a scriptwriter dies of a heat attack, a heroine addict dies of an overdose, a young girl chokes to death on a chicken bone, a hospital patient suffocates to death after inhaling his own vomit, a depressed and lonely old woman dies of an

overdose of alcohol and drugs, a motorcyclist is struck down by a speeding police car, a man is surprised and murdered in his home by a hired assassin.

In the second half of the play, titled “i no morir” (and not to die), the seven scenes from the first half are repeated in reverse order. In

198 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM this sense, the structure resembles that of 7a/em, but here there is an additional twist. This time, rather than have his characters die, Belbel (or the scriptwriter) has fate intervene to save the man from the hired assassin. [his auspicious gesture sets in motion a chain reaction, or domino effect (somewhat evocative of the chain of interconnected relationships in Caricies), which links the succeeding scenes in a logical order in such a way that each victim is able to escape death. ‘The play, therefore, concludes on an optimistic note that would have us believe that one small act of mercy, or one arbitrary gesture or decision, may have farther-reaching repercussions than one might at first anticipate. The slightly didactic insinuation is that any ordinary situation or decision may trigger an extraordinary outcome; it may, indeed, mean the difference between life and death. The plot is consequently akin to other games of chance and “what if” scenarios that have emerged in a broad range of theater and film plots, such Alan Ayckbourn’s play Jntimate Exchanges (also noted by Ord6fiez) and Peter Howitt’s film Siiding Doors. In his screen adaptation of Belbel’s play, titled Morir (0 no) (To die [or not]), Pons filmed the first part in black and white and the

second part in color, thus creating an interesting visual juxtaposition of the two alternative scenarios, which contrasted the negative outcome with the positive.* To this almost algebraic equation, Belbel adds still another significant structural dimension: a metatheatrical frame composed of the first and final scenes of the play, in which the scriptwriter converses with his wife about the qualities of a successful script. He has just recovered from a difficult spell of writer’s block, and she encourages him to tell her about his latest idea for a screenplay, titled Un moment abans de morir (A moment before dying). Their conversation will serve as the

frame for a play-with-in-the-play, a fictional plane corresponding to the scriptwriter’s imagination and, naturally, a pretext for self-conscious reflection with regard to the creative process. The implication here is that the other characters in Morir are situated on this fictional plane. The story that the scriptwriter relates to his wife in the first scene is that of a young motorcyclist who is involved in a serious traffic accident. At the moment immediately prior to his supposed death, his life

is held in suspension in time and space. A voice stemming from a higher power (Belbel is parodying several film clichés) tells the motorcyclist that he must choose between two hypothetical destinies: an immediate, yet poetic, death (with a brief, yet meaningful, life) or a long, insignificant, empty life of luxury. The conversation is abruptly inter-

rupted when the scriptwriter experiences chest pains, collapses, and dies. he final scene of Morir begins where the scriptwriter left off

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 199 during the first scene; however, this time, he is interrupted by his wife who, exasperated with so much death and pessimism (as in the first part), suggests that he leave his characters’ lives open to the possibility of salvation (as in the second part): Potser aquest jove ha salvat la seva propia mare duent-la a un bon metge ...1 qui Sap si aquesta senyora, una nit, amb empenta i coratge malgrat la seva malaltia, cridant des del balcé de casa seva, no ha impedit que un gamberro o un assassi clavés una ganivetada o disparés un tret a un vianant per treure-li diners. . . . Qui sap?**

[Maybe this young man has saved his own mother by bringing her to a good doctor .. . and who knows whether this woman, one night, with drive

and courage despite her illness, yelling from the balcony of her house, might have impeded a hooligan or assassin from inflicting a knife wound or from shooting a bullet at a passerby to get money from him. ... Who knows? |

Her optimistic commentary leads the spectator to believe that the twelve preceding scenes might, in effect, correspond to a revised version of her husband’s script. At the end of this final scene, the scriptwriter once again experiences chest pains and collapses. Yet the ending ts left open (once again,

in spatiotemporal suspension), and the audience is left to wonder whether providence will intervene and whether Belbel’s character will live or die. Belbel, in this manner, injects the play with somewhat Borgesian, or even Unamunian, overtones as he intimates that the destiny of his scriptwriter, like that of the scriptwriter’s motorcyclist, may be subject to the arbitrary whims of a higher authority (perhaps, the deus ex machina of authorial intervention). Although Belbel does not bring this theatrical mse en abyme to complete closure, there is a lingering implication that, if the spectator has indeed just witnessed a revised version of the script, then the scriptwriter will, by all means, have to survive. Pons’s adaptation, in contrast, has a more definitive, positive resolution. He depicts the scriptwriter, still alive, being transported to the hospital in an ambulance with his wife at his side, imploring him “to live.” It goes without saying that Belbel is quite aware that performance is by definition a unique and unrepeatable experience, predicated upon its lack of permanence and a certain degree of arbitrariness and spontaneity. In casting his production of Morir at the Romea, he took these conditions to the limit, creating a mise-en-scéne that underscored, and even mirrored, the themes of fate, destiny, and chance already embed-

ded in the text. Belbel elucidates in his program notes how he con-

200 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM ceived the play as a choral work with an ensemble cast: circumstances (similar to Caricies) that challenged him to create an atmosphere in which each actor would feel fully implicated and immersed in the en-

tire theater event, rather than merely intervene in two scenes per nightly performance. ‘To achieve this goal, he asked that twelve out of the fourteen actors (with the exception of Pujol and Bosch, as the

scriptwriter and his wife) each prepare three separate roles. Each night, one of the three roles was selected for each actor at random, the result being more than three hundred possible casting combinations.

Subjected to chance, to an outcome as arbitrary as the direction in which the wind might happen to be blowing, the casting configuration emphasized the uniqueness of each performance and, analogously, the randomness and unpredictability of human destiny. As an added advantage, it left open the possibility that some of the spectators might even be enticed into seeing the play on more than one occasion, since the cast on any given night was never the same. It was through his mise-en-scéne of Morir that Belbel was able to

explore in further depth the concern with theatricality that had emerged in Elsa Schneider. Here the issue is taken up in relation to the portrayal of death on the stage. How does one translate the notion of death to the theater? How does one create a mort en scene? Belbel was grappling with a longstanding dilemma that has forever bewildered dramatists, directors, and actors alike. He alludes in his program notes to the degree to which the cinema has perfected the representation of

death through a blatant, transparent, literal use of mimesis. In his stage production of Morir, then, he chose to distance himself from the realm of film and take a much less literal, less objective approach that would eschew realism altogether: Hem escollit, doncs, la via de la suggestid, del simbol, de la metafora, de la imaginaci6, que col-loca l’espectador en una dimensi6 diferent, essencialment teatral. I ho volem fer explorant diverses possibilitats, amb petits gestos, trucs, mecanismes esceénics, 1 sobretot, amb la inclusi6é del Ilenguatge musical.*

[We have chosen, therefore, the route of suggestion, of symbol, and of metaphor, of imagination, that situates the spectator in a different, essentially theatrical dimension. And we want to do it by exploring diverse possibilities, with small scenic gestures, tricks, mechanisms, and above all, with the inclusion of musical language. ]

The small irony here, of course, is that the action of the play is, in theory, the embodiment of a screenwriter’s film script. Belbel’s miseen-scéne of death in Morir did not contain any aspiration to the real or

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 201 to the authentic; there was no aversion to theatricality. Instead, Belbel confronted the issue of theatricality straight on, calling attention to its flagrant artificiality and unabashed pretense and deceit. A large yet simple illuminated cross, designed by Roy, presided over the stage as an imposing metaphor of incontrollable fate and destiny. Beneath the cross, there were four musicians on risers, in plain view of the audience. During the each death scene, a moment prior to the imminent expiration of the victim, the characters suddenly froze on stage. Roig’s eerie, haunting music ensued with vocals performed by Pujol, as Bosch, in the role of scriptwriter, recited the stage directions describing the death. For example, at the end of scene 5, in which a desperately lonely woman commits suicide, the indications read as follows:

Se li tanquen els ulls. Li cau auricular a terra. Es du les mans a la panxa. Té nausees. Li surt una mena d’escuma per la boca. El seu cos és flaccid. Intenta de fer aleun moviment. No pot sostenir el cap. Cau. Amb les mans al ventre, es retorca per terra. La seva respiracié és cada vegada més lenta. Mor.*8

[Her eyes close. The telephone receiver falls to the floor. She takes her hands to her chest. She feels nauseous. Some type of foam comes out of her mouth. Her body is flaccid. She tries to move. She cannot hold her head up. She falls. With her hands on her stomach, she squirms around on the floor. Her breathing becomes increasingly slower. She dies. ]

The musical pause created a spatiotemporal gap of suspension and distance, elongating and accentuating the crucial moment between life

and death, converting this moment into a large hollow void and a space of contemplation for the spectator. Belbel explains, No me interesaba que la gente pensara, “qué bien,” o “qué mal lo ha hecho,” sino que me interesaba representar la muerte de una manera alternativa y mas teatral, mas espectacular. De ahi fue cuando decidi afiadir musica y dejar las acotaciones del texto. El actor no morira (su personaje, si), sino que representara de otra manera la muerte, sea durmiéndose o dando vueltas o levitando.*’

[’'m not interested in people thinking “how well,” or “how badly he’s done it,” rather I’m interested in representing death in an alternative way and more theatrically, more spectacularly. That was when I decided to add music and to leave the stage directions. ‘The actor won’t die (his character will), but he will represent death in another way, be it sleeping or turning over or levitating. ]

202 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM In employing these antirealist strategies (Some of which contain certain echoes of Brecht), Belbel was able to avoid having to yield to the problematic premise or convention that his characters were in denial of their theatricality. The deaths on stage were portrayed through the lens of an intensely self-conscious mode of subjectivity, and rather than reject the presence of illusion, Belbel, instead, chose to lay bare a duplicitous metaphoric process of representation. In his program notes for Morir, Benet i Jornet alludes to the “‘sarcastic” view of death that the play proposes, with its odd combination of humor and horror: “Morir conjuga de forma gairebé asséptica humor i Phorror. La dissolucié se’ns mostra despullada, impensada, gratuita, i ’autor no ens concedeix ni el consol d’una mica de patetisme.”** [Morir conjugates humor and horror in an almost aseptic way. ‘The dissolution appears stripped bare, unthinkable, gratuitous, and the author doesn’t concede us the comfort of even a small bit of pathos.] When Benet provocatively speaks of Belbel’s lack of pity or poignancy

with regard to his characters, he is referring—I would suggest— precisely to the antirealist (and, anti-Aristotelian) strategies of his mise-en-scéne. [he instant just before death is a moment of crisis and rupture, of trauma and shock, of astonishment and disorientation. It is a moment of pain. Belbel’s use of music in theatricalizing this moment of trauma was thus all the more fitting, in that it carried the power to invoke ideas and emotions that cannot be captured with words. For Jackie Pigeaud, the subjectivity inherent in any verbal representation of pain is destined to create a kind of “dissociation”: “We are therefore in the presence of an ordinary language, made of used metaphors, dead like dead stone.”*’ Belbel’s mise-en-scéne addressed implicitly that which is inexpressible, the ineffability of pain. LA SANG

Belbel’s next major work, La sang, offers an audacious treatment of the theme of terrorism and exhibits his persistent interest in theatrical strategies of substitution and avoidance that highlight the gap between the visible and the invisible. The play speaks to the difficulty of objectifying pain and the degree to which pain in all its social, cultural, and political manifestations is inevitably “bound up,” as Scarry puts it, “with the problem of power.”°° La sang premiered at the Sala Beckett in February 1999 as part of an intriguing experiment in programming initiated by Casares, the Beckett’s artistic director. Employing a single set of actors and design team (set by Cristia/Glaenzel, costumes by Paloma, music by Roig, lighting by Mario Luque and Belbel), Casares

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 203 performed the skillful feat of directing simultaneously Belbel’s play, as well as Benet i Jornet’s E/ gos del tinent (The lieutenant’s dog, 1996).

He staged both works, which offer different, yet parallel, reflections on the nature of power and violence, on alternate nights, with Saturdays reserved for a “double feature.” In the large black void that is the Beckett’s garage-like space, the modular set design (used for both shows), stunning in its simplicity and economy of means, contained a system of semitransparent plastic screens. This design, combined with Belbel/Luque’s meticulously subtle lighting, created a mise-en-scéne that adeptly plotted crucial spatial divisions and tonal alterations as the action of La sang shifted from one scene to the next, moving from the interior to the exterior and back. Casares’s daring adventure in dual programming and direction would prove to be a brilliant strategy for encouraging the healthy— but all too uncommon—phenomenon of audience crossover, as spectators normally accustomed to attending works by Belbel and Benet in larger, more mainstream, public or commercial theater venues found themselves magnetically drawn to the eighty-four-seat Sala Beckett, a space of risk and experimentation. During the press conference prior to the premiere, Belbel expressed his conviction that the involvement of seasoned theater professionals in projects such as that of the Beckett

would help to consolidate the alternative theater sector.?! Belbel (whose career began at the Beckett) and Benet (whose short piece La fageda [The beachwood forest, 1977] premiered there, under Belbel’s direction in 1990) were thus able to demonstrate their support of Catalunya’s most groundbreaking “alternative” locale, while making it unmistakably apparent that the Beckett does not merely cater to the avant-garde tastes of a select minority. Orddfiez’s review of La sang, published in Avuz, captures the aura of excitement surrounding the event, comparing the Beckett to London’s Royal Court, another European bastion of experimental theater: “It’s exciting, from the beginning, to see the Sala Beckett as if it were, finally, the Royal Court,

programming two difficult, uncomfortable works and absolutely packed (each night, they tell me) with an audience of all ages, which demonstrates, judging from their reactions, that Belbel was probably right: spectators that receive with laughter the first scenes and become dead silent when the moment of truth arrives, and that applaud, at the end, [oni Casares’s very lucid mise-en-scéne, without a single wasted image.’”” As Ordojfiez intimates, La sang is, like Morir, emblematic of Belbel’s

desire to engender in his spectators a series of seemingly incompatible emotions and unexpected responses. The play treats a topic that is as timely as it is unsettling: the incomprehensible logic of terrorism and

204 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM the indescribable experience—literally beyond words—of having this shocking dimension of contemporary reality intrude upon one’s ordinary daily existence. Here the extraordinary encroaches upon the ordinary to create surprising results. In retrospect, Belbel’s play seems to have offered in 1999 a premonitory vision of our post-9/11 world. Although the text of La sang does not specifically refer to any concrete sociocultural or spatiotemporal context, Belbel has acknowledged that, in writing the play, he was inspired in part by the shocking case of Miguel Angel Blanco, the young Basque councilman from Spain’s Popular Party who was kidnapped and brutally murdered by ETA during the summer of 1997. For several days in July, those living in Spain and/or watching the events as they evolved held their breath as they helplessly endured the appallingly excruciating pain of knowing that Blanco was about to be executed when the Spanish government upheld its policy of refusing to yield to the terrorists’ demands. While thousands of citizens did take to the streets in protest of E’TA’s actions and attempt to undermine democratic principles, Belbel has reflected upon the unbearably absurd experience of having to carry on with one’s daily activities—such as sitting down at the table for lunch—while maintaining an awareness that, at that very same moment, E’'TA was committing atrocities in the Basque Country.” he day of Blanco’s death, July 13, 1997, was a decistve moment that is likely not to vanish from the collective memory of the people of Spain for many years to come, in the same way that,

on a much larger, international scale, the events of September 11, 2001 (or March 11, 2004, the day of the Madrid train bombings) remain indefinitely engraved in a shared global consciousness.

Belbel wanted to ensure, however, that his play would not be received as a work of politically committed theater anchored to a partic-

ular moment, place, or time. He sought to transcend the specific context of Spain, for he was mindful that the circumstances portrayed in the play are likewise valid in many other parts of the contemporary world: Mostrar como la I6gica terrorista y la lo6gica democratica estan contraponiéndose y no hay un intento de hacer que estas dos l6gicas converjan en una. Eso es lo que creo que me interesa: c6mo un grupo tan pequefio es capaz de dominar a través del terror a una masa tan grande, y que esto que sucede en nuestro pais, puede suceder también en otros paises: Irlanda, el mundo arabe, el mundo de oriente medio.™

[Io show how the terrorist logic and the democratic logic are at opposite poles and there is no intention to make these two logics converge into one. That is what I think interests me: how such a small group is capable of

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 205 dominating through terror such a great mass, and that which happens in our country, can also happen in other countries: Ireland, the Arab world, the world of the Middle East.]

With a certain air of defiance, Belbel provocatively announced to the press that La sang was the most “moral” work that he had written to date; nevertheless, the play never dares to impose a particular morality or moralistic view; nor does it offer answers or attempt to privilege one system of “logic” above the other.®* The possibility of moral

and/or ethical judgment is instead left open to the spectator. Moreover, Belbel appeared to be making an ironic allusion to this nonmoralistic approach in choosing to make the protagonist of his play—the

sequestered character around whom the action revolves—a female professor of ethics (played by Marta Angelat in the premiere production).”°

In La sang, the professor (“Dona’’), who is also the wife of a corrupt politician, is sequestered and held for ransom by a nameless, faceless, group of terrorists. The size, number, and ultimate objectives of the group are also left undefined; the exception being that terror is their main raison d’étre. It is through their amorphous presence that Belbel is able to juxtapose the supposed logic of an indeterminate collective with that of the individual. The audience only sees three members of

this terrorist collective, three synecdochic parts of the collective whole. They are an adult male (“Home’’) and young female (“Dona

Jove”), who are romantically involved, along with a female child (“Nena”), whose mother has been killed by the group for refusing to follow orders. ‘The child incarnates an utterly alarming blend of angelic innocence and sadistic perversity, which offers a deeply pessimistic view of the future.

In characteristic Belbelian style, the structure of La sang is intimately tied to the content and final effect that the play conjures: a stirring uneasiness that is the result of the collision on the stage between the commonplace and the unspeakable, between one ethical code and

another. The text takes the form of five scenes, the first of which is significantly lengthier than the other four. The first and final scenes are situated in the interior underground cell, or za/o, where the captive woman is being held. Within twenty-four hours, regardless of whether the ransom is paid, she will be killed, but not before her body is gradually dismembered: first, a finger; then, an ear; next, a foot; and finally, her head. The audience does not bear witness to her torture and dismemberment in a literal sense; yet, Belbel uses the power of sugges-

tion and an intriguing process of deferral to conjure a semblance of the excruciating pain and torment of the captive woman’s ordeal. He

206 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM displaces her pain to three exterior scenes, situated between the first and the last: scene 2, a public park; scene 3, the patio of a police station; and scene 4, the garden of a private home. As Juan Carlos Olivares notes, these three exterior scenes are written in styles that contrast with the horror of the two interior scenes: a romantic comedy, in which two young people (“Noi and Noia’’) have a chance encounter while sitting on a park bench; a drama of manners with certain social shadings, in which two policemen (“Home Policia” and a very pregnant “Dona Policia’) engage in banal conversation during their lunch break; and a contemporary melodrama in which the politician husband of the kidnapped woman (“‘Marit’’) visits his lover (“Amant’’) at the poolside of her affluent home. Belbel recommends in his stage directions that a single pair of actors portray all six roles, thereby emphasizing the monotony and sameness of these everyday contexts. In Casares’s production, the accomplished acting of Jordi Boixaderas and Victoria Pagés, accordingly, brought all six characters to life. A structural twist that Belbel inserts into this almost mathematical play with ambiguity and repetition is the addition of a lost girl (“Nena extraviada’’), a shy man (““Home ‘Timid’’), and a female messenger (“Dona Missatgera”’), all of whom are played by the same actors who incarnate the terrorist-kidnappers. These three characters, their faces identical to those of the terrorists, intervene in the everyday scenes as messengers who, in varying ways, deliver or leave behind a series packages containing the woman’s severed body parts. Hence the concrete aspects of the woman’s dismemberment are deferred to these exterior scenes, and the faces of the terrorists intermingle with ordinary people in the crowd and infiltrate daily reality. (The ominous implication for the spectator is that terrorists such as these, perhaps, unbeknownst to

us, could be our friends and neighbors. Such was one of the themes treated by Basque director Imanol Uribe in his film Déas contados (1994); still, Belbel takes this ambiguity one step further in that he never provides closure with regard to whether these characters indeed are the terrorists in disguise or genuine messengers. Critics, such as Ordo6fiez and Olivares, were puzzled by Belbel’s use of the three central scenes. Ord6fiez even went so far as to consider them superfluous,

apparently overlooking their role in the process of deferral of the woman’s pain, as well as their function in underlining a metaphoric convergence between the shocking realm of terrorism and the placid mundaness of quotidian reality. As a result of Belbel’s manipulation of these scenes, horror and pain are subtly able to weave their way into the serene realm of the ordinary. In La sang, the presence of blood as a metaphor, theme, /eit motif,

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 207 and scenic element is an additional connecting thread that serves to unite ordinary quotidian reality with extraordinary circumstances. In the second scene, a pinecone falls upon the young man’s head and leaves a bleeding wound. In the third scene, the policeman inadvertently bites his tongue until it bleeds. In the fourth scene, the husband (in the presence of his lover) bites into the foot of his wife (which has been delivered in a box) in a disturbing anthropophagic gesture of communion, vaguely reminiscent of the work of Fernando Arrabal. Blood fuses the abstract with the concrete, the subversive terrorist underground with the exterior world, and even the fictional realm depicted on stage with the reality inhabited by the spectator. At the end of the play, following the decapitation of the captive woman, only the young girl remains on stage (the other two terrorists have, presumably, gone off to make vacation plans). As the stage is inundated with blood, the advancing red liquid that covers every surface serves as a disconcerting reminder that, paradoxically, regardless of differing ethical codes, we are all fellow human beings. Blood ts a definitive equalizer: in the process of metaphoric transference that Belbel has created,

the blood that engulfs the stage is no different from that which runs through us all. Ordofiez aptly describes one of the final images of La sang, which he considers a summary, or synthesis, of the entire play, as a sculptural, concrete, representation of pain: “A poultice of bandages where there

was once the left ear; another on her hand, where there was a finger. Further up, a tourniquet tying up her right leg. Like a sculpture of pain.”’®’ Perhaps this wounded, fragmented, bandaged, traumatized body, at once a visual, objectified, representation of both pain and power, also summarizes a sense of powerlessness that pervades any en-

deavor to conjure with words the torment that has invaded our contemporary existence. In my interview with Belbel, he appeared to be paraphrasing Mamet when he suggested that, for him, the principal aim of the theater 1s ot to repair the social fabric, mot to incite social awareness, mot to sermonize or moralize; rather, “‘to inspire cleansing awe.’’® “Como hacer dafio o manifestar un sentimiento a través de las palabras.” [How to wound or manifest a feeling through words.] Belbel wondered, “cémo desde la inmovilidad mas absoluta, sdlo con la vibraci6n de las cuerdas

vocales en un momento dado en un escenario, aquello puede hacer llorar al espectador, puede conmoverlo. En catala diem “ ‘trasbalsar-lo’”’

... Eso es una magia, un misterio, y es un poco la clave de todo.” [how from the most absolute immobility, only with the vibration of one’s vocal cords in a given moment on the stage, that can make the spectator cry, can move him. In Catalan we speak of “disturbing or

208 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM agitating”... That is a kind of magic, a mystery, and it is somewhat the key to everything.] He was speaking, in particular, about La sang. EL TEMPS DE PLANCK

Fl temps de Planck, one of Belbel’s most artistically mature and ambi-

tious accomplishments, premiered under his direction at Barcelona’s ‘Teatre Romea on June 26, 2000 during the Barcelona Grec summer festival. Vibrant and emotionally moving, it is an iconoclastic piece of musical theater, written entirely in verse, which he created in tandem with composer Oscar Roig. The brilliantly lyrical musical score and unforgettable melodies, performed at the Romea by a live pit orches-

tra under the direction of Dani Espasa, serve to enhance the ironic blend of melodrama and metaphysics embedded in Belbel’s words and lyrics. El temps de Planck navigates the waters of incongruity and unconventionality that emerged in earlier works, such as Morir and La

sang, but here Belbel takes this tendency into greater depths while maintaining his ability to attract a broad and varied audience. On the occasion of the premiere of E/ temps de Planck, Benach, who was referring to the uniqueness of Belbel’s provocative vision, called the playwright “an island”’: Our most visited island, I think. . . . And it is in the archipelago that one makes out under inspection that there is no playwright less obliging and less regularly provocative than the playwright who surprised us years ago with a premonitory Minim-mal show (1987). . . . Before today it was just a hunch. Now we know that Belbel would be capable of writing an opera in four acts with the telephone and electricity receipts. We know it because El temps de Planck is a musical with material that is much more inextricable

than the aforementioned papers.'”

The uncommon subject matter that underpins Belbel and Roig’s musical is the invisible subatomic realm uncovered by Max Planck (18581947), the eminent German physicist who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1918 for his work as the originator of quantum theory and the so-called “Planck Constant.” In this realm of elemental particles,

atomic waves, thermal radiation, and quantum mechanics, Planck Time, as Belbel explains in his program notes and through the voice of his fictional characters, connotes the infinitesimal fraction of a second (10-* seconds, to be precise) situated between the Big Bang and the subsequent formation of the universe. It is the smallest measurement of time that is known to have any meaning:

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 209 Una Gran Explosi6 marca l’inici de Pespai i del temps. La creacié de Univers. El nostre Univers. A partir del segon 10-*? després d’aquesta explosid (que tots coneixem com Big Bang), és a dir, a partir de 0,0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 segons, la ciéncia ja pot explicar els processos de formaci6 i separaci6 de les principals forces de la naturalesa. Abans d’aquest temps, que gracies a la teoria quantica del fisic Max Planck s’anomena Temps de Planck, no té sentit plantejar-se cap pregunta des d’un punt de vist cientific. No sabem qué va passar entre el segon 0 i el segon 10-*. [A Great Explosion marked the beginning of space and time. ‘The creation of the Universe. Our Universe. Beginning at the 10~-* second after this

explosion (which we all know as the Big Bang), that is, beginning at 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds, science is able to explain the processes of formation and separation of the principal forces of nature. Before this time, which thanks to the quantum theory of the physicist Max Planck is called Planck ‘Time, it is meaningless to propose any questions from a scientific point of view. We don’t know what happened between the 0 second and the 10~* second.

Hence the Planck Time of Belbel’s title, which his fictional charac-

ter Maria calls “una milionésima de bilionésima de bilionésima de segon” [a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second], ostensibly alludes to this minuscule measurement of nearly nothingness, which is likened to the spatiotemporal vacuity of a black hole.'°! Belbel situates this metaphysical concept within the context of a family melodrama and uses it as a unique vantage point from which to ponder the barely detectable, barely quantifiable, and barely representable space of suspension situated between life and death. ‘This is, in a sense, the same crucial territory of suspension in time and space that he contemplated in Morir. This time, though, this infinitesimally small zone of subtlety becomes a space for reflection on the metaphysical relationship between matter and the mind, between the visible concrete presentness of everyday life and the unobjectifiable invisible reality of death. Whereas Jacinto Antoén fittingly and wittily refers to E/ temps de Planck as a “quantum musical,” one might also describe the piece as a metaphysical melodrama (and some might even prefer to call it an opera).!°? And, whereas some critics detected an air of excess in certain aspects of Belbel’s text and/or mise-en-scéne (Ord6fiez called it “The

freakiest show of the season, but also one of the bravest and most risky’’),!°> El temps de Planck appears to be quite timely in light of its thematic parallels with a string of contemporary operas, musical theater productions, and dramatic works that offer original hybrid blends comprised of scientific subject matter intermingled with the universals

210 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM of love, life, and death. Examples include composer Michael Nyman’s Facing Goya (2000), an opera about the possibility of manipulating

human genetics, which was premiered in Santiago de Compostela; Chaurette’s aforementioned Fragments d’une lettre d’adieu lus par des géologues, staged by Belbel, about the search for the truth regarding a failed geological expedition in the Mekong; Michael Frayn’s Copenha-

gen (1998), which reimagines the 1941 wartime meeting between physicists Niels Bohr of Denmark and Werner Heisenberg of Germany; and David Auburn’s Proof (2000), about the relationship between scientific genius and mental instability. Also worthy of note in this regard is Argentine playwright/director Javier Daulte’s 4-D Optic, which premiered in Catalan (translated by Toni Casares) at Girona’s Festival de Temporada Alta and Barcelona’s Espai Lliure during the fall of 2003. It is a play about a group of scientists who discover the existence of a parallel universe. In the realm of the Barcelona stage, a curious precedent that explores the possibilities afforded by science with regard to new configurations of time and space can be found in Sanchis Sinisterra’s Perdida en los Apalaches (Lost in the Appalachians),

which is curiously subtitled a “jugete cudntico” (quantum game) and

which was staged at the Beckett by the Teatro Fronterizo in 1990

under the direction of Ramon Simo. The text, or libretto, of E/ temps de Planck contains only minimal stage directions, and the words and lyrics are thoroughly lacking in punctuation (a free-flowing form that apparently facilitated Roig’s task as a composer in creating his musical phrasing). Both the libretto and the musical score have been published together in the same volume. In structuring the text, Belbel and Roig made apt use of the numerical value designating the notion of Planck ‘Time as ten to the negative forty-third power. The play is thus composed of forty-three scenes, numbered “Coma zero” (Point zero) through “U” (One) (although, within the text, a number is given in parenthesis alongside each “zero” for guidance). The “Planck” in E/ temps de Planck, however, does not merely allude to a metaphysical concept; it is also echoed in the surname of one of the play’s central characters, as well as in that of his family. “Planck’’ (played by Pep Cruz in the premiere production) is the humble owner of a frame shop, whose time or days—as in the common refrain—are numbered. He is a man on the verge of death, who agonizes in bed throughout most of the show as his wife Sara (played by Mont Plans) and his four unmarried daughters struggle with his imminent passing and with the inevitable pain, grief, and emptiness that they anticipate it will bring. ‘There is an ironic echo of Shakespeare’s Lear in the character of Planck, who expresses concern for the future of his daughters:

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 211 Si tingués béns diners propietats ara us diria digueu-me com m/’estimeu

ius els repartiré segons la magnitud del vostre sentiment.'™ [If I had possessions money properties now I would say to you tell me how much you love me and I would distribute them among you according to the magnitude of your sentiment]

Yet unlike Lear, Planck does not possess any significant possessions to

be shared out, aside from the frame shop, which his daughters have not expressed any interest in inheriting. As Belbel indicates in his program notes, the musical is about the life of a family and the difficulty of overcoming the pain that comes with the passing of a loved one: La idea de la nostra propia mort ens causa un temor dificil d’assumir; la mort d’un ésser estimat ens causa un dolor dificil de comprendre. La religid, la fe, o la filosofia, ens poden compensar aquest temor i aquest dolor. Pero per qué no també la ciéncia? [The idea of our own death causes us to experience a fear that is difficult to imagine; the death of a loved one causes us to experience a pain that is difficult to understand. Religion, faith, or philosophy can help us compensate for this fear and pain. But why not science, too?]

Hence Belbel explores the extent to which science might provide a series of solutions for easing the pain of death. ‘The role of science in this musical melodrama is enhanced by the presence of a next-door neighbor, a young student whose name happens to be “Max” (played by Frank Capdet in the premiere production), and who also happens to be a physics prodigy. Although, ostensibly, Max lives alone (his parents were killed in a tragic car accident), Planck and Sara regard him as a kind of adoptive son, the male offspring that they had always desired but were never destined to have (a relationship that is somewhat

complicated by the sexual attraction that Max feels toward two of Planck’s daughters, Rosa and Anna). In striking contrast with many of Belbel’s earlier works, the characters of El temps de Planck not only have names (two of which, as in the case of Max and Planck, conjure eponymous allusions); they are also

more nuanced and less generic, presented with greater emotional

212 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM depth and dimension than before. While Planck lingers on the verge of death, the pain of his inevitable passing ironically triggers among his family members abundant reflections with regard to their mundane dilemmas, commonplace discontents, and even sexual necessities. Sara

is concerned, for example, with her appointment at the hairdresser, the possible health risks to her husband if they were to attempt sexual relations one last time, and whether her daughter Laura will ever be able to attract the interest of a man. Laura, the oldest sister (played by Roser Batalla in the original production), who is described by Sara as the most “sensitive” of the daughters, works as an administrative assistant and appears dissatisfied with her life.!°* Rosa, the second born (played by Rosa Galindo), is a struggling actress (vulnerable to the sexual whims of an unscrupulous director), who works in what Sara amusingly refers to as “teatres per alternar” (theaters for alternating, a pun

on the notion of ‘alternative’? theatres).!°° Anna, the third child (played by Ester Bartomeus), works in a law firm and must grapple with an unwanted pregnancy, which she attempts to keep secret until

she loses her unborn child in a miscarriage. When Sara tells her daughters about the delicious, low-calorie chicken and vegetable soup

that she plans to make for dinner, rather than offer their approval, they respond with a harsh retort in full choral harmony: “Fica’t el teu sopar / on et capiga mare.””!”” [Take your soup/and shove it, Mom.] As

is characteristic of the Belbelian theatrical universe, mundane actions often conceal pain, violence, and affliction. Food and cooking are also, quite often, an integral part of this process (such as the case of Caricies, for example). As Ord6fiez observes in his review, Sara is “always speaking about food so as not to speak about pain.’’!°* She uses food

to hide her pain, but her angst still manages to rise to the surface, manifested through cooking and conversation. Each of the daughters (and Max, as well) confronts in varying ways

a common feeling of anguish and uncertainty with regard to the future, but it is Maria, the fourth and youngest sister (played by Pili Capellades in the premiere production), who proposes the most intriguing solution to this condition. She is a thirteen-year-old girl whose precocious imagination is broadened and nourished by the scientific notions of time and space that she learns about through her contact with Max. A misunderstood preadolescent, Maria’s over-active imagination causes her mind (and, in a sense, her body) to drift far away from the ordinary prosaic dimensions of everyday life. (In Capellades’s scene-stealing interpretation of the role, Maria was also a kind of sexually ambiguous tomboy with an ever-present baseball cap.) Belbel il-

lustrates her lack of pragmatism and tendency toward distraction in scene “Zero (19),” in which Sara becomes irritated by Maria’s behav-

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 213 ior when she enlists her daughter to help her carry some groceries. Maria is so thoroughly entranced by a conversation with Max that she inadvertently holds a package of frozen fish against her warm body, letting it melt all over the floor and her clothing. In scene “Zero (15),”’

the other characters chant “Pobra Maria. No lenteniem” [Poor Maria. We didn’t understand her] as she hangs above them in an (imagined) state of death.'° Indeed, Maria is also the character most often at the center of the most intriguing scenes, for she is the hinge through which Belbel is able to establish a series of bridges between the realm of reality and that of fantasy. Maria’s metaphysical musings (with the help of Max) open the way to an internal imagined cosmos of enigmatic phenomena, where time travel is possible and conventional spatiotemporal dimensions and relationships are reconfigured according to the unconventional laws of quantum physics. El temps de Planck opens with a song presented by Maria that introduces the primary musical theme of the show, a hypnotic and memo-

rable melodic rendering of the concept of Planck Time. Roig’s “zeros” will become a /ezt motif that 1s interwoven and reprised in varying forms and musical keys throughout the performance: Zero Coma ZCTO

Zero ZeTO

Zero Zero Zero ZEYrO Zero Zero Zero Zero ZeTO Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero

ZeTO Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero ZEYrO Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero ZeTO Zero Zero Zero Zero ZeTO Zero Zero ZETO Zero ZeTO

un segons El temps de Planck!!° [Zero

Point ZETO

ZETO Zero

ZeTO Zero Zero

Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero ZeYTO Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero

ZeTO Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero

214 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero ZerO

one seconds Planck Time]

On the page, the song has the look of visual poetry, and with these opening lyrics, it seems as though Belbel were, in effect, mocking those critics who had once labeled him a minimalist or a formalist. Maria, who is confronting her father’s moribund state, decides that as a way of prolonging Planck’s life—or, at least, of creating the illusion

of prolongation—she will cease to measure the passage of time in terms of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, and will instead quantify his remaining time in the material world according to units of Planck ‘Time: Ara deixa’m dir-te una cosa pare si mesurem el temps en temps d’aquest senyor que du el nostre cognom no son dies ni hores ni minuts el que queden fins que el teu cor s’aturi Jo no vull estar trista Si compto en temps de Planck encara et queden trilions de trilions de trilions de bilions de bilions de milions de milions de temps de Planck

abans no ens deixis...

I aixd és molt pare és molt!!!

[Now let me tell you something father if we measure time in the time of this man who has our last name it’s not days or hours or minutes that you have left until your heart stops I don’t want to be sad So I count in Planck time you still have left trillions of trillions of trillions of billions of billions of millions of millions of Planck ‘Time

before you leave us...

And that’s a lot father it’s a lot]

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 215 Hence the metaphysical notion of Planck Time becomes a means of overcoming pain and evading or delaying grief and sorrow. Maria contemplates the seemingly infinite number of tiny fractions of a second situated between life and death and consequently reimagines Planck’s remaining time as an elongated process. In addition to Maria’s metaphysical hypotheses, sex and drugs are among the more commonplace ways through which Belbel’s characters attempt to displace and/or anesthetize their emotional pain. In effect both the sensation of suspension garnered through a sexual experience and the elevated mood acquired through drug use are analo-

gous to the type of spatiotemporal deferral that is implied by the notion of Planck ‘Time. In scene ‘“‘Zero (7),”’ Sara joins her husband in bed, and he describes his sexual climax as a large cosmic explosion of

pleasure. In scene “Zero (18),” Max engages in sexual relations with (unbeknownst to him) an already pregnant Anna and explains to her four different concepts of love, each of which is composed of varying quantities of sexual and/or platonic affection: “L’amor gravitacional /

amor nuclear fort / amor nuclear débil / i ’amor electromagnetic.” [Gravatational love / strong nuclear love / weak nuclear love / and electromagnetic love.] Sex and love are characterized in terms of natural, physical, and astronomical forces, and Belbel thereby expands the linkages between the concrete, material realm of science and the intangible, ethereal realm of emotion. One of the most moving scenes of the show, filled with humor and

sadness, is “Zero (20),” in which the three older daughters devise a plan to use a potent mixture of marijuana and hashish to help ease their father’s pain. Belbel injects the scene with the scatological sense of humor that surfaces often in his work, here derived from the nausea, vomiting, and incontinence that are side effects of the drugs. As the

three sisters share a “joint” with their father, time appears to stand still, suspended and distorted in a hallucinatory fantasy. Planck feels as

though he is able to “come and go,” traversing dimensions of space and time.!! Maria wonders aloud what will transpire in the space of temporal disjuncture situated between the death of the body (matter) and that of the mind: qué passara o millor dit qué et passara pel cap quines imatges quines sensacions quilts sentiments qué passara en la teva ment entre el segon zero coma quaranta-dos zeros i u abans que tu moris i el segon zero de la teva mort!?

216 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM [what will happen or better put what will go through your head what images what sensations what feelings what will happen in your mind between the zero point forty-two zeros and one second before you die and the zero second of your death]

Is it possible to be intellectually cognizant of one’s own death as it is taking place? If we were to prolong the moment of death by contemplating it through the lens of Planck ‘Time, would it be possible to establish with precision the exact instant in which a life comes to an hault? Could one possibly pinpoint the infinitesimally small lapse of time between the moment in which the heart stops and that in which all psychic or cerebral activity ceases? “Quan morim / quant tarda la ment a morir / On se’ns en va la consciéncia.”!'+ [When we die / how much time does the mind take to die / Where does our consciousness

go.] These are the underlying questions that emerge in Maria’s metaphysical-musical musings, and with them, Belbel appears to be pondering from new perspectives the questions regarding the representation of pain and death that he has asked throughout his entire

artistic trajectory. Maria’s questions, in effect, point to the everpresent aspiration inherent in the theater to dissolve the boundaries between the immaterial, interior realm of the psyche and the external material realm of the body. It is thus fitting that Rosa, the actor in the family, would situate this body/soul dialectic within the context of the theater. In scene “Zero (13),” she engages in a seductive dialogue with Max about her work as an actor. In a song that begins with the words “No soc cap prostituta”’ [I’m no prostitute], in which she performs a revealing striptease for Max (and the audience), she speaks of acting as a demanding process

that involves stripping away all pretense in order to reveal her true inner self: “mostrar no el cos sind l’anima / nua / no hi ha res més dificil.”'> [show not the body but the soul/ nude / there’s nothing more difficult.] She is not alone, for as Planck’s death approaches, it becomes clear that each member of his family is immersed in a process of uncovering and confronting her true feelings and of facing the difficulty of verbalizing the anxiety surrounding his impending departure. In scene “Zero (27),” Anna poignantly confesses that she has

never really told her father that she loves him: “No sé realment si t’estimo / si the estimat / si continuaré estimant-te.””!'° [I don’t know if I really love you / if I have loved you / if I will continue loving you.]

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 217 She refuses to articulate her love with words for tear that such a ges-

ture might be hypocritical. For her, it is as though concrete words would somehow betray the authenticity of her innermost feelings. Thus, one could say that embedded in Rosa’s struggle as an actor to reveal her inner spirit (to exteriorize that which is interior) and in Anna’s refusal to exteriorize with words her deepest emotions is Belbel’s own endeavor as a playwright to make visible that which is invisible, to create a confluence of mind and matter and a place where body, consciousness, and cosmos would flow into a coherent whole. In scene “Zero (10),” Maria conveys a final wish concerning her father: that he dance with her at the first communion that she never had. Max, who witnesses Maria’s request, offers to stand in for her father as a dance partner, since Planck is much too weak to leave his bed. As Max offers his hand to Maria, he tells hers to close her eyes and imagine that he is her father.'!!” She dances with a hybrid doubling of the characters, rendered in Belbel’s text as ““Max/Planck.”’ During the scene that follows, a shift in tone brings into play a dream-like version of the dance, most likely the product of Maria’s imagination, in which Planck leaves his bed and dances with his daughter beneath a starlit sky. Max, described in Belbel’s stage directions as “absent, transparent,” recites and then sings the following verses: Un dia quan la humanitat hagi descobert que pot entendre el llenguatge de les estrelles la veu de l Univers podra descobrir també les leis finals de la Naturalesa Ment 1 materia un sol cos com el cos fusionat d’un pare i d’una filla en un ball de comuni6!!®

[One day when humanity has discovered that it can understand the language of the stars the voice of the Universe will also be able to discover the final laws of Nature Mind and matter one single body like the fused body of a father and a daughter in a dance of communion]

218 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Here, the concept of communion takes on multiple layers of meaning as the religious ritual, the joining of father and daughter, and also the fusion of mind and matter in a single cosmic body. In Belbel’s mise-en-scéne at the Romea, Maria and Planck danced beneath a starry sky that was created through a series of projections. The set design for this production, conceived by Glaenzel and Cristia, reflected Belbel’s interest in the confluence of reality with fantasy, mind with matter, interior with exterior—notions that emerge principally through the play of Maria’s imagination. The set was designed in such a way that the audience was able to view several actions, spaces,

and fictional planes simultaneously, such as the kitchen, Planck and Sara’s bedroom, and Max’s apartment. Planck remained on stage in bed throughout nearly the entire show, up until his death. His death, therefore, constantly loamed over the space, in a thematic and even a physical sense. ‘The stage was placed at an incline, sloped toward the audience at a slight angle in a manner that facilitated the spectator’s ability to take in the full view of spatiotemporal simultaneity. It also created a sensation of slightly skewed perspectives, injecting the stage with an air of illusion and disequilibrium. Images such as the night sky, the cosmos, and multiple Os and Is were projected on a screen hung strategically at an incline above the stage. Several lighting effects contributed, as well, to the play of fiction

and reality. Colored neon tubes of light both upstage and downstage formed a frame around the scenic space and were illuminated each time a fantasy/dream sequence emerged as a function of Maria’s psyche. These lighting effects thus signaled for the spectator a shift from quotidian space and time to the elusive metaphysical space of Planck time. ‘These dreamlike sequences, by far the most visually spectacular

moments of the show, included the striking scene in which Maria imagines her own death and emerges on stage in a coffin amid a background bathed in red light; the gruesome scene in which she imagines herself murdering her own family members, hoping that they will be able to describe their thoughts and sensations at the moment of death; the startling scene in which she reimagines Anna’s miscarriage and her sister suddenly appears on stage dripping with blood as the result of a vaginal hemorrhage. ‘There are also the scenes in which Maria envisages herself as able to visit the past and the future and travel backward and forward in time at the speed of light. She observes, for example, a typical Sunday morning in the household, several years prior to her own birth, in which the entire family gathers blissfully in Planck and Sara’s bed. In a scene representing a leap into the future, Maria gives birth to a child, who is humorously played by Planck. Planck eventually does experience death, after which he is depicted

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 219 in a state of existential limbo, perpetually counting, as he is trapped in

the moment between the death of his body and that of his mind. As Maria levitates in the background, he continues to rattle off a series of

infinitely small quantities: “zero coma zero zero zero zero zero zero...” !!° The final scenes of the musical are comprised of a succession of rapid leaps in time whereby the spectator is offered several

glimpses into the past as well as the future. One year later, for instance, Laura announces that she and her a boyfriend are expecting a child, Rosa is taking charge of the frame shop, Anna has begun a political career, Maria has passed all her classes, and Max has obtained a scholarship to study subatomic physics at a university abroad. In a scene that is set in the more distant future, the three older sisters make plans to visit the gravesites of their father, their mother, and Maria, who has died prematurely. Max’s wife has informed them that her husband is gravely ill, as well. Time continues to move forward and the inevitable moments of joy alternate with those of sadness, pain, and mourning. Such is life in its unrelenting momentum, as Belbel would

seem to imply. Accordingly, the penultimate scene of the musical closes with the complete cast on stage singing a full chorus of zeros in uplifting, energetic harmony. Reality and fiction merge in E/ temps de Planck, tor, as Maria suggests,

anything is possible in the realm of the mind.'° In effect, it is never entirely clear to the spectator whether all or merely some of what has been depicted on stage is a product of her imagination. ‘The musical concludes with a final metaphysical feat, which she performs. As she stands alone on stage, in the midst of experiencing her own death, she

announces that she is about to travel faster than the speed of light. Through the use of a second, nearly identical, actress (“Maria bis,” in the text), Belbel creates a spatial joke, having it seem as though Maria has traveled to her destination before leaving her point of departure. In the magical space of delay and suspension that Maria has entered, it seems as though seeing and saying are one, as though the gap has been closed between invisible, subjective, psychic realities and the concrete visible world. Maria’s inner dream life has become a tangible physical reality on the stage, and even the pain of death, when viewed though the prism of Planck ‘Time, is seemingly objectified and embodied. FORASTERS

Echoes of E/ temps de Planck reverberate throughout Forasters, which premiered at the INC under Belbel’s direction during the fall of 2004. The play was commissioned in conjunction with the rather controver-

220 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM sial “Forum Universal de les Cultures Barcelona-2004’ and as such touches upon an array of timely issues around which the Forum was conceived: cultural and ethnic diversity, displacement and migration, racism and ethnocentricity, assimilation and integration, reception and accommodation.'?! Belbel ponders these issues within the context of a family melodrama that vacillates between two centuries. With this vacillation, the play demonstrates not only the capacity of pain to demolish semantic barriers, but also its power to transcend the boundaries of space and time. Forasters is the saga of a European family whose pain and trauma, both physical and existential, emerge as part of a fore-

boding cycle of repetition. Through a curious play of temporal and spatial intersections, parallelisms, and collisions, this two-part melodrama (framed by a prologue and epilogue) appears to manifest an awareness on the part of Belbel that performance, in essence, hinges upon a tenuous rapport between the living and the dead. Joseph Roach correspondingly reminds us that the creation of a theater spectacle is a process of substitution or “surrogation” through which we resuscitate or reincarnate past lives. For Roach, performance is therefore inextricably entangled with the notions of history, memory, and repetition. It enables us “to preserve a sense of the relationship with the past by making physical contact with the dead.’’!?? Forasters, likewise, proposes a relationship between cultural memory and the theater spectacle that is grounded in strategies of substitution; that is, through the employment of an array of characters who appear before the audience as both figures from the present and specters from the past. Belbel’s play, which is subtitled Melodrama familiar en dos temps (A Family Melodrama in Two Periods), is situated in the twentieth century (specifically, the decade of the 1960s) and the present-day twenty-first century. [he scenic space is a large urban apartment occupied by sev-

eral generations of the same bourgeois European family over the course of the two centuries. ‘The action shifts seamlessly between the

two periods, and while the physical space remains stagnant, Belbel proposes in his opening description that lighting techniques be used to demarcate the temporal distinctions: “Ara bé, els canvis han de ser instantanis. Encara que és la llum, débil 1 groguenca als anys 60, blanca

i més potent al segle XXI, el que millor diferencia els dos moments dels temps.”!?? [The changes should be instantaneous; although it is the lighting, weak and yellowish during the 1960s, white and more potent during the twentieth century, that best distinguishes the two moments in time. |

Belbel quite often creates the lighting design for the productions that he directs. Notwithstanding the lighting, the stage directions indicate that a sense of confusion between the two time periods is desir-

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 221 able and even encouraged. In typical Belbelian fashion, the text proposes an intriguing casting strategy that produces a kind of temporal trepidation, entailing effects of doubling, repetition, and even si-

multaneity, as the two strands of time appear to intermingle and intersect. According to the proposed scheme, the actor who portrays the grandfather (“Avi’’) during the twentieth century is also the father (““Pare’’) in the twenty-first, the mother (“Mare”) during the twentieth century is the daughter (‘‘Filla’’) in the twenty-first, the father (“Pare’’) during the twentieth century is the son (‘Fill’) in the twentyfirst, the son (“Fill”) during the twentieth century is the grandson (“Nét’’) in the twenty-first, the daughter (“Filla”) during the twentieth century is the granddaughter (“‘Néta’’) in the twenty-first, and finally, the husband (““Marit’’) during the twentieth century is the man (“Home’’) in the twenty-first. The exceptions with regard to this temporal confusion occur in the twentieth-century characterizations of the female neighbor (‘‘Veina’’), the boy (““Nen”’), and the male neigh-

bor (“Vei”’), and in the twenty-first-century characterizations of the

maid (‘‘Assistenta’’), the orphan (“Orfe’’), and the young man (“‘Jove’’). Belbel indicates in his stage directions that the actors playing these characters should deliberately differentiate their portrayals.

The following chart illustrates the extent to which the aforementioned relationships are underpinned by an internal structure. ‘These relationships, in theory, would not necessarily be clear to the spectator

from the outset of the play; rather they would crystallize gradually, like pieces of a puzzle that begs to be deciphered as the plot develops and progresses:

20th Century (1960s) 21st Century Grandfather => Father (brother of Daughter)

Father = Son (of Daughter)

Mother => Daughter

Son => Grandson (son of Daughter and Male neighbor)

Daughter => Granddaughter (niece of Daughter) Female neighbor => Maid

Boy = Orphan Male neighbor = Young man

Husband => Man (mature version of Boy)

For the production at the INC, scenic designers Cristia and Glaenzel employed a mobile proscenium stage, which rotated approximately ninety degrees with each alternating shift in time. During some of the most visually captivating moments, the audience was able to witness

222 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM the image of the stage revolving as the characters crossed the threshold between the living room and bedroom and appeared magically to undergo a transformation into a previous or future incarnation. Belbel’s casting scheme yields unanticipated doublings and visual effects, for each actor playing the role of a family member does not, as might typically be expected, merely incarnate a life in the twentieth century and then the continuation of that same life in the twenty-first; instead, he or she plays the role of a younger family member from the next generation in the subsequent century. ‘The visual effect therefore can be likened to an optical illusion whereby the characters appear to grow younger, rather than older, with the passage of time. Stated another way, Belbel seems to lend new meaning to the aphoristic notion that “the apple does not fall far from the tree,” for many of the characters in the play appear to evolve in adulthood into duplicate images of their parents. ‘he characterization of the father in the twenty-first century, for example, will hence appear to be “ghosted” by the presence of a family member from the past, in that he will bear certain physical-psychological vestiges and traits of his own father (the grandfather).'*+ With this effect of ghosting, the faces of Belbel’s characters are blurred and confused in a crisis of distinctions that visually accentuates the notions of repetition and memory. Time progresses, and yet it also appears to stand still. Situated at the center of each generation, as the axis around which all events revolve, is a woman (the mother in the twentieth century, the daughter in the twenty-first), played by Anna Lizaran in Belbel’s production, who is terminally ill with cancer. Her constant presence on stage is reminiscent of the ubiquitous moribundity of Planck; al-

though here, the depiction of her illness is even more graphic and scatological than in Belbel’s previous play. ‘The mother/daughter, who describes herself as “podrida” (in a constant state of decay),'!*° contem-

plates from the vantage point of her deathbed (through the doorway of her bedroom, which ts often left open) her past, the lives of previous

generations, and the endless cycle of pain that seems to traverse not only her body, but also her relationships with others. Although Belbel does not name Barcelona explicitly in the text, there are several aspects of the context that are reminiscent of the multicultural and multiethnic conditions that have underpinned the

evolution of the city, as well as Catalunya, Spain, and Europe, throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Whereas during the post-civil war years, Catalunya, with its ever-increasing industrialization and economic prosperity, became a prominent focal point for large waves of migration from economically underdeveloped areas of Spain, during the post-Franco years (especially the 1990s and the first

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 223 decade of the new millennium), it became a popular destination for thousands of immigrants from other continents, especially Africa (both northern and sub-Saharan) and Latin America.'*° As of January 2004, more than 1.6 million immigrants had received legal residency status in Spain.'?”? At least one third of this immigrant population is Moslem, with a large concentration residing in Catalunya. ‘Thus, to be a foraster (a stranger or foreigner) in Barcelona during the decades depicted here is a state of being that carries multiple connotations. Belbel’s play takes full advantage of the ambiguous, polysemous value of the title, Forasters, transferring metonymically all those meanings that the term connotes to the spatial geography of the apartment building in which the action takes place. In the most literal, concrete sense, forasters refers to the family living upstairs, in the invisible space that is the apartment situated directly above the one that is depicted on stage. ‘Che twentieth-century inhabitants of this upstairs apartment are the female neighbor, her husband, and their two sons: the boy and the male neighbor. ‘They are charac-

terized as immigrants from another culture, seemingly underprivileged, unassimilated, subaltern subjects whose presence poses a series of cultural, ethnic, and/or racial points of contrast with the members

of the bourgeois European family living downstairs. In the twentyfirst century, the cultural gap between these different worlds is perhaps even more pronounced, for the upstairs neighbors (the orphan and the young man) are described in the stage directions as being émierés not only from another culture, but also from another continent.

The upstairs apartment is never revealed to the spectator, yet the space is evoked in acoustic terms and referenced through a series of unflattering, derogatory cultural clichés often associated with immigrant populations. In a manner reminiscent of the Maghrebian music of Benet i Jornet’s Olors, loud non-Western music emanates from the space above, along with the sonorous movement of furniture (the implication being that several people are living in a relatively small space). The bellowing of voices is heard (the husband, who lives upstairs, it is learned, is physically abusive in his treatment of his wife). In spite of the clichés, and, perhaps, in a conscious move to unravel, critique, or deconstruct them, Belbel’s plot creates an upstairs/downstairs dialectic in which the two worlds collide and then intermingle and overlap within the same urban apartment building. This unraveling occurs in the sense that Belbel does not confine the meaning of foraster to the foregoing literal interpretations; he manipulates the notion of a stranger or foreigner in an existential—even Ca-

musian—sense, creating a degree of uncertainty with regard to whether it is the family living upstairs or the assimilated family down-

224 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM stairs who are indeed “strangers” in this world.!7* ‘The bourgeois Eu-

ropean family is brimming with unhappiness and selfishness. ‘The family members are hostile and even abusive in their treatment of one

another, incapable of exhibiting the most ordinary gestures of affection or compassion toward each other. Such is the angst-ridden relationship depicted in part 1, scene 5 (twentieth century), in which the mother suddenly finds her seventy-five-year-old father-in-law (the grandfather) lying in her bed in a delirious state, singing nonsensical tunes with a syringe in his hand, having pinched some of the morphine that she uses to ease her pain. She has no sympathy for him whatsoever, and despite her pain and physical weakness, beats him and tells him she is sending him off to a nursing home. Her frustration is not only a function of her disgust and dissatisfaction at having to take care of him during the fifteen years that he has lived with her; it is the result of the anguish that she feels upon confronting the realization that he will outlive her: “Mal home, sonat, esttpid, miserable! Per qué m’he de morir abans que vosté, vell decrépit, per qué?!! Per qué?!!”!?° [You evil, crazy, stupid, miserable man! Why do I have to die before you, you decrepit... , why?!! Why?!!] The boundaries distinguishing the two apartments/two worlds, upstairs and downstairs, invisible and visible, become increasingly porous as the action begins to undermine the traditional, staid, culturally homogeneous bourgeois space of melodrama and gives way to signs of cultural hybridity and an increasingly antirealist aesthetic. In effect, it is often in the moments of crossover, encounter, and intermingling of the two cultures that glimmers of hope emerge in unexpected gestures of kindness and compassion. Such is the case in part 1, scene 5 (twenti-

eth century), when the female neighbor, having learned that the mother is ill with cancer, offers her a huge embrace. It is an unexpected gesture of affection that the mother’s son watches with bitterness and envy, as he is incapable of bringing himself to do the same. Similar unanticipated instances of compassion occur in part 2, scene 1 (twentieth century), in which the mother takes an interest in the well-

being and schoolwork of the small boy from upstairs; or in part 1, scene 8 (twenty-first century), where it is revealed that the father has married the maid (described in the stage directions as probably being from Latin America), not to help her obtain working papers and not because she is trying to exploit him for financial gain, but because there is genuine love and respect between them. The romantic union in the twentieth century between the daughter from downstairs and

the male neighbor from upstairs (a union that is duplicated in the twenty-first-century relationship between the granddaughter and the

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 225 young man) suggests a situation of cultural mestissatge that serves to thwart even further the distinctions between the two worlds. Given the ties and parallels that Belbel tends to develop between plot and structure, it is possible to read in his construction of these cross-cultural relationships and cultural-ethnic-racial ambiguities an analogous replication of these circumstances in the temporal uncertainty of the play. Just as the two worlds collide, so do the two temporal planes. During the twelve scenes that comprise part 1, there is a clear alternation between centuries. In part 2, which is composed of four scenes, the two time periods become increasingly impossible to differentiate. Ihe confusion culminates in a climactic explosion at the end of part 2, scene 2. Here, the two time periods come crashing together as the mother/daughter approaches the moment of death. As the stage directions indicate, the two periods have, at this point, become virtually indistinguishable: “Som al segle XX i al segle XXI. Indis-

tintament.” 36 [We are in the twentieth and the twenty-first century. Indistinguishably.] The mother/daughter even goes so far as to ask the father/son, who is at her bedside, who he is and comments, metatheatrically, that she has completely lost all sense of time. ‘This is also the decistve moment

in which the daughter/granddaughter reveals to the male neighbor/ young man that she is pregnant. ‘The daughter of the twenty-first century then witnesses a kiss and an embrace between the granddaughter (her niece) and the young man who lives upstairs. It is a gesture that replicates, and is also a prelude to, a situation that the daughter recalls having lived through during an earlier moment in the twentieth century, in which she and the male neighbor from upstairs also kissed and, shortly after, fled to his country where they married (and where the marriage eventually failed). When the twentieth-first-century daughter looks beyond her bedroom threshold to contemplate the image of her granddaughter, she also is able to see, simultaneously, an earlier incarnation of herself (since the same actress who plays the role of the

granddaughter is also the daughter in the twentieth century). The women’s gazes meet and multiply as they become endowed with a seemingly supernatural capacity to traverse centuries. Al sal6, el VEI-JOVE acosta Ia seva boca a la d’ella i la besa. Un peté breu, seguit Wuna abracada infinita. A Vhabitacié, la mare-filla sembla veure perfectament Vabracada dels dos joves. Tot s’esvaeix, altra vegada. Pero ara amb una contundéencia aclaparadora. Nomeés veiem, flotant magicament en Vespat, la FILLA-NETA

abracada al VEI-FOVE 1 formant un sol cos, i la MARE-FILLA morint-se, acompanyada del seu HOME-GERMA, 1 mirant en direccié al not 1 a la nota. De sobte, la MARE-FILLA emet un so estrident, desesperat, resultat de no poder

226 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM respirar des de fa segons. El pare-fill no sap que fer. Nomeés pot agafar-la amb forca. Amb una ranera desagradable, un so estrident i fortissim, un ronc ple de liquid que surt espasmodicament dels seus pulmons 1 inunda sobtadament la seva boca, deixa definitivament de respirar. Ha quedat amb els ulls oberts 1 amb una expressié indescriptible. Una exhalacié profunda, plena de gasos i liquids viscosos, emergeix bruscament del seu cos. I es queda definitivament immobil. Automaticament, el PARE-FILL

la deixa, es retira a un racé 1 es posa a vomitar. ; Sobtadament, la FILLA-NETA, en bracos del VEI-FOVE, mira la porta. Deixa el not 1 va lentament a Phabitacto. Els ulls oberts de la MARE-FILLA semblen clavar-se bruscament en els de la FILLA-NETA. La mirada que va de Puna a Valtra, inesperadament, sembla materialitzar-se, fora del temps 1 Vespai. Un raig de lum imperceptible uneix magicament uns ulls amb els altres. Tres dones i vuit mirades diferents en nomeés dos cossos: La MARE morta mira la seva FILLA, al segle XX; 1 la FILLA mura la seva

Pero també... ; ;

La FILLA morta mira la seva NEBODA, al segle XXT; 1 la NEBODA mira

la seva tieta...

La MARE morta, al segle XX, veu la seva NETA al segle XXI; i la NETA veu Pavia que no va coneixer .. .

I, encara més... La FILLA morta al segle XXI es mira a ella mateixa quaranta anys enrere, es retroba amb ella en el moment més decisiu de la seva vida; 1 la FILLA al segle XX es ven a4 ella mateixa i mira la seva propia mort, al mateix loc que la MARE, quaranta anys més tard... . I, aleshores, totes elles semblen entendre un misteri fins aleshores ocult 0 impenetrable. Immediatament, el déebil resplendor que uneix els ulls 1 materialitza les mirades s’intensifica bruscament fins a tal punt que envaeix tot Pespai en décimes de segon 1 acaba esclatant amb una brutal explosid @una Luminositat absolutament cegadora. Com si assistissim, de cop, a Porigen de Punivers. I sobtadament, fosc.'*'

[In the living room, the MALE NEIGHBOR-YOUNG MAN moves his lips closer to hers and kisses her. A brief kiss, followed by an infinite embrace. In the bedroom, the MOTHER-DAUGHTER seems to see their embrace perfectly. Everything fades away, once again. But this time, with an overwhelming force. We only see, floating magically in the space, the DAUGHTER-GRANDDAUGHTER, embracing the MALE NEIGHBOR-YOUNG MAN and forming a single

body, and thee MOTHER-DAUGHTER dying, accompanied by her HUSBAND-BROTHER and looking in the direction of the young couple. Suddenly, the MOTHER-DAUGHTER lets out a piercing desperate sound, the result of not being able to breathe for several seconds. The FATHER-SON does not know what to do. HE can only hold her tightly. With an unpleasant hoarseness, a strong and raucous sound, a grunt filled with liquid that emerges in spasms from her

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 227 lungs and suddenly inundates her mouth. She stops breathing definitively. She remains with her eyes open and with an indescribable expression. A deep exhalation, filled with gases and viscous fluids, abruptly emerges from her body. And she remains definitively immobile. Immediately, the FATHER-SON leaves her side,

retires to a corner, and begins to vomit. All of a sudden, the DAUGHTERGRANDDAUGHTER, in the arms of the MALE NEIGHBOR-YOUNG MAN, looks toward the door. She leaves him and makes her way slowly toward the bedroom.

The open eyes of the MOTHER-DAUGHTER seem to focus abruptly on the eyes of the DAUGHTER-GRANDDAUGHTER. The gaze that travels from one woman to the other, unexpectedly, seems to materialize, beyond the limits of time and space. An imperceptible ray of light magically unites the eyes of one with those of the other. Three women and eight different gazes in only two bodies:

The dead MOTHER sees her DAUGHTER, in the twentieth century; and the DAUGHTER sees her Mother... The dead DAUGHTER sees her NIECE, in the twenty-first century; and the NIECE sees her Aunt. . .

But also... The dead MOTHER, in the twentieth century, sees her GRANDDAUGH-

TER in the twenty-first century; and the GRANDDAUGHTER sees the GRANDMOTHER that SHE never met . . .

And, still more... The dead DAUGHTER in the twenty-first century sees herself, forty years earlier, reencountering herself at the most decisive moment in her life; and the DAUGHTER in the twentieth century sees herself and watches her own death, in the same place that the MOTHER, forty years later... . And, then, all of them seem to understand a mystery that up until then was hidden or impenetrable. Immediately, the weak glow, which unites their eyes and makes their gazes materialize, intensifies abruptly to such a degree that it invades the entire space within tenths of a second and ends by bursting with a brutal explosion of absolutely blinding luminosity. As if, surprisingly, we were somehow witnessing the origin of the universe. And suddenly, darkness.|

For Belbel’s production of Forasters at the TINC, Cristia and Glaen-

zel employed a series of mirrors in order to create the sort of visual muse en abyme that is evoked here. There is an array of echoes of E/ temps de Planck in this climactic, emotionally moving scene, which por-

trays the death of the mother/daughter and a kiss and embrace between the young couple. It is a simultaneous portrayal of many deaths, many kisses, and many embraces throughout time, for in this grandscale explosion and collision, the doubling occurs on several levels.

The presence of the moribund mother/daughter, who straddles the border between the present earthly world and the ethereal afterlife, brings to mind the type of separation of body/mind and material

228 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM world/afterlife that Belbel explored in E/ temps de Planck. Belbel’s handling of simultaneity, mirroring, and ambiguity is equally reminiscent of that which emerged in Dins la seva memoria, Elsa Schneider, or even Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925), and in this sense one could say

that Belbel has come full circle and returned to his origins, to the creation of characters that are reverberations of past lives as in Calidoscopios y faros.'>* As the characters from the twenty-first century confront the ghosts from the past, the past lives are also able to gaze into the “future.” The boundaries of time are swept away, and the characters are transformed into ethereal beings that appear to levitate, their identities vacillating in an atemporal anyplace that is evocative of the ori-

gin of the universe. It is in this lack of distinctions, and in this trepidation and uncertainty, that one finds the expressive power of the play and of Belbel’s theater, in general. In Forasters, an air of contingency permeates the relationships be-

tween the living and the dead. In performance, as in life, they are locked in a relationship of dependency. There is thus an aura of inevitability that pervades the play, as though there were a secret and elu-

sive pattern at work, and as though the characters were somehow fatalistically condemned to relive the lives of their predecessors. Perhaps this is the mystery of which Belbel speaks in his vivid stage direc-

tions. It is fitting that such revelations would surface at the painful moment of death, in which the daughter/mother/grandmother . . . lets out a final desperate scream. Pain, as Le Breton comments, signals the contingency of one’s existence.'** ‘The painful moment of death is the turning point at which barriers among human beings are shattered, spatial boundaries are ruptured, and layers of time are traversed. It ts, curiously, through pain and through death that Belbel’s characters are able to find continuity and plenitude. A final instance of repetition and ambiguity emerges in the mysterious presence of a man who appears during the prologue and the epilogue, both of which are situated in the twenty-first century (during

moments diegetically posterior to the other twenty-first-century scenes). In the prologue, the man, who is an immigrant, and who—as Is revealed in a conversation with the daughter (part 1, scene 8)—is also a university professor, expresses his desire to buy the downstairs apartment from the son. During the epilogue, having already purchased the apartment, he asks the orphan about his schoolwork, thereby echoing

an earlier conversation in the twentieth century between the mother and the boy. ‘The conversation confirms any suspicions that the spectator may have had with regard to the man’s identity: he is the grown-up incarnation of the boy (also, the daughter’s brother-in-law). In purchasing the apartment, the man, who once belonged to the invisible upstairs

4: THEATER OF PAIN: SERGI BELBEL 229 realm, has appropriated the downstairs space, setting into motion a series of ethno-national connotations with regard to the migratory space that is Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, and Europe. What was once a space of invisibility will now become visible. In Forasters, memory, therefore, is established not only in an individual sense, but also in a collective sense: the historical memory of an

entire people. ‘The same stories repeat themselves throughout time and throughout the world, for, as Belbel suggested in La sang, when all is said and done, we all have the same “blood” running through our veins. Pain and trauma are thus equalizing or universalizing forces that bring about spatiotemporal transcendence. Just as pain shatters language, it also shatters all sense of time, space, and place. Forasters is

thus the culmination of several thematic and aesthetic threads that

have been evolving in Belbel’s theater since its beginnings. It is a play that establishes linkages between memory, history, and pain, creating a confluence of mind and matter, of body and soul, of the visible and

the invisible. It asks us to contemplate the present in relation to the past and to recall the fluid nature of Catalan cultural identity.

5

Theater of Enigma: Lluisa Cunillé —To conceal in order to reveal, so that the spectacle of life will not be exhibited, flaunted, from the stage, but on the contrary, discovered gradually from the audience by the attentive ear, the sharp gaze, the subtle consciousness that perceives what vibrates in the cracks and crevices. This is why the conflicts remain buried, the desires retained and the outbursts contained at the very moment that they are unleashed. —José Sanchis Sinisterra, “Una poética de la sostracci6””!

IN 1999, CATALAN PLAYWRIGHT LLUISA CUNILLE MADE A PUBLIC AP-

pearance at the cercle Artistic de Ciutadella, a prominent cultural association on the island of Menorca, on the occasion of the presentation of the twenty-fourth Premi Born de Teatre. The “Born” is one of Spain’s most revered and lucrative theater awards, granted annually to a play written in either Spanish or Catalan. Cunillé was awarded the Born prize for her text L’aniversari (The Birthday, 1998), and the fact that she was in attendance at the event, at first glance, hardly would seem to be an unusual circumstance, given her extraordinary prolificness and the frequency with which she has been lauded with prizes. Yet the event, perhaps, will remain engraved, if not in the annals of the history of contemporary theater in Spain, at least in the memory of all those who were present; first, because Cunillé was only the second

woman to have obtained the Born prize since its first edition celebrated more than thirty years earlier; and second, because, despite the circumstances, the press conference that followed the award presentation concluded without the author uttering a single word about her work or about herself.? After limiting herself to expressing her appreciation and delight at having received such an honor, she subsequently left the press and spectators perplexed by returning to the vote

of silence that throughout her artistic career has evolved into her trademark. Without speaking, without granting interviews, without making public declarations (nor very many public appearances), with-

out offering hints or clues, Cunillé maintains an air of mystery— 230

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 231

a _____________

Or

h ya ———— - SSS Mont Plans and Alfred Lucchetti, in Barcelona, mapa d’ombres, by Lluisa Cunillé, directed by Toni Cesares 2004. Photo courtesy of the Sala Beckett.

sometimes disconcerting, sometimes ironic—and simply lets her plays and her fictional characters speak for themselves. Within the tempestuous territory that 1s the contemporary Catalan

theater scene—where the exhibitionist “frenzy” that characterizes contemporary society 1s often apparent both on and off the stage— Lluisa Cunillé, as discreet as she is silent, as opaque as she is elusive, as laconic as she is humble, is an anomaly.* Moreover, the qualities that define her public persona may be understood to be an extension of the distinctive dramatic universe that she has quietly and unobtrusively gone about cultivating, in both Catalan and Spanish, since the late 1980s, for if there is a term that best defines her work and that Barcelona theater critics have invoked most often in describing her artistic production, it is the word “enigma.” Carles Batlle, to cite one example, has observed the way that her plays, of seemingly unassuming structure and delicate aesthetic lines, frequently inspire a vast de-

gree of doubt, hesitation, and even suspicion on the part of the spectator: “‘unes peces aparentment intimes 1 ambigiies, marcades per una carrega enigmatica potent; uns textos que condueixen les expectatives obertes pel public cap a un final dramatic sense concessions, tan arid 1 ambigu com la historia que ha precidit.’** [apparently intimate and ambiguous pieces marked by a potent enigmatic charge; texts that

232 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM lead the expectations opened by the audience to a dramatic end without concessions, as arid and ambiguous as the story that proceeded it.] Within the overflowing sea that is the new Catalan dramaturgy (or dramaturgies), Lluisa Cunillé i Salgado, born in Badalona in 1961, represents a unique case. She is without a doubt the most prolific Catalan playwright of her generation, with at least forty-three plays writ-

ten since 1989, as well as several theatrical adaptations (such as Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, which was staged by Xavier Alberti

to great acclaim at the Lliure de Gracia during the Grec Festival 2002). At least thirty-four of these texts have been produced, and at least twenty have appeared in print (approximately six in Spanish). In addition to the Born Prize for L’aniversari, Cunillé has received the Premio Calder6én de la Barca 1991 for Rodeo (Roundabout 1991), the Premio de la Critica 1994 for Libracién (Librations, 1993), the Premi de la Instituci6 de les Lletres Catalanes 1996 for Accident (1994), the Premi Ciutat d’Alcoi 1998 for L’afer (The affair, 1998), and the Premi de la Critica de Barcelona 2000 for Passatge Gutenberg (Gutenberg

Lane, 2000).° In 2007, Cunillé was awarded the prestigious Premi Nacional de Cultura, awarded to one playwright per year by the Generalitat de Catalunya. Cunillé’s artistic trajectory, along with that of Sergi Belbel, is the most solid and stable of her generation of Catalan playwrights. Since the premiere of Rodeo at the Mercat de les Flors in 1992, she has succeeded in maintaining a fixed presence on the Barcelona alternative theater circuit and has even seen several of her works ascend to the ranks of sacred temples such as the ‘Teatre Romea, the Espai Lliure, and the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC). Her play Apocalips: (Apocalypse, 1998) was, in 1998, the first contemporary Catalan text selected to be staged at the INC. It was produced at the Sala Petita under the direction of Joan Ollé with an elaborate set by Jon Berrondo, incorporating video and a variety of audiovisual effects. In 1995, Cunillé founded, along with Valencian playwright/actor Paco Zarzoso (1966) and Valencian actress Lola Ldépez, the Companyia Hongaresa de ‘Teatre, a company that has centered its activities on the production of texts prepared, both individually and collaboratively, by Cunillé and Zarzoso. ‘Their first production was a collaborative piece titled Interpéries Intermittent moments, 1994), which was produced at the Sala Atelier Moma in Valencia. Xavier Alberti, Manel Barceld, Lurdes Barba, Jordi Collet, Lina Lambert, Alfred Lucchetti, and Alicia Pérez are among the artists of diverse talents who have repeatedly taken part in the theatrical pursuits of L’Hongaresa, and, in 2005, the Valencian branch of the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores held a special event commemorating the tenth anniversary of the company.

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 233 Outside the Catalan-speaking lands, Cunillé’s work has also begun to garner recognition. She has seen several plays produced in Latin America (especially Argentina) and has participated in the prestigious programming of the Royal Court Theater of London, with a staged reading of John London’s English translation of Rodeo in 1997 (part of the “Voices from Spain” series at the Royal Court). During the summer of 1999, the programming of the Edinburgh International Festival included a production of Cunillé’s La cita (The Meeting, 1999), directed by Alberti at the Royal Lyceum Theater, as part of an experiment in programming titled “Caledonia—Catalonia.””* ‘These productions represent the beginnings of an international trajectory that has shown no signs of diminishing. And yet, as José Sanchis Sinisterra has remarked, Cunillé’s plays almost always create the paradoxical effect

of provoking two differentiated, even polarized, reactions among spectators: either complete acceptance and acclaim or total rejection.’ D’una manera bastant palesa, es produeix una divisi6 entre l’acceptacio incondicional i el rebuig rotund: entre ells que se senten captivats pel mon de suggeriments que batega sota els seus Ileus entrellats dramatirgics, 1 aquells que, bloquejats davant la parquedat del seus mons escénics, sentencien: “No passa res. Aix no és teatre.’”®

[In a fairly blatant manner, a division is produced between unconditional acceptance and total rejection: between those who feel captivated by the world of suggestions that beats below her subtle theatrical mysteries, and

those that, blocked when confronted with the plainness of her scenic worlds, pronounce: “Nothing is going on. That’s not theater.’’]

Curiously, there never seems to be any middle ground here, as there is rarely a response of indifference to Cunillé’s work. Marcos Ordéfiez, a consistent champion of her artistic endeavors, has chronicled the phe-

nomenon: “Among my friends who are theatre aficionados—good aficionados, good spectators that, in theory, don’t seem to need a ‘map of the plot’—there are more than two and more than three who have manifested their profound ‘bewilderment’ with regard to Lluisa Cunillé’s plays.’ With a more ironic, pessimistic tone, Francesc Foguet perceives a kind of “inanity” in her approach to the human condition: “Her plays construct, through the effect of concentration, a secret world, a cryptic code, a glacial vision of the human condition.’’!° Why is it, then, that Cunillé’s plays exhibit an immense capacity to incite feelings of utter indignation or betrayal on the part of some spectators and profound pleasure or satisfaction on the part of others? Cunillé, at least at first glance, seems to have reduced the concept of realism to its most literal

234 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM and most disquieting form of expression. Her plays evoke a portrait of the world that so closely resembles everyday life that, upon contem-

plating her work, the spectator may have the impression that absolutely nothing remarkable is occurring. In the program notes for Cunillé’s text Occisté (Murder, 2004), which premiered at the Espai Lliure in 2005, director Lurdes Barba offered the following terse and cryptic account of the plot: “Una dona busca la tranquilitat en un isolat hotel de muntanya. Sera l’unica clienta. El negoci no funciona 1 la

mestressa de hotel ha decidit tancar. Fa vent, la tele no funciona, la piscina és buida 1 s’acaba el café. Divendres arriba A. demanant ajuda. La darrera nit plou.” [A woman searches for tranquility in an isolated

mountain hotel. She will be the only client. Business is bad and the owner of the hotel has decided to close. It’s windy, the television doesn’t work, the pool is empty and the coffee is nearly finished up. A. arrives on Friday asking for help. The last night it rains.] Cunillé’s fictional characters, as exemplified here, navigate a realm comparable to

what Ben Highmore has termed the “landscape of the mundane.”! Paradoxically, her plays manifest a degree of realism (or hyperrealism) that appears to be so lacking in referentiality, so bereft of signification, that it seems as though she may have somehow erased the barrier between art and life. In the pages that follow, I shall trace the artistic strategies that Cu-

nillé implements in creating this enigmatic theater, and I shall elucidate some of the principal elements of her unique approach to the notion of theatrical realism. Seen through Cunillé’s eyes, reality, as Ord6fiez has remarked, is much more expansive, complex, and contradictory then we might have ever imagined.”

Entering Cunillé’s theatrical universe can be likened to the experience of contemplating a series of black and white photographs: we rec-

ognize the world that she has portrayed; we know that it bears an identifiable and even comforting resemblance to the realm of our everyday experience; yet something is strangely disquieting and unfamil-

iar. As Sergi Belbel remarks, her plays show us a dimension of everyday life that seems to distance itself from our “known world.” We may sense that the characters conceal an enormous depth, but often we are unable to penetrate the surface. At times, this theatrical realm appears to be lacking in color and subtle shadings; at times, it is the emphasis on small, seemingly innocuous details that conceals what otherwise would be a more familiar scene. Cunillé has sipped from the same fountain as several other prominent Catalan dramatists of her generation: the waters of the Sala Beck-

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 235

ett, the experimental theater laboratory par excellence, founded by Valencian playwright/director Sanchis Sinisterra in 1989. Within this environment, in which Sanchis, preeminent presence of incalculable influence, has offered, since the 1990s, his coveted seminars on playwriting, the so-called estil Cunillé (Cunillé style) slowly began to burgeon and take shape. Cunillé participated for three years in Sanchis’s early seminars, and her style appears to have developed in the shadow of the Irish playwright who lent his name to the Sada.

Crafted through the use of tenuous, subtle, minimalist lines and hidden meanings, Cunillé’s literary universe is a place of mystery, where strategies of ellipsis, pause, and suggestion reign. In the words of Sanchis, her theatre is “sobrio, esquivo, enigmatico, pensado y escrito de espaldas a los modos y las modas del mercado cultural, de esa industria del ocio que propugna la estética del cuanto mas, mejor.’ [sober, elusive, enigmatic, conceived and written with her back to the modes and styles of the cultural market, of that entertainment industry that promotes the aesthetic of more is better.] ‘These are characteristics that she shares, in varying degrees, with other playwrights who are the creative offspring of the Beckett, such as Carles Batlle, Sergi Belbel, Beth Escudé, Ignasi Garcia, Pau Mir6, Josep Pere Peyré, David Plana, and Mercé Sarrias. Moreover, these are qualities that link her, in terms of artistic lineage, with some of foremost figures of the contemporary European and North American stage: David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Bernard-Marie Koltés, and, above all, Harold Pinter." CUNILLELANDIA

Perhaps the most flagrant manifestation of the phenomenon that I have termed Catalunya invisible can be tound in the theater of Cunillé. She has created a series of plays that map out her own idiosyncratic view of the world, what Alberti, one of her habitual collaborators, has called “Cunillélandia.’’'¢ It is an unsettling, static universe, where time

does not appear to advance; rather, one has the impression that her characters are suspended in an interminably continuous present. In general, all spatiotemporal signs are absent; what dominates is an atemporality and a vacuity of space, a vaporous and circumstantial landscape that seems disquietingly devoid of action. ‘The characters are almost always anonymous beings, generic, immersed in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Any insinuation of plot or characterization is established through fragments, flashes, and remnants of subjective reality; not through an objective, naturalist, or psychological approach. As Ordofiez observes, Cunillélandia is an enigmatic, indeterminate

236 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM place whose limits are plotted along the “marginal” and “interstitial”’ passageways of contemporary urban life: ““We know that we are there, again, because we recognize its lights and shadows (always imprecise, always changing), its recurrent places: the zone of passage, the interstices.””!” ‘These circumstantial landscapes include the front office that,

in Rodeo, is constructed as a space of fluctuating and indeterminate identity; the children’s playground with slides and swing sets that, in Libracion, serves as a place for the nocturnal encounters between two women; the large vacant warehouse that, in Accident, functions as a storage area for thousands of portable ventilation fans during an extremely hot summer; the vacant apartment that, in La venda (The sale, 1994), one character tries to sell and the other two attempt to fill with their desires; the room of a hotel in an anonymous costal city where, in Privado (Private, 1996), the true identity of a mysterious man vacillates among multiple possibilities that include doctor, lover, and taxi driver; the elevator of an urban apartment building that, in Apocalipsi, seems to take an infinite amount of time to descend to street level; the empty lot situated in a peripheral zone of a large city where, in L’aniversari, a man and a women have an chance encounter, each of them in reality awaiting the arrival of somebody else. Cunillé’s spaces, barely defined, practically bare, lacking in distinguishing characteristics, have a provisional, tenuous, fleeting nature, whose very constitution varies according to the bodies that inhabit them.

These indeterminate urban landscapes are evocative of the “nonplaces” theorized by Marc Augé: places of transit and transition, lacking in fixed identity, where one merely passes the time or watches time pass. These anonymous spaces are characterized by the repetition and

monotony that one associates with the everyday: “housing developments, industrial lots, supermarkets, airport lounges, railway stations, hotel chains, air and motor routes, large retail outlets, and even the complex skein of cable and wireless networks that mobilize extraterrestrial space for the purposes of a communication so peculiar that it often puts the individual in contact only with another image of himself.”!® By extension, those who travel through these generic spaces naturally take on a certain anonymity themselves. The imprecise voids of Cunillé’s theater, nevertheless, I would suggest, are ironically instilled with identity, for her plays inscribe the figure of Catalunya not through location, but rather through its avoidance or displacement. Her texts establish the presence of Catalunya in an elliptical sense, in such a way that its flagrant nonpresence acquires strong connotative powers. Spatial geography is dislocated, occluded, “interrupted,” or even erased, reflecting a desire for transcendence, a desire to avoid the confining pitfalls—to paraphrase Jordi Coca—of

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 237 peripheralism and provincialism.!? These dislocations are evocative of the dilemma, described by Julia Guillamon, of depicting from a realist

perspective the rapid transformations of Barcelona’s contemporary urban landscape. In an even broader context, Cunillé’s elliptical inscription of identity can be taken as a reflection of the ontological and aesthetic implications of our existence within a contemporary technological culture of disintegrating and shifting borders, as well as trans-

national crossings and migrations. Una Chauduri, effectively, attributes the “erasure of spatial particularity” that is so prevalent in contemporary drama to the so-called postmodern condition.”° In their mise-en-scéne of La venda in 1997 at the Teatre Adria Gual (housed in the former Institut del ‘Teatre), director Yvette Vigata and scenic designer ‘Tobia Ercolina aptly captured the spatial ambiguity of Cunil-

lé’s theater by using large sheets of semitransparent plastic to evoke the walls of an empty apartment that is up for sale. The combination of plastic sheeting and carefully diffused lighting (designed by Nuccio Marino) suggested the presence of an evanescent, ghostly reality, on the verge of slipping away. Ordofiez, in his review of the play, com-

pared the set to an aquarium or scene submerged underwater: “it achieves a situation whereby, through an impossible window, the sea— ‘always the same and always changing’—acquires the exact coloring of the dialogues in the play: green when we think that it was blue, blue when we would have sworn that it was green.”?! As Orddjfiez sug-

gests, the spaces that Cunillé chooses, undefined places, practically empty, are constituted through the yearnings and anxieties that are imposed upon them. A “POETICS OF SUBTRACTION”

During the late 1990s Cunillé’s dramaturgy inspired a series of theoretical reflections concerning her enigmatic style in the form of several literary prefaces and essays. These reflections begin with Sanchis Sinisterra’s preface to Accident, published in 1996, in which he introduced the term “‘poética de la sostracci6” (poetics of subtraction) in reference to the pared down aesthetic that would come to define an entire generation of Catalan playwrights, with Cunillé being the most

exemplary manifestation. Sanchis describes a theatrical poetics erounded in processes of “attenuation,” “elimination,” and ‘“‘omission.””? ‘The characters move through a theatrical landscape that is not sketched out in detail (as in the naturalist manner of the past); rather, the forms and meanings that these beings take on are matters of pure

theatrical contingency and fluctuating interactions. In the notes ac-

238 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM companying the publication of his own play Les veus de lambu (The voices of Iambu, 1997), published in 1998, Carles Batlle appears to build on the ideas introduced in Sanchis’s preface, proposing, in reference to Cunillé and others, the term drama relatiu (relative drama) to describe what he perceives as an “‘opaqueness”’ or lack of transparency,

as well as a destabilization of fundamental dramatic elements such as character, plot, conflict, space, and time. He underlines the “nonaffirmative”’ nature of Cunillé’s theater, attributing this condition to the frequently cited crisis of ideologies that is symptomatic of the contemporary world, and he asks, with an ironic tone: “;Com pot ser que, en plena crisi de les ideologies establertes, l’intercanvi entre individus dalt

d’un escenari pugui permetre’s la frivolitat d’objectivar axiomes, d’autenticar idees, de reivindicar evidéncies o de certificar valors?’’”? [How can it be that, in the midst of a crisis of established ideologies, the exchange among individuals on a stage could be allowed to engage in the frivolity of objectifying axioms, authenticating ideas, vindicating evidence or certifying values?] Cunillé’s plays establish meaning in an

elliptical or enigmatic manner, “relatively” or “in relation to. . .” other scenic elements. In effect, the situation of ambiguity, opacity, and fragmentation that, according to Batlle, obliges the spectator to assume an active role in confronting the possible narrative dimensions of Cunillé’s plays is a consequence of the very relations of theatrical contingency that Sanchis had observed. ‘Thus the relativism of relative drama, in a manner similar to the theatre of Josep M. Benet 1 Jornet, connotes a subjective, even phenomenic, process whereby the charac-

ters are constituted and reconstituted upon the stage, always through relationships of mutual implication and dependence. Situated within the context of poststructural theory, the notions of subtraction and relativism that Sanchis and Batlle posit appear to point to the deconstructive nature of Cunillé’s theater. Her plays establish zones of différance—as Jacques Derrida would have it— chasms of ambivalence that render impossible any semblance of closure with regard

to the production of meaning.*+ In silences, fissures, and gaps and through strategies of repetition, regression, confluence, and simultaneity, meaning begins to take shape, but it never quite renders itself completely present. In the language of deconstruction, the theater of Cunillé, therefore, transcends the limits of a concrete relationship between sign and referent and opens on to a semiotic field without barriers, which perpetually defers or frustrates the temptation on the part of the spectator to grasp a total or totalizing vision of what is happening on stage. In a manner analogous to this displacement of meaning, the theatrical space in these works also emerges through the prism of subjectivity.

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 239 The relativism that manifests itself in the construction of characters also contaminates the conception of space. Cunillé offers a fairly literal visual representation of this situation of spatial relativity in Rodeo, the play with which she made her debut on the Barcelona stage. Rodeo was written in Spanish and staged by the ‘Teatro Fronterizo in 1992, under the direction of Luis Miguel Climent, at the Espai B of the Mercat de les Flors. Actors Ariadna Civit, Josep Maria Doménech, Carme Gonzalez, Josep Joaquim Julien, Pep Jové, Xavier Ruano, and Ramon Vall participated in the Barcelona debut. According to the text, the scenic space (which Berrondo designed for the premiere production) is subjected to a curious play of optics whereby, at the end of each scene, the set rotates a full ninety degrees. ‘The spectator, consequently, is positioned in the privileged place of being able to contemplate a series of diverse visions of a single reality. The focal point of these multiple perspectives is an enigma surrounding the true identity of the seemingly banal, somewhat Kafkaesque office that serves as the setting of the play. Its identity as the front room of what appears to be a mortuary or funeral home is enveloped in an atmosphere of mystery. ‘The spectator will never have the opportunity to grasp the entire totality of this reality, for the space is converted into a motor and metaphor for the strong air of subjectivity that imbues the play. This markedly deconstructive, subjective impulse is likewise apparent in Vacants (Vacant places, 1996), which the Companyia Hongaresa staged in Spanish at Valencia’s Sala Palmireno in 1996 under the direction of Paco Zarzoso. It was also performed in the miniscule space of Barcelona’s ‘Teatre Malic in 1998. Here, through a progression of six sequences, an anonymous man and woman, played by Zarzoso and Lola Lépez in the aforementioned productions, portray diverse representations of the semantic vacuity that the title of the play suggests. In his review of the production in Spanish at the Malic, Joan Anton-Benach declared Vacants to be “maliciously, impeccably dialogued” and went on to note that the play should cancel any doubts about the value of Cunillé’s work: “Within the modesty of its format, Vacantes is an exercise capable of liquidating possible reservations about a piece of

dramatic writing that sometimes is seen as stammering or provisional.””° In the second scene of the play, the characters appear on stage, seated in two large armchairs, listening to the conclusion of a piece of classical music. The sensorial experience provokes an exchange in which they attempt to communicate with each other; not in a direct manner, but through their impressions of works of art for which they have a certain affinity: the musical piece (“A mi em recorda

... em sona a quan vaig anar a Escocia” [It reminds me . . . it sounds like when I went to Scotland]), a novel (“com ho diria... si... frag-

240 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM mentaria. ... S6n els pensaments d’una gent que va en el mateix auto-

bus” [how would you say... yes... fragmentary. . . . They are the thoughts of a bunch of people traveling on the same bus)), a film (“‘d’a-

quella mena de pel-licula que has de veure més d’un cop” [the kind of film that you have to see more than once]), the theater (“sempre tinc la sensaci6 que m’enreden, que allo no és de debo. . . . Bé ja m’entens” [I always have the feeling that they’re tricking me, that it’s not real... . Well, you know what I mean]), an exhibit of old photographs (“Hi havia algunes fotografies que eren com un cop de puny a I|’est6-

mac.” [There were some photographs that were like a punch in the stomach.]), a poem (“Fa dies que tinc aquest vers al cap” [I’ve had this verse in my head for days]), paintings (“encara em diuen alguna cosa quan els miro” [they still speak to me when I look at them .. . ]), and

sculpture (“que les mateixes formes amb el pas del temps et suggereixin coses noves”’ [that the same forms suggest new things to you with the passage of time.])*° In Vacants, everything is simile, or “relative,” in the words of Batlle. The fugitive and intangible signs never find their precise referents and, at the end of the scene, the man and woman remain on stage, listening to the lingering silence, recalling some (seemingly supernatural) far-off voices and murmurs originating in the depths of an empty void. Written in the satirical vein of black comedy with an ironic form of humor that is prevalent in Cunillé, the play manages to unmask a dimension of tragic inutility that lies behind these human relationships, revealing an inability on the part of human beings to attain a significant level of genuine communication. As Pablo Ley noted in his review of the play, Vacants reveals to us “the ridiculousness of human communication.’’’

It is the deconstructive undercurrent of Cunillé’s theater that, furthermore, situates her work within the context of the contemporary obsession, at times called “postmodern,” with the process of artistic representation: the tendency to call attention, either implicitly or explicitly, to the representational practices at work within the play and, even, to emphasize the process over the final product. Cunillé’s plays are situated at the limit between what is representable and what is impossible to represent, the interstitial, fleeting dimensions of reality whose presence can only be distinguished through strategies of allusion and insinuation. Hence the crisis of ideologies that Batlle underlines is also a crisis that operates at the level of cultural authority.* The result in Cunillé’s theater is an implicit set of reflections with regard to the notion of authenticity and the concept of what is real. The question of authenticity emerges in L’afer, which premiered in Spanish at the [IX Mostra de Teatre d’Alcoi (Alacant) in 1999 and was

also staged in 2000 at the Sala Cuarta Pared, one of Madrid’s most

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 241

prestigious alternative venues. The Barcelona production premiered at the Sala Artenbrut in 2002, under the direction of César Martinez, who situated the play within a 1950s film noir atmosphere. In L’afer, a complicated tapestry of relations surfaces among three characters. A husband (played by Miquel Bonet in the Barcelona production) has suspicions regarding the fidelity of his wife (Ester Majos) and consequently hires a detective Jordi Diaz) to monitor her activities. If, in effect, the supposed affair at first does not really exist (although it is impossible for the spectator to determine with any certainty what is real and what is not), the characters, nevertheless, through their own manipulations of the truth, will attempt to convert it into a reality. In fact, the raison d’étre of the detective gradually becomes the goal of converting the woman’s affair into a patent truth. Like the wooden balustrade that occupies a prominent place in the scenic space and, according to the text, gradually ruptures as the plot develops, the characters, in turn, occupy a reality that is tediously banal but, also, subtly fractured and gradually invaded by an imaginary, chimerical realm. It is as though they were trying to fill the void created by their personal relationships with an alternative reality. The ambiguity that surfaces as a result of the problem of authenticity also emerges in a subtle manner in terms of character development, for Cunillé’s plays are populated with beings for whom a genuine intimate reality, such as sexual identity, reveals itself as a condition that is always under construction. hey are characters whose inner lives as individuals are rather defuse or vague. ‘Typically, a curious relationship of dependence and complicity arises between them, often as the result of an accidental, atypical, or unexpected encounter. ‘The title of Accident, staged by Joan Ollé at the Mercat de les Flors in 1995, encapsu-

lates this notion of a chance encounter. In this play, the lives of two men collide in space and time as the result of a traffic accident. In Libracién, which had its premiere at the a Sala Beckett in 1994 with a mise-en-scene by Alberti, two women (played by Lina Lambert and Lola Lépez) habitually meet at a children’s park. ‘They appear to have a odd relationship of emotional dependence that is never completely illuminated. It is a shared complicity that derives from having witnessed together, on the night of a full moon, the secret miracle of a seesaw that shifts, seemingly on its own, from side to side, each evening at precisely the same exact moment. As Cunillé explains in her program notes, the notion of “libration” refers to an oscillating movement that is the result of a subtle change in equilibrium brought about by the orbit of the moon and its relationship with the planet Earth. In this play, as in others, she depicts the subtle impact and delicate

242 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM repercussions that appear to result from a small disturbance in the cosmic balance, as well as in daily life. In Apocalipsi, the character of Marta (played by Marta Milla in Alberti’s mise-en-scene at the INC) receives a message on her answer-

ing machine from a woman whom she has met on a recent airplane flight. Cunillé leaves open for the spectator a diverse gamut of possibilities regarding the relationship or attraction that may exist between the two women, but she never imposes a meaning upon the text and never closes off any possibilities with regard to final implications.

Her theatrical minimalism perhaps reached a culminating point with Dotze treballs (Twelve pieces, 1998), which had its official premiere under Alberti’s direction at the Teatre Escorxador (as part of the Sitges Teatre Internacional Festival) in June 1998. In this play, she presents twelve brief theatrical vignettes, whose pared down aesthetic can be likened to the minimalist musical compositions of Morton Feldman, which are known for their haunting, prolonged tones and silences. In each scene, two women without fixed identities, known as

“Dona 1” (“Woman 1”) and “Dona 2” (“Woman 2’’) in the text (played by Isabel Cabés and Alicia Pérez in the Sitges production), sit

on a park bench, chatting on a Sunday afternoon (or, what may be several afternoons). In his review, Ley captured Cunillé’s attention to subtlety, noting that the women, “create dialogues with small enigmas, invent small stories, create small paradoxes.’’”? In the first scene,

they say nothing. From time to time it seems as though one of them were about to speak; however, neither dares to utter the first word.

The scene ends in darkness. In the vignettes that follow, the two women engage in conversation, but the scenes that the audience witnesses appear to commence after the beginning of each exchange, in such a way that the spectator might well have the impression of having arrived too late to be able to grasp the full gist of their conversation. In a similar manner, the lighting that distinguishes the scenic divisions (as indicated in the text and executed in the production) dissolves into darkness before each exchange has concluded. It thus creates for the spectator the impression that he or she may have left the conversation too soon. In these minimalist theatrical compositions, the only concrete spatiotemporal reference is the sound of a train that appears to draw near, but it is not clear whether it is a train traveling today, yesterday, or tomorrow. There are no obvious lines demarcating the limits of the work of art and everyday life, and in this absence of ontological boundaries, CuniIlé creates a situation in which the artifice or spectacularity of what is taking place on stage is fused and confused with the real. Indeed she appears to be well aware of the performative dimension of everyday

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 243

practices, which, in their repetitive and “restored” behaviors, inject our lives with an element of theatricality.*° In the fourth vignette, she

accentuates the ambiguous boundaries between theater and life through the creation of a play within the play. As the two women smoke cigarettes, they chat about their current professional employment. Woman 2 currently works in the personnel office of a “com-

mercial department,” although she mentions that she formerly worked in sales. Woman | asks Woman 2 to pretend that she (Woman 1) is up for a position in sales and needs to take an exam whereby she must sell Woman 2 a pair of sunglasses. hey act out this imaginary

game of pretend and then reverse the roles of customer and saleswoman. Cunillé consequently creates a metatheatrical joke or aesthetic dilemma (her ironic sense of humor is all-pervasive) whereby a mundane situation is played out within the frame of another mundane situation; hence the elusive limits of the everyday—and of the theatricality that is an inherent part of the everyday—tfall beneath a cloud of doubt and suspicion. Dotze treballs appears to emerge from the realm of the everyday in a spontaneous manner, as though it were part of an organic process with neither beginning nor end. The process of identification, of Aristotelian origins, inherent in the most primordial concepts of theatricality (and the theater of naturalist and realist traditions) surfaces naturally, since the monotonous mundaneness of Dotze treballs is accessible to the spectator; it invites him or her to penetrate a universe that appears oddly familiar in its tedium, derived from a series of perfectly banal concerns. As the action advances, however, a sense of metaphysical loss gradually comes to light, which may be disturbing or disorientating for the spectator, as only with great difficulty would the initial process of identification lead to catharsis. ‘THE EVERYDAY

Cunillé grounds her dramaturgy in the most common places and spatial terrains. In theorizing a “practice of everyday life,’ Michel de Certeau perceives in similarly ordinary mundane spaces a way of working against social and cultural hierarchies that tend to reinforce constructions of power and dominance. De Certeau’s everydayness offers a “view from below” that emphasizes the value of creativity, invention, and imagination as ways of resisting authority and subverting

deep-seated binary relationships between high and low, elitist and popular cultures, or the upper class and the bourgeoisie.*! Much of de Certeau’s thinking about the everyday—like much of Cunillé’s the-

244 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM ater—is situated within an urban landscape. Whereas medieval and re-

naissance painters typically offered a view of the city from above, invoking the perspective of a kind of “solar-eye” or “‘voyeur-god,”’ Certeau (as well as Cunillé) draws attention to the “ordinary practitioners of the city” who exist “ “down below,’ below the thresholds at which visibility begins.” Certeau’s urban landscape, therefore, is not a drama of exceptional occurrences set against the backdrop of everyday life; instead, he foregrounds those everyday practices and procedures of popular culture that regularly occupy a clandestine realm not always visible from above: the interstitial spaces devoted to what is routine and ordinary, inconspicuous and unassuming, indistinguishable and unrepresentable.** In keeping with the aesthetic of everyday practices that Certeau proposes, Cunillé’s La cita portrays activities that are as familiar, frequent, and commonplace as the reparation of a watch or the making of passport-type photographs in a photo booth. Her characters navigate those mysterious, hidden spaces that are often absent from the classical domain of works of art, showing us how the debris of everyday modern existence might be fashioned or “‘othered”’ in a variety of ways.** As in the contemporary art installations of Catalan artist Eulalia Valldosera, who shows us the hidden spaces of domestic life, Cunillé, treads upon this often-concealed terrain, probing the limits of the representable and the limits of theatricality. Whereas Sergi Belbel, as we have seen, often strives to uncover the

violent dimension of the mundane and the everyday, Cunillé, contrastingly, reveals a capacity to seek out what is marvelous and unexpected within the most futilely banal and insubstantial situations. Fellow playwright Beth Escudé explains in the souvenir program for the production of Apocalipsi how Cunillé exhibits a masterful treatment

of the most irrelevant minor details: “és sens dubte, la responsable d’haver portat fins a les ultimes conseqiiéncies el recurs del ‘petit detall irrellevant.’’’ [she is without a doubt, the person responsible for having brought to its final consequences the technique of “the small irrelevant detail”’.] In L’afer, for example, the husband loses a tie clip and complains about a sty that has developed in his eye. In Rodeo, a small, seemingly insignificant detail is taken to the limit when a female character (“Ella”) comments about the things that people habitually carry around in their pockets and that they eventually forget or lose when a

hole forms in the lining. “Después” [Afterward], she explains, “‘a veces, las encuentran y les resultan tan extrafias que vuelven a ser nue-

vas. Perderse para volver a empezar.’”° [sometimes, they find them and they seem so strange to them that they become new again. ‘To become lost in order to go back to the beginning.| Here, the loss of

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 245

bits and pieces of everyday detritus, long forgotten or discarded, inspires intense existential reflection. In other plays, the professional activity of the characters is an ordi-

nary pursuit that, in a Freudian sense, has been somehow “made strange.” Such is the case of Passatge Gutenberg, which Alberti staged in 2000 at the Nou ‘Tantarantana in Barcelona. In this play, amid the stagnant landscape of a mysterious urban passageway, lives a woman (actress Lurdes Barba in the Barcelona production) who has converted the commonplace task of letter writing into the less frequent occupation of preparing mundane personal correspondence for others. ‘The writer in question finds herself with two customers (played by Alicia Pérez and Isabel Cabés) who call upon her services; however, the absurdity of the situation grows when it is discovered that neither of the prospective clients has brought with her the address to which her letter is destined. An element of dramatic suspense takes an ironic turn

as a result of the natural inclination on the part of the spectator to want to anticipate, or yearn to find out, where the characters will take them or when the dramatic conflict finally will arise. ‘These are yearnings that almost always remain unfulfilled. In the minuscule details of everyday reality, Cunillé’s theater often reveals a surprising or magical dimension.*’ Sanchis Sinisterra, likewise, observes, “Su teatro posee la rara cualidad de recordarnos una realidad no demasiado ajena, un microcosmos vagamente familiar,

pero al mismo tiempo sutilmente enrarecido, levemente distorsionado.”** [Her theater possesses the rare quality of reminding us of a reality that is not too far off, a microcosm that is vaguely familiar, but at the same time subtly made strange or slightly distorted.] ‘The seesaw in the children’s park in Libracion shitts each night, in a seemingly supernatural fashion, at exactly the same time without anybody touching it. In L’afer, a man believes that he has heard the voice of his dead mother. In La venda, there are several allusions to an elevator that only goes upward. ‘These marvelous, magical, and even surreal or supernatural, aspects of daily life frequently reveal a playful, humorous, or even childlike dimension of the human condition. In Apocalipsi, the character of Carme (who was played by Rosa Renom) sits on a swing in a children’s playground (reminiscent of the scenic space of Libracion) and eternally awaits the arrival of her father. It is a situation that radiates with Beckettian overtones, as the father will never arrive. In La venda, the character of Eduard, in a seemingly puerile fashion, wants to hide behind the door of the apartment in order to play a trick on Gloria and frighten her when she returns. Cunillé exhibits a capacity to perceive or detect the minuscule absurdities of everyday life that are capable of transmitting a sensation of disorientation or awe.

246 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM REALISM AND HyPERREALISM

In his reflections on relative drama, Batlle observes how Cunillé’s interest in human relations naturally yields a type of “new realism,” characterized by an “opaque” theatricality.*? Yet this is no longer the realism of Ibsen, as Josep M. Benet 1 Jornet notes, “‘amb les seves escenes preparatories 1 amb la seva obsessi6 per justificar-ho tot.’ [with its preparatory scenes and with its obsession with justifying everything.] Cunillé’s opaque theatrical universe, lacking in rational justifications, is also lacking in referentiality, in a manner symptomatic of a contemporary culture that favors the creation of landscapes of simulation where the limits between the real and the virtual are no longer readily apparent. Baudrillard remarks, in his historic essay titled ‘““Uhe Precession of Simulacra,” that the real “no longer needs to be rational because it no longer measures itself against either an ideal or a negative instance.’”#! In this realm of simulation and hyperreality, which privileges the aesthetization and spectacularization of the real, imitation, duplication, and parody, are no longer what are at stake; instead, what occurs, according to Baudrillard is a “substitution of signs of the real for the real.’ If the theatrical signs seem “‘opaque”’ to Batlle and others, it is because, paradoxically, they have become so transparent that they have practically lost their representational function. Reality has been displaced, as Baudrillard would have it, “liquidated” in favor of pure illusion. In a parallel manner, Valentina Valentini posits the assumption that the contemporary theater begins with the evaporation of deep-rooted oppositions between image and object, the mental and the physical, the real and the virtual (and here, I would add, in spatial terms, interior and exterior, public and private). According to this contemporary aesthetic, the theater no longer serves to represent, but to create new realities situated “beyond the distinction of nature-culture, art-life.”” One could suggest, then, that Cunillé’s “new” realism operates in this

nonreferential landscape of simulation, beyond the distinction between art and life. It utilizes the power and energy of the live image to penetrate a landscape of hyperreality, a reality that aspires to be the spectacle that is life itself. As Umberto Eco notes in his Travels in Hyperreality, this is a space where the sign “‘aims to be the thing, to abolish

the distinction of the reference, the mechanism of replacement.’ Perhaps, it is for this reason that Cunillé’s theatre is capable of disturbing us so. She does not offer a realism grounded in psychology; nor does her work necessarily give credence to the world of artifice that is theatrical space; rather, it confronts us with the brutal surface

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 247

of a mirror. The process, in effect, can be disquieting or even quite alarming. In La venda, there is a key scene, a metatheatrical moment, in which Marta (played by Aurea Marquez in Vigata’s mise-en-scéne) describes

her idea for a new radio interview show, although it is not Marta’s “live” voice that expresses the idea, but instead her taped voice. With this situation, Cunillé submerges Marta’s discourse in an aesthetic frame that calls attention to the representational process and, at the same time, seems to pay intertextual homage to the theatre of Beckett and his play Krapp’s Last Tape (1958): La Marta no agafa l’aparell. Pausa. La Gloria apreta un bot6 i Ilavors se

sent la veu de la Marta: “...Si...aveure...va... Es tractaria que la gent parlés del que volgués . . . Trucarien per teléfon i parlarien del que els donés la gana... No se sentiria res més que la gent que parla . . . sense

musica... cap interrupcid, nires... Una trucada darrera l’altrai prou... (Pausa.) Fi de trajecte . . . (Pausa).”’*

[Marta doesn’t answer the phone. Pause. Gloria presses a botton and then

the voice of Marta is heard: “... Yes... let’s see... right... It would consist of people talking about whatever they want... They would call in and talk about whatever they felt like ... You wouldn’t hear anything but people talking . . . without music .. . no interruptions, or anything... One call after the other and that’s it... (Pause.) Over and out... (Pause).”’]

Embedded in Marta’s description of the radio show there appears to be an ironic commentary on the part of Cunillé with regard to her Own artistic process: that of letting her characters speak about anything that they wish, as commonplace as the topic may be, and of cre-

ating an ontological dilemma with regard to the elusive border separating reality and aesthetic artifice. Cunillé’s new realism, in this manner, possesses the kind of implacable visibility and transparency that Baudrillard has likened to the obscene, a type of obscenity that puts an end to representation.*° The world that she offers us might seem enigmatic because it is not the sort of artifice that is expected, but rather the quotidian reality that perhaps we do not want to see.

As I have suggested, Cunillé’s theatrical trajectory exhibited, throughout the 1990s, a persistent evasion of signs of geographic identity and cultural specificity. E/ gat negre (2001), which premiered at the ‘Teatre Malic under Alberti’s direction in 2001, represented a curious shift in terms of this absence of cultural particulars, for the play is expressly set in Germany during the 1930s. While the city of Barcelona,

248 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM thus far, had been ostensibly absent from Cunillé’s urban landscapes of the everyday, there had been significant exceptions, moments in her plays in which a spatial geography that is vaguely evocative of this Mediterranean city had surfaced; for example, in the glimpses of the sea as viewed from the windows of the hotel room in Privado or of the apartment in La venda. Even the title of one of her earliest plays, Berna (1991), insinuated the presence of Barcelona through a phonetic re-

semblance with the common abbreviation “Barna.” ‘The rapport among geographic place, discourses of identity, and the conception of theatrical space establishes a complex network of associations in Cuni-

llé’s theatre. Engraved in this “geopathology”—as Una Chaudhuri would have it—is, perhaps, a desire to transcend, through the theater, her own cultural space.*

BARCELONA, MAPA D’OMBRES

Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, as I have noted elsewhere, the presence on the stage of Barcelona—and Catalunya, for that matter— had managed to resist the absolute vanishing point. This near disappearance from the stage did not go unnoticed, nor did the obsession on the part of Catalan dramatists with the limits of cultural specificity. Significantly, ‘Toni Casares, artistic director of the Sala Beckett, chose to focus upon the problem of place in preparing the programming for the 2003-2004 season. In a series titled “L’acci6 té Iloc a Barcelona” (The action takes place in Barcelona), he took the initiative in encouraging both established and up-and-coming dramatists to create a the-

atrical imaginary grounded in visions of the city. The series earned Casares and the Sala Beckett a prestigious Generalitat de Catalunya prize in 2005. The works commissioned included Vides de tants (Psicopatologia de la vida quotidiana) (The lives of many [psychopathology of daily life], 2004) by Albert Mestres, Do’M by poet Enric Casasses, Plou 4 Barcelona (It’s Raining in Barcelona, 2004) by Pau Mir6; and Barcelona, mapa d’ombres (Barcelona, Map of Shadows, 2004) by Cunillé. In addition

to these full-fledged productions, Casares commissioned a series titled ‘““Veus de Barcelona” (Voices from Barcelona), in which he invited sev-

eral playwrights who have migrated to Barcelona from other areas of the world to create new theatrical portrayals of the city. There was also a marathon of staged readings at the Beckett of fifty-six short theatrical texts titled ‘‘Acotacié: Barcelona” (Stage direction: Barcelona). Casares outlined his view of the Barcelona stage in a statement concerning the underlying premise of the season’s programming:

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 249 Fl teatre .. . és un espai de trobada 1 de mutu reconeixement; un ritual de pactes i complicitats i, per tant, ha d’esbandir-se del damunt les pors 1 els complexes i ha d’oferir-nos als espectadors la possibilitat que ens hi reconeguem. Hem de trobar a l’escenari els nostres llocs, els nostres carrers, els nostres noms, les nostres paraules, les nostres pors, les nostres il-lusions, les nostres circumstancies. ... Volem trobar Barcelona a l’escenari. Mirarla, redescobrir-la, reinventar-la, riure’ns d’ella o plorar-la. . . . Saber parlar de la nostre propia ciutat pot voler dir aprendre a comprendre el mon.** [The theater . . . is a space of encounter and mutual recognition; a ritual of pacts and complicities and, therefore, it has to rise above fears and complexes and has to offer us as spectators the possibility that we might be able to recognize ourselves in it. We have to find our places, our streets, our

names, our words, our fears, our hopes, our circumstances there. ... We want to find Barcelona on the stage. Look at it, rediscover it, reinvent it, laugh at it or cry over it... . Knowing how to speak about our own city may mean learning to understand the world.|

It would seem, therefore, that with Casares’s bold programming decision, the fog concealing the Barcelona landscape had finally lifted. In Cunillé’s contribution to the series, Barcelona, mapa d’ombres, she moves from the realm of the “nonplace”’ to that of “someplace,”’ mapping out for the spectator a gendered, eroticized vision of the city of

Barcelona. Constructed according to the same minimalist aesthetic lines that have come to define Cunillé’s prolific theatrical trajectory, the play was awarded the Premi Butaca for best theater text, as well as the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona 2004 for the best play staged in the city of Barcelona during 2004. Barcelona, mapa d’ombres premiered under the direction of Lurdes Barba in March 2004 to resoundingly positive reviews. Ord6fiez succinctly proclaimed, on the pages of E/ Pais: “one cannot write better, one cannot act better.”°° Indeed the play represents a culminating point in Cunillé’s career, presenting a series of characters whose relationship with urban space plots out a perspective of the city that is inscribed with meaning with regard to power, difference, class, death, and sexuality.*!

From beginning to end, throughout the five scenes that comprise the text, Cunillé generates, through her characters’ dialogues, a visual representation of the city, as they allude to an urban landscape populated by recognizable (and grandiose) landmarks. The references to

the Sagrada Familia, the Placa de Catalunya, the Gran ‘Teatre del Liceu, the Palau de la Miisica, the Rambla, the MACBA, and the Estaci6 de Franga flagrantly engage and codify the play within the con-

text of a discourse on cultural identity that is unmistakably Barcelonan. The dialogues occur, however, within the more nonde-

250 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM script, less conspicuous interior space of a pension located in the E1xample district, historically a bastion of the Barcelona bourgeoisie. As Francesc Foguet has observed, the pension serves as a consummate space of transition, occupied by a perpetual flux of transitory beings of a variety of origins, tastes, and sensibilities.°* In this sense, Cunillé has, paradoxically, created within the context of a specific, identifiable landscape the type of undifferentiated nonplace that we are accustomed to seeing in her theater. Beginning with the first scene and continuing throughout, a recording of Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohéme, with Maria Callas in the role of Mimi, plays on the radio in the background, immediately lending an air of decadence and unconventionality to the play. The elderly male owner of the pension is revealed to be terminally ill with cancer. On a summer evening, he and his wife, “Ell” and “Ella” (played by Alfred Luchetti and Mont Plans in Barba’s mise-en-scéne), who are hoping to spend their remaining days together in peace and tranquility, one by one ask the boarders of the pension to vacate their rooms. ‘Through their dialogues, always in pairs, these placeless beings, surprising in

their intermingling of ordinariness and eccentricity, disclose fragments and recall scenes from their lives, while, through their narratives, the monumental landscape of the city unfolds. She (‘Ella’) 1s from a working-class family, and when she hears voices in the middle of the night, she sings a piece of opera. She once had a daughter, who was killed when she was hit by a bus on the Passeig de Gracia.*? He

(“EI”) used to live in the working-class, seafront district of the city known as Poble Nou. His father, one can derive from the conversation, was a construction worker who emigrated to Catalunya from rural Murcia. The text also hints that his family was Republican and suffered greatly during the war. Speaking about his father, the pension owner recalls: “Es extrany perqué a la guerra no volia que anéssim als refugis. La meva mare i jo ens haviem d’amagar a sota les escales de casa.”’*+ [It’s strange because during the war he didn’t want us to go to

the bomb shelters. My mother and I had to hide under the stairs in the house. ]

Among the tenants is a woman (“Dona”’), played by Lina Lambert in the production at the Beckett, who earns a modest living teaching French classes. She once lived near a cemetery (very likely, that of

Poble Nou) and migrated to the Raval quarter when construction began on the Vila Olimpica. This is the construction that transformed a modest section of Poble Nou first into housing for the athletes of the Barcelona Olympic Games of 1992 and then into modern apartment blocks for the upwardly-mobile middle class. She mentions that she has written a novel. Her son is an architect, specializing in the

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 251 absurd métier of designing xamfrans, the chamfered corners that are a

unique feature of the intersections of the Eixample district. ‘The woman has a penchant for wandering about the city at night, rather then during the light of day: ““Alguna nit m’aturo davant les finestres on hi ha [lum i la persiana aixecada, 1 observo una estona la gent que hi viu a dins.”*> [Some nights I stop in front of the windows where there’s a light on and the blinds are up, and for a while I observe the people who live there.] Her wanderings, in which she pauses to observe the spectacle of illuminated windows, are reminiscent of those described by Walter Benjamin in his writings (d’aprés Charles Baude-

laire) on the figure of the Parisian flaneur, who strolls unhurriedly throughout the urban streets, never quite incorporating himself into the crowd, delighting voyeuristically in the everyday, and contemplat-

ing the urban scene with the detached, even melancholic, eye of a painter (or what Baudelaire called an observateur passioné).>°

In a conversation with the pension owner, the woman explains that, when her son was a child, he would often accompany her on her urban wanderings: Des de molt petit ja el portava a passejar amb mi per Barcelona, aleshores m’agradava retratar fabriques abandonades 1 solars buits. Qui sap si per aquesta ra6 ara li fan panic els espais amples i buits com a tots els mals arquitectes. L’tinica cosa en la qual estem d’acord tots dos des de sempre és que cada vegada que passem per davant de la Sagrada Familia ens vénen ganes de cridar. . . . He passat temporades Ilargues a fora, pero sempre hi torno. I ara ja res m’estalviara la transformaci6o final, aquella que fara definitivament de Barcelona una ciutat intercanviable amb qualsevol altra capital occidental benestant 1 autosatisfeta.*”

[From a very young age I took him with me for walks around Barcelona, back then I liked to paint abandoned factories and empty lots. Who knows if that’s why, like all bad architects, he panics at the sight of wide and empty spaces. [he only thing the two of us have always agreed upon is that each time we go by the Sagrada Familia we feel like screaming. . . . I’ve spent long periods away, but I always return. And now I wouldn’t miss for anything the final transformation, the one that will definitively make Barcelona a city that’s interchangeable with any other well-to-do, self-satisfied Western capital.|

Entwined with the woman’s discourse is what appears to be a metatheatrical reflection on the part of Cunillé, who, like the woman, once displayed an affinity for portraying abandoned factories and empty lots, and now has opted to offer a view of an urban terrain grounded in spatial particularities. (he woman’s commentary refers, moreover, to the contemporary transformations that rapidly have altered the face

252 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM of the Barcelona urban landscape, which, in her opinion, have caused it to lose a certain individuality. Europeaness is thus equated with a loss of cultural identity. Also living in the pension is a young security guard (played by Jordi Collet), who has been abandoned by his wife. He was once a secondstring player for the Barca football team. In scene 2, at the end of a conversation with the wife of the pension owner, he closes his eyes to listen to a passage from La Bohéme that she is singing. She, in the meantime, furtively steals his gun from the nightstand. It is a premonitory gesture whose repercussions are never fully disclosed, but, nevertheless imbue the play with an anxious air of suspense.

Scene 3 presents the third and final boarder, a young, pregnant, Spanish-speaking immigrant (played by Daniela Corbo in the production at the Beckett), who works at a restaurant. She is generically referred to in the text as “Estrangera” (Foreigner), and, in her conversation with the pension owner, she divulges the surprising news that he is the father of her child. He, in turn, is revealed to have an affinity for cross-dressing, a practice that he began cultivating several years earlier when, as an employee of the Liceu opera house, he developed a habit of secretly trying on feminine costumes backstage.

In addition to the boarders, the wife of the pension owner has an encounter with her supposed brother, a gay doctor (played by Albert Pérez) who has paid her a visit. Their conversation reveals that, as children, they would often engage in games of transvestism whereby he would dress as a woman, and she would dress as a man. She has continued to cultivate this habit of cross-dressing with the idea that, eventually, disguised as her husband, she might be able to sign for his

pension after he has passed away. She has a diary that she has kept under lock and key, and as her brother is about to leave, she gives it to him to read. It will, as she later explains to her husband, reveal a dark secret: that the doctor is really her son, the offspring of an incestuous relationship with her father.** ‘The lighting, as well as some of the ob-

jects in the room, appear to tremble at the conclusion of this scene, suggesting the presence of the kind of cosmic shift that was alluded to in Libracion.

In the fifth and final scene of the play, there is a revealing moment in which the pension owner explains to his wife that, prior to his work at the Liceu, he was employed as a kind of urban cartographer who assisted in the production of a Barcelona guidebook filled with maps of the city. He gives his wife one of the guidebooks in which he has made a series of numerical markings indicating the hours of the day at which each street is left shaded by the movement of the sun. “Es com un gran mapa d’ombres’’*? [It’s like a large map of shadows], she tells

5: THEATER OF ENIGMA: LLUISA CUNILLE 253 him. This map of shadows, in a metatextual sense, plots an intriguing visual rendition of Cunillé’s conception of the city. In a manner that is vaguely reminiscent of Benjamin’s utopian descriptions of the Parisian arcades, the preferred domain of fi@nerie, Cunillé fashions Barcelona into a place in which the edgy, excessive, eccentric, heterogeneous area of the Rambla and the Liceu, a part of the city known for its multiple offerings of public spectacle, has crossed over and intermingled with the private, staid, homogeneous realm of urban bourgeois domesticity that is the Eixample. Markers of identity—sexual, cultural, and otherwise—are no longer black and white, but instead shaded by the shadows that are conjured by the movement of the sun. In this map of shadows, as in the writings of de Certeau, Cunillé has found a way to work against social and cultural hierarchies as they materialize upon the map of the city, offering an alternative gaze that underscores creativity and imagination. In the portrayal of the crossdressing couple, as well as a procession of characters whose identities are far from fixed, she has contemplated the urban landscape through a lens of constantly shifting subjectivities, consequently undoing social and cultural codings of the high and the low, the masculine and the feminine, the center and the margin—codings that, historically, have been superimposed upon conventional representations of the geography of the city. Sally Munt has posited the existence of a “lesbian fi@-

neur,’ whose “imagination is freed from cultural constraints to wander at will.’ Cunillé’s characters, likewise, offer a view of Barcelona that undermines “heteropatriarchal” definitions, transporting us to those mysterious, marginal, concealed spaces that exist in the realm of everyday urban life, where identity is always elusive and enigmatic. Perhaps the Barcelona that emerges upon this map of shadows can

be taken to be a metaphor for the space of Cunillé’s theater in the broadest sense: a place of contradictions and secrets, which lies hidden below the surface of the everyday.

6 European Landscapes: Carles Batlle You never would have thought the old sailor needs his film version of Mogador too. How did you put it? He also needs to disguise reality, that’s it: your father also needs to disguise reality, like all of us.

Invent excuses for himself. He doesn’t like what he sees in his house, that’s why he plays. He plays .. . Do you have a window at your hotel, dear? Do you like what you see? Remember when you go out, when you go down, the landscape will no longer be the same, it will have disappeared. —Carles Batlle, Suite!

Drinc THE WINTER OF 2000, LLUIS PASQUAL STAGED A CATALAN

version of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (1904) at Barcelona’s Teatre Lliure de Gracia, the historic home of Catalunya’s most stable, accomplished, and distinguished repertory theater company. In Chekhov’s play, Madame Lyobov Andreyevna Ranyevskaya, an emblem of the fading elegance and dwindling supremacy of the Russian aristocracy, is compelled by her situation of financial despair to sell her estate and cherry orchard to the nouveau-riche Lopakhin and then return to Paris on the eve of the Russian Revolution. ‘The orchard that was once

admired for its beauty eventually will be destroyed in order to pave the way for a series of summer villas that will be occupied by the rising working-class. Those who witnessed the premiere of Pasqual’s miseen-scéne of L’hort dels cirerers on the evening of February 17, 2000 still recall with emotion the moment in which actress Anna Lizaran, in the role of Madame Ranyevskaya, stood before a small-scale replica of the ‘Teatre Lliure, which Pasqual had incorporated into the set design, and

made a resounding plea in defense of her cherry orchard.’ It was a powerful metatheatrical moment, one likely to remain engraved in the

collective memory of the Barcelona theater community for several years to come, for as Lizaran, one of the grandes dames of the Catalan stage and a founding member of the Lliure’s resident company, em-

braced the replica of this eminently symbolic theatrical space, she seemed magically to localize, and even domesticate, the geographic 254

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 255

Ee , a

eesaline 2 ,’"" eo~\ —| we_

a a ee :

Carme Sansa in Suite, by Carles Batlle, directed by Toni Casares 2001. Photo courtesy of the Sala Beckett.

and spatial parameters of Chekhov’s play, to fuse in a sweeping allegorical gesture a series of concepts at once very distant and very close to home. It was a moment imbued with nostalgia and self-conscious reflection in which Pasqual, always attentive to the parallels that intertwine fiction with reality, offered his spectators and, specifically, the Barcelona theater community at large, the opportunity to contemplate where they had been and how far they had come since the Lliure’s first opening night a quarter of a century earlier on December 1, 1976. In Pasqual’s production of L’bort dels cirerers, the doubly coded image of Lizaran/Ranyevskaya wistfully embracing her Llrure/home represented a farewell of sorts and a subtle homage to the theatrical space that the Lliure’s repertory company had occupied for nearly a

quarter century. The Lliure’s original home, unlike the cherry orchard, though, managed to avoid any danger of loss or destruction; 1n fact, it is still in use today. But on the night of the premiere in Febru-

ary 2000, the future of the space in Gracia remained unclear as the Llure prepared to embark upon a new stage in its artistic evolution at the historic Palau d’Agricultura at the foot of Montyuic. It is not unusual for Pasqual to play out elements of his professional autobiography in the selection and staging of theatrical works. Audiences are by now accustomed to these veiled references and allegorical

256 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM renderings.’ In 1999, when renovations to the noucentista Palau d’Agricultura appeared to linger on indefinitely, he staged Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1949) at the Lliure’s Gracia locale. In July 2002, he staged Edipo XXT, his contemporary reading of the tragedy of Oedipus, at the ‘Teatre Grec, only steps away from the Palau. The production, derived from the Oedipal dramas of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides,

and Genet, marked Pasqual’s long-awaited return to the Barcelona stage. His homecoming, nevertheless, was shadowed by the peculiar irony that Edipo XXI originally had been scheduled to be staged months earlier, along with Carlo Goldoni’s La casa nova (The new house, 1760) to celebrate the inauguration of the Lliure’s new center of operations at Montyuic. Oedipus had returned to Thebes, but at least for the moment, he had chosen to remain outside ‘‘the new house.” Still, what is perhaps most intriguing about Pasqual’s mise-en-scéne of Chekhov, as well as the other productions mentioned here, is that his ironic evocations do not merely reference his personal artistic trajectory; rather, he has managed to weave into these works a series of

subtle allusions to Barcelona, to the cultural-political milieu of the theatrical life of this city. Pasqual’s appropriation and recontextualization of Chekhov’s discourse of home represents a noteworthy excep-

tion to the disappearance of Barcelona—and Catalunya, for that matter—as an image, notion, rhetorical figure, or poetic trope from much of the late twentieth-century Catalan stage. Like Pasqual, awarding-winning playwright Carles Batlle i Jorda, born in Barcelona in 1963, appears to be ever mindful of the possibilities inherent in this discourse of home, which traverses not only the

work of Chekhov, but much of modern Western drama.* Batlle, it would seem, is especially attentive to how the notion of locality—both its presence and absence—can communicate certain anxieties and preoccupations with regard to cultural identity. The preoccupation with place, space, and geography is, in effect, a fundamental component of his theater, a recurrent feature in a trajectory of more than ten plays that includes Sara i Eleanora (Sara and Eleanora, 1994), Combat (Paisatge per a després duna batalla) (Combat [Landscape in the Aftermath], 1995-98), Les veus de Iambu (Vhe voices of lambu, 1997), Suzte (1999), Oasi (Oasis, 2001), and Temptacié (Temptation, 2003).° Batlle’s plays

do not completely elude cultural specificity, but instead present diverse ways of negotiating the spatial void, geographic loss, or sense of

displacement that occurs when the particularities of home—in this case, Catalunya and Europe—are continually reconfigured and redefined. In Batlle’s theater, there is an underlying dialectical impulse at work whereby the Catalan landscape, often unstable, hesitates and

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 257 fluctuates between visibility and invisibility. His treatment of space, as we shall see, coincides with the emergence of a contemporary theater that attempts to imagine a “new Europe,” one that engages all its ambiguities, indeterminacies, and exigencies.°® A playwright, university professor, theater critic, and accomplished dramaturg, Batlle has enjoyed a prolific and multifaceted career. He is one of the most audaciously experimental and deeply innovative voices

of the new wave of Catalan dramaturgy. His doctoral dissertation, completed while he was a student at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and published as a monograph titled Adria Gual (1891-1902): per a un teatre simbolista (Adria Gual [1891-1902]: Toward a Symbolist Theater, 2001), was awarded the Serra d’Or Prize of 2002 for best critical study. His work as a dramaturg includes adaptations, translations,

and/or artistic supervision of productions of works by Adria Gual (1872-1943), Pedro Almodovar, Harri Virtanen, Angel Guimera (1845-1924), Ignasi Iglésias (1871-1928), Jean-Yves Picq, and Joaquim Ruyra (1858—1939).”? Moreover, Batlle, along with Sergi Belbel,

Lluisa Cunillé, Pau Mir6, and Josep Pere Peyrd, is a member of the coterie of playwrights associated with the Sala Beckett, Barcelona’s most prominent and prestigious alternative theater venue. Once a student enrolled in José Sanchis Sinisterra’s influential seminars at the Beckett during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Batlle now regularly leads his own workshops in playwriting and dramaturgy in the same theater space, as well as the Institut del Teatre and the Universitat Autonoma. In 1989, he was instrumental in establishing Pausa, the Beck-

ett’s in-house theater review, and in 2005, he and ‘Joni Casares, artistic director of the Beckett, resuscitated the journal after a nearly ten-year hiatus in publication. Since 2004, Batlle has served as coordinator of the Beckett’s workshop space known as L’Obrador and was a member of the advisory board of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (INC) from 1998 to 2005. During the 2003-2004 theater season, he was selected to participate in the TNC’s ““T'6” project, a theater work-

shop under the supervision of Belbel and director Ramon Simé, designed to nurture and stage the experimental works of six carefully chosen dramatists per year. It is through these and other diverse pedagogical and intellectual roles that Batlle has become a leader in preserving and cultivating the tradition of text-based drama in Catalan. Batlle’s plays ponder the question of cultural identity vis 4 vis a series of intercultural associations, and his work is thus symptomatic of the type of transnational impulse that has characterized the evolution of modern Catalan drama since its nineteenth-century beginnings. In a contemporary European landscape of fluctuating physical, cultural, and political borders, migratory and displaced peoples, and exiles and

258 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM refugees, Batlle constructs allegorical spaces of transcultural desire upon which there is engraved an aspiration to transcend the local and the particular. It thus seems fitting that he should be amongst a handful of contemporary dramatists from Catalunya that, in recent years, has begun to establish a profile reaching far beyond the immediate geopolitical borders that he calls “home.” ‘To date, Batlle has seen his works staged in France, Luxemburg, Germany, and Austria. In addition, he was selected to represent Catalunya at a workshop for new European playwrights held at the Bonn Biennale during the summer of 2000. Batlle’s plays, as I shall demonstrate, appear to advocate a cos-

mopolitan European identity, one that actively embraces otherness and difference, overlapping citizenships, and the broad complexity of relationships among the global, local, national, and regional. ‘The image of Catalunya that his theatre paints is thus evocative of the postCold War European cosmopolitanism defended by contemporary political and social theorists such as Jiirgen Habermas, a cosmopolitanism that seeks to move beyond the confines of the nation-state to new

paradigms of solidarity and interconnectedness among citizens and that does so without sacrificing the plurality of cultural and linguistic differences.*

Speaking about the task of the actor in depicting the contemporary human condition, director and theorist Herbert Blau has aptly noted

that “We are rooted in a place, we are rooted in the absence of a place.’’? Blau’s succinct affirmation, it would seem, captures the paradoxical essence of Batlle’s theater: an aspiration to exceed the limits of the particular while maintaining, at the same time, a sense of homeland, lineage, and roots. In portraying on the stage a complex European landscape of multiple positionings and crossovers, Batlle puts into practice a theory of drama relatiu (relative drama), which he has elaborated in several essays concerning contemporary Catalan dramaturgy—most especially, that of Cunillé.!° The “relativity” of which Batlle speaks refers to the way that his plays (as well as those of Cunillé and others affiliated with the Sala Beckett) establish meaning through a subjective process of mutual implication, through relationships of contingency among people, places, and things. His concept of relative drama is a corollary to what José Sanchis Sinisterra has termed a poética de la sostraccié (poetics of subtraction), a minimalist aesthetic that exploits, in the most extreme sense, the potential of strategies of abbreviation and attenuation.!!

In 2000, on the pages of the prominent Catalan cultural review Serra d’Or, theater critic/writer Jordi Coca expressed an attitude of uneasiness and skepticism with regard to what he perceived to be a suppression of the anecdote, or “story,” intrinsic to Batlle’s notion of

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 259

relative drama. “Es relatiu, aixd del drama relatiu?” (Is the concept of relative drama really relative?), Coca wondered with the title of his article. He appeared to object to the challenging conditions of spectatorship that Batlle was cultivating. Batlle replied with a two-part arti-

cle published in the same magazine, titled ‘““Més sobre el drama relatiu” (More on relative drama). He later appeared to lay the polemic to rest with an additional essay, “EI drama relatiu,” published alongside the text of his play Suite, in which he clarified his view that the anecdote, indeed, should play a crucial role in the construction of a play: Quan he definit el “drama relatiu” he parlat d’afavorir l’enigma, l’ambigiiitat 1 la sostracci6; mai, pero he negat el pes de la historia. En tot cas—i vet aqui el quid de la polemica amb Coca—el que he fet és posar en dubte la necessitat de la seva explicitaci6. No és tan important aclarir l’anécdota que origina el conflicte . . . ni tans sols els antecedents que donen rao de ser i Westar als personatges, com els mecanismes discursius pels quals el con-

flicte s’articula i avanca. Que l’anécdota i els antecedents apareguin de forma opaca, pero, no significa que no siguin primordials.””

[When I defined “relative drama” I spoke of favoring enigma, ambiguity and subtraction; never, however, have I denied the weight of the story. In any case—and here’s the rub of the debate with Coca—what I have done is place into doubt the necessity of its explanation. It’s not so important to clarify the anecdote that is the origin of the conflict . . . or even the antecedents that give the characters a reason for being, as well the discursive mechanisms through which the conflict is articulated and advances. ‘That the anecdote and its antecedents appear in an opaque form, however, does not mean that they are not essential. ]

Although a mysterious, opaque veil often occludes the full story, BatIle’s relative dramas are not lacking in diegetic elements. For Batlle, the “‘nonaffirmative” nature of relative drama necessitates an active spectator who is compelled to create stories, to navigate his or her way

through subjective fragments of plot, slices of interior reality, and shreds of exterior landscape. Meaning is established in his plays both elliptically and enigmatically, through silences, pauses, and gaps, or through strategies of repetition, regression, conflation, and simultaneity. Imbedded in his notion of relative drama is a theory of reception and receptivity—again, influenced by the work of Sanchis Sinisterra— emphasizing the presence of an implied spectator/reader (receptor 1m-

plicit), who is unavoidably engaged in a problematic, and even frustrating, process of reception. he sense of anxiety or loss that the

260 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM spectator may feel becomes an existential metaphor, one that alludes to the conditions of subjectivity and indeterminacy that characterize our contemporary experience. Batlle comments: “Al public del drama relatiu li cal inquirir, lligar caps, arribar a conclusions personals, de-

cidir.... S’ha d’escorcollar . . . el corrent subterrani que travessa 1 dirigeix les situacions, pero no és indispensable confirmar ni assegurar

res.” [For the audience of the relative drama it is necessary to inquire, connect dots, arrive at personal conclusions, decide. . . . One has to scrutinize . . . the underlying current that traverses and directs the situations, but it’s not indispensable to confirm or assure anything.] The “relativity” of Batlle’s plays is apparent not only at the level of plot and conflict; it is transferred to a spatial arena, as well. It permeates the relationship between place and theatrical space, creating a landscape in which he is able to play out his “geopathological”’ obsessions.'* The spatial geography of Batlle’s plays thus emerges in a subjective, relative, or dialectical manner, through references to what Viceng Villatoro calls “circles of belonging.” Barcelona, Girona, Catalunya, Spain, Europe, Africa, and the Americas—these are places that his characters rarely name explicitly, and yet their presence is

evoked through strategies of ellipsis and displacement or through veiled descriptions. In all Batlle’s plays, this interest in relativity appears in conjunction with a fascination with a process that he has termed the fictionalization, or “‘literarization,” of the experience of reality. A consequence of the relationship between memory and desire, this process represents Batlle’s way of portraying the human inclination to superimpose past experiences upon the present, and to reimagine the present as a function of fantasies, dreams, or other fictional constructs. As he observes in an essay published in France: La perplexité des personnages du drame relatif a fini par créer des individus schizophrénes qui manipulent les souvenirs . . . ; qui transforment la cruauté de l’expérience du présent en un jeu d’enfants .. . ; qui s’inventent des histoires pour survivre . . . ; qui substituent leur mémoire 4 celle d’un autre, pour survivre aussi... .; qui nient un événement crucial du présent et, a partir de la, créent une réalité paralléle.” [The perplexity of the characters in relative drama has ended up creating schizophrenic individuals who manipulate memories . . . ; who transform

the cruelty of the experience of the present into a children’s game... ; who invent stories to survive .. . ; who substitute their memory with that of someone else, also to survive .. . ; who deny a crucial event in the present and, from that point on, create a parallel reality.|

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 261

Filtered through the subjective lens of memory, the past—or even, the present—is manipulated, idealized, subjectified, fragmented, fictionalized, and theatricalized. It is grounded, in Cervantine or Flaubertian

fashion, in the artistic imagination of literary works, photographs, paintings, films, and even comic books.'* Batlle’s plays, as we shall see, often enter into an intertextual dialogue with other works of art. From Sara i Eleanora to Temptacio, his works never provide a sense of closure with regard to questions of truth, identity, and even space (both theat-

rical and geographic). In a move that seems to echo the work of his predecessor Josep M. Benet i Jornet, his theater offers the spectator only partial, ephemeral, and even conflicting visions, an elusive, enigmatic portrayal of reality, identity, and nationality. SARA I ELEONORA

Batlle begins to experiment with the process of relativity and fictionalization with Sara i Eleonora. In this play, his first work to receive

critical attention and a full-fledged staging, it is possible to detect some of the salient aspects of his dramaturgy in their most incipient form. A runner-up for the Ignasi Iglésias Prize in 1994, Sara i Elenora premiered in October 1995 in the space known as “La Cuina,” (The Kitchen) at the former location of the Institut del Teatre, situated in the historic Sant Pere neighborhood of Barcelona. ‘The production, under the direction of Laura Fernandez and Maria Zaragoza, went on to play in March 2006 at the Sala Maria Plans in ‘Terrassa and starred

Eva Iglesias as Sara and Mireia Cirera as Eleonora. Batlle sets his drama, which is predominately realist in style, within a familiar context, that of the competitive world of the theater. The two protagonists, Sara and Eleonora (the latter known as “‘Nona’’ in the text), are aspiring actresses, recent graduates of the Institut del ‘Teatre who are sharing an apartment in the Eixample quarter of Barcelona. As the action develops, the audience witnesses their struggles with the difficul-

ties of budding careers, precarious economic circumstances, and unstable personal lives. ‘The context of the play, a life in the theater, is thus vaguely evocative of the atmosphere of rivalries and contentions among the group of actresses that Benet 1 Jornet had portrayed in E.R.

“Stages,” 1993), and it provides Batlle with a propitious milieu in which to develop a plot that interlaces multiple strands of theatricalization and reality. Sara i Eleonora takes the form of five scenes of alternating monologues and dialogues, an alternation that Batlle has continued to cultivate throughout his trajectory as a dramatist. A prologue (containing

262 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM a monologue delivered by Nona) and an epilogue (containing monologues by both women) frame the five scenes. ‘The confusion between the real and the imaginary arises within multiple contexts; most notably, in that Sara and Nona’s lives are shadowed and ghosted by a series of references to two historical-mythical figures of the modern European stage, the actresses Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) and Eleanora Duse (1858-1924). Bernhardt and Duse, professional rivals during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were also contemporaries of writer-painter Adria Gual, and their presence in the play is, per-

haps, symptomatic of Batlle’s fascination with the theater of this historical period. As director Joan Castells notes in his informative preface to the published text, the presence of the two actresses from the past creates a juxtaposition of opposing approaches to life: Bernhardt is the personification of tempestuous passion; Duse is a model of controlled spirituality.!’ ‘The character of Sara, like Bernhardt, considers acting to be her vocation; while Nona, like Duse, has doubts about her professional future and resolves to focus her ambitions upon her private life. Their competing views represent divergent attitudes toward the profession of acting and distinct visions of the roles of women in contemporary society. As the plot evolves, Sara and Nona, their identities vacillating, enter into a doubly coded metatheatrical dialogue with the legendary ghosts of Bernhardt and Duse. Both young women are vying for the role of Bernhardt in the same professional production. ‘Their identical monologues, which frame the play (the first recited by Nona and the last recited by Sara), offer glimpses of their auditions for the role known as “Sara B.” Furthermore, both are competing for the affection of the same man, Joan, a professor from the theater conservatory (whom the audience does not see). At first glance, it appears as though Nona has enjoyed greater professional success than Sara, for she is about to be cast in the role of Bernhardt by a foreign director of international prestige. (Batlle appears to be parodying the tendency in Catalan theatrical life to attribute a certain cachet or snob value to anything and anybody from another country, regardless of quality.) Her relationship with Joan seems to be progressing, as well. By the conclusion of the play, however, the spectator is led to believe that a reversal of fortune has taken place: Sara may have finally become the object of affection of Joan, and it appears as though she has also prevailed in her quest for the role of her namesake, “Sara B.” Batlle occludes behind the bedroom door a climactic seduction scene, supposedly between Sara and Joan, and thereby creates an enigmatic situation that the spectator is obliged to decipher. Is Joan really in the bedroom, or is his presence merely a function of Sara’s imagination? ‘The dénouement is

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 263

never entirely resolved, and it is never clear whether the motivations of Sara and Nona stem from love, jealousy, friendship, or rivalry. According to the reviews, the set for Fernandez and Zaragoza’s production, conceived by Carme Vidal, took on poetic dimensions with the incorporation into her design of a boxed rose garden. ‘Terrassa critic Mercé Boladeras notes that it was an ironic (albeit, somewhat clichéd) reminder that life, clearly, is not a “bed of roses.”” While the rose garden at center stage brought a lyrical visual element to the scenic space, removing it from concrete reality, the scenic geography that Batlle’s written text evokes represents a notable exception to the invisible Catalunya that he would conjure in subsequent works. ‘The characters of Sara and Eleanora paint an unequivocal portrait of Barcelona in their references to street names (carrer Pau Claris, carrer d’Arag6, placa Urquinaona, Passeig de Gracia), which, taken as a whole, plot out a map of the Eixample district. At the end of the second scene, Sara recites a monologue in which she recalls the televised weather reports that she watched as a child: Catalunya, en blanc i negre, era un ntivol sencer, pero a Barcelona, els diumenges, sempre hi feia sol. Era el nostre secret. . .. Barcelona és la ciutat de la meva infantesa. Ara no sé com es diu, és una altra ciutat. Els platans no s6n els mateixos, ni les busties, ni la guardia urbana. ... Ara, Barcelona

és different; els museus ja no existeixen, algti els ha oblidat en un rac,

sense quadres, com el parc de les feres, sense feres, plens de pols 1 d’enyoranga, lentament s’han anat marcint en un indret vaporos 1 distant. Els diumenges al mati anavem al teatre. (Pausa.) Es Punic que em queda daquella ciutat.!®

[Catalunya, in black and white, was a single cloud, but in Barcelona, on Sundays, it was always sunny. It was our secret. ... Barcelona is the city of my childhood. Now I don’t know what it’s called, it’s another city. ‘The plane trees are not the same, nor are the mailboxes, nor is the city police.

.. . Now, Barcelona is different; the museums no longer exist, someone has forgotten them in a corner, without paintings, like the zoo, without animals, filled with dust and yearnings, slowly they’ve faded away into a vaporous and distant place. On Sunday mornings we would go to the theater. (Pause.) It’s the only thing that for me remains from that city.]

Her words evoke nostalgic memories of the Sundays of her Barcelona youth, of the vibrant plane trees that lined the city streets (which still exist, albeit in a less vibrant state) and of the zoological park founded in the late nineteenth century that has experienced changes over time.

The Barcelona of her childhood appears to have vanished. She no longer knows what to call it, and only the theater remains. Within the

264 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM context of Batlle’s artistic trajectory, Sara’s monologue carries a premonitory connotation, for in successive plays, Catalunya will take on a spectral presence, rarely to be named again. COMBAT

Combat, subtitled Paisatge per a després d’una batalla, premiered at the

Sala Beckett under Sim6’s direction in February 1998 and has since been staged in Luxemburg (translated by Isabelle Bres, directed by Nicolas Steil at the Théatre Ouvert de Luxemburg, 2001), France (directed by Philippe Macaigne, at Théatre 13 and the Théatre du Rond Point, Paris, 2002), Germany (translated by Maurici Farré and Lea Niklas, directed by Britta Schreiber, at the Augsburg Festival, 2003), and Canada (directed by Genvieve L. Blais, as a production of the Théatre a Corps Perdus and Le Collectif du Terrain Vague, Montreal, 2005).!°

The plot is interlaced with a series of ekphrastic evocations of John William Waterhouse’s pre-Raphaelite painting The Lady of Shallot (1888) and Alfred Lord ‘Tennyson’s eponymous poem (1832). Both ar-

tistic works, based on a female figure of Arthurian legend, serve as points of inspiration for the fictionalization of reality and the portrayal of a so-called “landscape in the aftermath.” In a literal sense, the “‘aftermath” here refers to a war that is taking place and to the lives of a man and a woman that are extinguished as a result. Batlle’s play uses the painting and poem as intertextual templates in creating a portrait of a war-ravaged landscape from the perspective of death and anguish. In contemplating the space of this landscape, the spectator is invited to ponder the fluid nature of boundaries, identities, and hybridities: those that are spatial, physical, or corporal and those that are aesthetic, ethnic, racial, cultural, or linguistic. As an appendix to the text of his play, Batlle published his own freely

conceived Catalan translation of the Tennyson poem. According to both Tennyson’s original and Batlle’s interpretation, a curse has been cast upon the Lady of Shallot, forbidding her to look directly through the window of the tower in which she lives. She must, therefore, em-

ploy a mirror to contemplate the world outside, and she uses it to weave a tapestry depicting the landscape and the river that runs below her window. One day, she violates the prohibition and gazes out her window to see the knight Sir Lancelot riding by, on the road to Camelot, in all his glory and shining armor. Amorous desire becomes the source of her demise as the curse takes effect. She leaves her tower, makes her way to a boat, and drifts down the river toward Camelot,

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 265

gazing all the while at what was once forbidden to her, until, finally, she dies.

Combat has an eight-scene structure, presented as a series of alternating monologues between a woman, known simply as E//a (“She’’), and a man, known merely as E// (“He’’). The language is rhythmic and lyrical, antirealist in discourse and timbre, as it reveals the inner workings of each character’s consciousness. ‘Their use of the present tense imbues the play with an air of atemporality. Amid their alternating voices, creating an axis upon which the monologues turn, is a central dialogue (scene 4), which recreates in flashback form their first encounter, a love affair. E// is a young (twenty-year-old) soldier, who has recently enlisted to serve in the war. He spends with her his last night as a civilian, before going off to combat. It is his first sexual liaison and they fall in love. As Benet i Jornet observes in his preface to the published text, gradually it becomes evident to the spectator that, in the enigmatic poetry of their monologues, both E// and Elia are alluding to a shared traumatic event that occurred three months after their first amorous encounter and just a moment prior to the initiation of the monologues themselves. “‘Llavors les peces del trencaclosques han anat trobant encaix. I gairebé al darrer instant es repeteix |’acci6 del principi. Ara entenem el seu ple sentit quasi tragic de consumaci6 preanunciada, fatal.’*° [So the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle have gone about finding their fit. And almost at the last instant the action from the beginning is repeated. Now we understand its full, quasi-tragic meaning of preannounced, fatal consummation.] Batlle thus presents the audience with pieces of a puzzle that create an intricately designed structure, in which insinuating elements of an anecdote gradually coalesce only to reveal the full picture by the time the play comes to an end. Death, as Benet points out, paradoxically becomes both the point

of departure and the point at which the monologues terminate, thereby creating a circular configuration of infinite repetition.?! Her voice (that of E//a), which shifts between first and second person, is ostensibly directed toward a silent interlocutor, a woman whose indelible image is emblazoned upon a calendar that hangs on the wall of the nondescript room/cell/tower in which she lives. As Batlle explains in his program notes: ‘‘Es la imatge misteriosa d’una dona en

una barca estranya (no hi ha manera de saber si té els ulls oberts o tancats).”’ [It’s the mysterious image of a woman on a strange boat (there’s no way to tell whether her eyes are open or closed)]. It is a reproduction of the Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shallot, as she drifts along in her boat, gazing off in a trancelike state. Her expression is at once decadent, erotic, and spiritual. In her lap, she holds the tapestry, a remnant of her prior life. (The two women have been sharing the

266 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM same space for nearly four months: “No estic sola” [?m not alone], Ella declares, ““Tu vius amb mi, 1 quan no hi séc sé que m/’esperes. Sense mi, la teva existéncia no té sentit. ... O potser hauria de dir la teva no-existéncia.’’?” [You live with me, and when I’m not here I know

you're waiting for me. Without me, your existence has no meaning. ... Or perhaps I should say your nonexistence.] E//a appears to be comforted by the constant presence (or, nonpresence) of the iconic pre-Raphaelite feminine figure. Not only does she identify with the image in the painting; one could say that she is one with the image, as the distinction between the two women is often imprecise and indistinguishable: “Ja m’esta bé: en elles, la nostra uni6 sera l’tnica veritable: la uni6 entre jo que séc i tu que no ets, la unié que tu saps estendre damunt tots 1 cadascun dels meus actes, de la meva propia 1 sorprenent irrealitat. No ens enganyem: jo soc tu.””? [I agree: in them, ours will be the only true union: the union between my existence and your nonexistence, the union that pervades my every gesture, the whole of my own surprising unreality. Let’s not deceive ourselves: I am you.]

Ella is also a prostitute who once enjoyed a more conventional, bourgeois existence. Her monologues resuscitate memories of her previous life, transporting the spectator across space and time. ‘Thus, it is through the process of remembrance that she “literarizes” and fictionalizes the events of the past, just as the woman in the painting once wove them into her legendary tapestry: Abans, molt abans, fa molt de temps, jo tenia un marit que m’adorava, una feina estable, un horari estable, molts vestits, un pis decorat amb estil—els mobles antics 1 els quadres originals—, una rentadora, una assecadora, un rentaplats, un microones, un ordinador, una impressora, un compact, un video i deu albums de fotografies amb la data al llom, 1 per tot arreu molts i molts llibres. Cada dia el mateix. Em llevava, esmorzava corn-flakes amb llet semidesnatada i succedani de café... . Dinava en un restaurant exotic, amb els companys de la feinai... recordo, recordo que sempre reien quan els explicava la meva doble cerimonia de casament. Ja se sap: dues religions, dues Ilengiies . . . dues cerimonies. I el merder que tindrien els fills... . La meva vida s’escolava placidament sense sotracs ni sorpreses. No volia res més, no desitjava res més. Un dia, en arribar a casa, vaig trobar-me el sostre esventrat i el terrra ple de sang. L’endema vaig venir aqui 1 tu ja hi eres. Ara només et tinc a tu.”4

[Before, long ago, a long time ago, I had a husband who adored me, a steady job, a stable routine, a lot of clothes, an apartment decorated with style—antique furniture and original paintings—a washing machine, a dryer, a dishwasher, a microwave, a computer, a printer, a CD player, a VCR, and ten photo albums with the date on the spine, and piles of books all around. Each day was the same. I would get up, I would have cornflakes

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 267 with partially skimmed milk and a coffee substitute for breakfast... . I would dine in an exotic restaurant, with my colleagues from work and... I remember they would always laugh when I told them about my double wedding ceremony. You know: two religions, two languages . . . two ceremonies. And the mess our children would have to deal with. . . . My life was going on calmly without shocks or surprises. I didn’t want anything else, I wasn’t hoping for anything else. One day, when I arrived home, I

found the roof ripped open and the floor covered in blood. I came back the next day, and you were already here. Now, I only have you.}

Her recollections of her two wedding ceremonies, with the inclusion of two religions and two languages, suggest the presence of several timely themes that have garnered increasing prominence in Batlle’s work; namely, the notions of cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and religious identity, as well as the hybrid blending of cultures, languages, races, ethnicities, and religions, which, in Catalan, is frequently referred to as mestissatge. Che allusions in the text to the presence of occupying troupes, to the horrors and atrocities of ethnic cleansing and civil war, and to the reluctant use of a language that is not one’s own are evocative of the brutal violence and oppression that ravaged the Balkans throughout the 1990s. While the immediate reference may be Bosnia (Pablo Ley even titled his review of Combat “Bosnia en la distancia” [Bosnia in the distance]), as Batlle explains in his program notes for the production at the Beckett, the fact that the geographic context and time period are not fully specified permits one’s interpretation (and, I would add, his allegorization) to extend to any war or to any country: ‘‘a guerres passades i a guerres que poden arribar. Fins 1 tot aqui” [to past wars and to wars yet to come. Even here]. In fact, it is possible to associate many of the political-cultural-linguistic issues referenced in Combat with Batlle’s native Catalunya, a fluid, transcultural space of migration, with a complex identity, devastated by civil war during the last century, and struggling to rescue its own language and culture from the threat of extinction. In keeping with this allegorical interpretation—which would perceive Batlle’s play as transcending the limits of the concrete—Santiago Fondevila, citing the words of director Ramon Simo at the press conference preceding the premiére, notes that Combat is: “a play about War, about any civil war in which there are two worlds confronting each other, in which realism is avoided and where there is a search for a “poetic theatre’ with which one attempts ‘not only to explain a story, but also to transmit ideas.’’”’> Likewise, Francesc Foguet observes in his review of the published text, “Probably his play is born out of the impotence of a war that is heard from far away, but that ts lived as a

268 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM transcendental reality because of all the symbolic implications that de-

rive from it.” Throughout the play, the place that is Batlle’s “land-

scape in the aftermath” remains unnamed. Cultural and ethnic identities here are inscribed not through location, but through their evasion or dislocation. Flla’s monologues are situated, according to the stage directions, in

a small room containing a set of nondescript features. Outside, the frantic cries and menacing noises of war can be heard. E/’s monologues take place in an empty space, with the exception of a generic sort of board or plank upon which he sits when he speaks. He moves only his eyes, mouth, and neck and describes himself as being trapped

in a river, up to his collar in rising water: “Vés amb compte. No et belluguis. Un petit movement i tota aquesta aigua negra t’entrara pel coll de la camisa i tomplira P’interior del vestit. ... No pensar. Pensar en una altra cosa. Estas bé, no tens fred.’’?’ [Be careful. Don’t move. The slightest movement and all this black water will reach your neck and fill your clothes. . . . Don’t think. Think about something else. You’re fine, you’re not cold.] In the torment and anguish of his words and those of E//a it becomes evident that they personify the pain and desolation of war.?* They are disembodied voices that emerge in the wake of death and devastation, when only ruins remain. Fil, like Ella, recalls his experience as the city came under siege, and his use of a second-person perspective, coupled with his almost complete lack of bodily movement, accentuates his state of disembodiment or nonexistence: Havies de fer alguna cosa. La seva preséncia ho embruta tot, el seu contacte contamina, la seva Ilengua empudega l’aire. No podies entendre com en un altre temps thavies avesat a utilitzar-la, gairebé cada dia, sense compliments, sense cap mena d’escarafall ni precaucio. ... Eren amics teus i et van trair, van amenagar-te i et van maltractar. ... El dia que marxaven van encendre el cotxe del teu pare 1 quatre cotxes més... . Eren els teus amics, et van trair, no eren sincers, no eren lleials, no eren com tu, se’n van anar amb l’amenaga als punys i l’odi cremant a les galtes, i es van quedar assetjant la ciutat, la teva gent, i els vells es moren de gana, i els seus projectils enderrocaven totes les cases. ‘Lambé les seves cases.’

[You had to do something. ‘Their presence soils everything, their contact contaminates, their language infects the air. You couldn’t understand how, in another time, you had grown accustomed to using it, almost every day, openly, without any regret or reservation. . .. They were your friends and they betrayed you, they threatened you, they hurt you. . . . The day they left they set fire to your father’s car and four others. .. . They were your friends, they betrayed you, they weren’t sincere, they weren’t loyal, they

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 269 weren’t like you, they left with threats in their fists and hatred burning in their cheeks, and they took hold of the city, your people, and the old were dying of hunger, and their missiles were destroying all the houses. ‘Their own houses too.|

The soldier’s narrative portrays the state of duplicitous betrayal and the crisis of distinctions that characterize civil war and ethnic conflict. Here the betrayal occurs within a political context and on the level of linguistic discourse. Those whom he once regarded as friends and whose language he once appropriated have now become his political enemies. He spends the night with E//a, having met her at a bar, and loses himself in the landscape that is her body. He will then go off to battle for four months. As E//a awaits his return, the woman in the painting will bear witness to her experiences as a prostitute at the service of the occupying troupes. E//a observes: Durant quatre mesos la ciutat ha estat ocupada; he rebut roba, menyar, sab6, medicines .. . dels uns i dels altres. Tots m’han estimat i tots m’han odiat. Alguns han buscat la manera de desfogar la seva rabia, com si la violéncia dels cossos els pogués retornar la fe; la fe, si. La fe en la seva victoria, en la seva forga, en el seu futur: cardar per véncer, per humiliar, per sentirse altre cop poderosos.*° [The city has been occupied for four months; I’ve received clothes, food, soap, medicine . . . from everyone. Everyone has loved me and everyone has hated me. Some of them have searched for a way to liberate their rage, as if the violence of their bodies could give them back their faith, faith, yes. Faith in their victory, in their strength, in their future: to fuck in order to win, to humiliate, to feel powerful once more.]

According to her description, her body has become a site of transference, a receptacle for the power and anger of those who have taken the city, and an object of both desire and hatred. ‘The siege of the city is played out upon her bodily landscape, and in her violent humiliation and violation, the occupying troupes have, in effect, appropriated her as one of their own. ‘They have thwarted any clear-cut delineation of cultural and ethnic boundaries, and with this blurring of distinctions, Batlle calls attention to the impossibility of conceiving identity as a static, invariable notion. It is Ella who recounts in greatest detail the climactic moment of pain and death around which all the monologues converge (for this moment of crisis is both their ending and their beginning). In scene 7, she describes hearing a crowd of people outside, along with the sound of footsteps advancing up the stairs to her home/tower. She believes it

270 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM to be the enemy and, in a rush of tremendous panic and fear, tears the calendar to pieces and grabs her revolver. When the door opens, she fires the gun precipitously, before realizing that the footsteps were, most tragically, those of her lover, the soldier. Here the crisis of cultural and political distinctions that Batlle has conveyed in small doses up until this point culminates in a horrifying moment of irreversible

trauma and brutality. When she pulls the trigger, she shatters any semblance of difference and differentiation. It is only in the “landscape in the aftermath” that the two lovers, perhaps, may be reunited on an aesthetic plane. In the eighth and final scene, a form of dénouement, the dead soldier finds himself, once again, up to his neck in the water of the river that flows through the “landscape in the aftermath.” He encounters a woman in a boat, and she reaches out her hand so that he may join

her. ‘he mythological echoes are evident in the visual reference to Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx. (Marcos Ord6éfiez, who was unmoved by Batlle’s play, refers to the image somewhat farcically as ‘Charon with a pre-Raphaelite hairdo.”)?! But, is she the woman in the painting, or is she his lover? ‘The distinction 1s unclear. ‘Che characters of E// and Ella become fused with the artistic realm of the painting, thus invoking a dimension of self-conscious reflection with regard to the ontological limits of a work of art. Their presence within the painting creates a kind of mise en abyme of infinite repetition (of a painting within a painting within a painting . . . ). Batlle’s play, there-

fore, implicitly speculates about the boundaries of art and life and about the degree to which the artistic imagination might infiltrate or intervene in our rapport with reality. Art becomes an alternative to and a way of letting go of an unbearable existence. A theater piece that suggests the presence of such a sophisticated and audaciously complex visual realm would undoubtedly present a series of challenges for any director. In his much-praised mise-en-scéne at the Beckett, with Jordi Collet and Montse Esteve cast in the roles of Elland Ella, Sim6, serving as both director and scenic designer, emphasized the poetic dimensions of Batlle’s text, situating the play in what Ley calls a “symbolist’” space in order to take full advantage of the expressive potential of the nonrealist aspects of the play.*? Collet, as the dead soldier, came sliding out of a drawer similar to that which one would find in a morgue, thus signaling to the audience from the onset of the performance that he was dead. ‘Iwo so-called “manipula-

tors,’ Pep Boada and Pep Ferré, stood behind him and guided his movements, according to Ley, in a manner reminiscent of Japanese Bunraku puppetry. Francesc Massip highlights Sim6’s use of video monitors in the set design, whereby projected images of the exterior

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 271

world created the effect of prolonging the scenic space. ‘Three projections of The Lady of Shallot appeared in fragmented form throughout the space that E//a inhabits. On the ground there was a chessboard of illuminated glasses of water, 120 in total, which were evocative of the 120 nights in which she endured the soldier’s absence. Esteve picked them up one by one, sipping from them and then letting each crash to

the floor in a way that echoed the noise of the bombardment of the city.*?

In Combat, Batlle considers the challenges that hybridization presents within the context of contemporary Europe and, by metaphoric extension, anyplace where cultures collide in the most violent or contentious of ways. Operating from a postmodern, postcolonial perspec-

tive, which takes cultural crossings and multiethnic couplings and alliances to be the norm rather than the exception, Pnina Werbner has attempted to grapple with the inadequacy of essentialist and essentializing conceptions of culture and community, noting that “despite the

illusion of boundedness, cultures evolve historically through unreflective borrowings, mimetic appropriations, exchanges and inventions.” In what Werbner perceives to be a “culturally hybrid globe,” all cultures are fluid entities: “There is no culture in and of itself.” It is impossible to avoid or contain the overflow of influences, ideas, 1mages, and languages across and beyond boundaries; and yet, paradoxi-

cally, cultural hybridity, especially in its most “conscious” or deliberate manifestations, 1s still often regarded as an “empowering, dangerous or transformative force.”*+ ‘The critical discourse underpinning Batlle’s play paints hybridity as an unavoidable, ever-present, and even necessary state of being, which permeates not only the realm of national cultures, but also that of artistic creation. In Combat, when reality collides with art, such as with the poem or with the painting, their limits appear to disintegrate and become imperceptible, for the two realms become immersed in a game of relativity and interdependence. Here, as in subsequent works, Batlle transfers this process of relativity to an ethno-national arena, creating a play of mirrors, appropriation, and mutual implication among cultures, peoples, and places. Such is the case of Les veus de lambu, in which he takes up the theme

of cultural difference within an overtly allegorical context. Batlle wrote Les veus de lambu in 1997 and presented a staged reading of the play at the Sitges Teatre International Festival in 1998; however, the piece did not have a full-scale production until January 2004, when it was staged at the Beckett by Thomas Sauerteig (also the author of the German translation). Maria Pau Pigem played Berta, Santi Pons was cast in the role of Victor, and Marc Pujol appeared as ‘Tarquel. In Les veus de Iambu, the three characters cross paths as they travel

272 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM by foot on a journey to the mythical waters of eternal youth known as

the Fountains of Iambu. Two westerners, Berta and Victor, are far from their homeland. ‘Tarquei, a native of the country in which they are travelling, serves as a guide, helping them navigate a terrain that is both geographic and spiritual. The play portrays the final day of their journey, from dawn to night, a night that is divided into three scenes, which are interspersed with dawn, morning, midday, and evening. The figure of Iambu, a sacred entity, becomes a mirror of Berta and Victor’s fears and anxieties, as well as a metaphor signifying new beginnings. Batlle employs his theory of relative drama to stage the subjective nature of cultural identity and the degree to which each culture defines itself through its encounters with otherness. It is a situation that he would explore in greater depth and with greater intensity in Suite.

SUITE

At first glance, Suite is a play of intimate dimensions and domestic aftairs. As the plot develops over the course of six scenes, the audience

bears witness to an intense and enigmatic relationship between two

married couples: one, older (Anna and Marc); the other, younger (Berta and Pol). Gradually, the characters, as well as the spectator, are prompted to confront the possibility that Anna may be romantically involved with her son-in-law Pol. Batlle, however, never provides us with a sense of closure regarding the truth; the spectator is only offered partial and even conflicting images, an elusive, intangible depiction of reality. As Foguet observes, Site is the consummate example of a dramaturgy that intentionally feeds the spectators elements of the plot in small doses and skilfully plays with audience expectations: “‘dramaturegy of conscious indeterminacy that elaborates the fictional mecha-

nism with minute detail.”?> When transferred to a broader, more public, spatial milieu, Batlle’s dense plot of emotion, betrayal, and infidelity—the private story of two marriages—establishes a crude alle-

gory of contemporary (postnational) Europe: lost, disoriented, and adrift, without a precise memory or destiny. Suite is Batlle’s most award winning play to date and as such repre-

sents a significant high point in his career as a playwright. The text was a finalist for the prestigious “Born” Prize in 1999 and was awarded the SGAE Prize that same year from the Sociedad General de Autores

y Editores. It premiered under the direction of ‘Toni Casares at the Sala Beckett in January 2001. In Casares’s production, veterans of the

Catalan stage Carme Sansa and Lluis Soler incarnated the roles of

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 273

Anna and Marc, while Cristina Genebat and Félix Pons played Berta and Pol. ‘The play has also had staged readings in Spanish (translated by Alejandro Montiel, directed by Francisco Vidal at the Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, 2000; directed by Abelardo Estorino, Havana, Cuba, 2003), English (translated by Sharon G. Feldman, at the Bonner Biennal, 2000), French (translated by Isabelle Bres, at the XXIé Festival Théatre Franco-Ibérique et Latino-Américain,” Bayonne, 2001), and Italian (translated by Mari Carmen Llerena, appropriately, at the Teatro Eleanora Duse, Academia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica “‘Silvio D’Amico,” Rome, 2005). In his preface to the published text of Suite, Enric Gallén underscores the central role of Anna, a woman of questionable marital fidelity, as the character around whom all personal relationships revolve.*° The play opens with a prologue in which Anna recounts a supposedly autobiographical experience: having fled to a far-off exotic land, she finds herself on a terrace overlooking the sea at what appears to be some sort of celebration. In her words: Bombetes de colors i molta animacio. .. . Hi havia gent estranya. De veritat, semblaven mascares. Pero no crec que fos una festa: hi havia un pintor, un militar condecorat i un Pierrot amb la mirada fosca. De cop i volta em vaig adonar que volia fugir, que necessitava fugir.”>”

[Colored lanterns and plenty of excitement. ‘There were a lot of odd people there. Really, they seemed like carnival masks. But I don’t think it was a party: there was a painter, a decorated soldier and a harlequin with a sullen look. Suddenly I realized I wanted to run away, I needed to run away. |

Displaying an alluring décolleté, she encounters a sailor, a “real man”’ (or, “home de debo”’) who smokes a pipe.** Anna’s recollections are evocative of a painting titled Soir bleu (1914), by North American realist Edward Hopper, which portrays a scene on a seaside terrace decorated with colored lanterns. In Hopper’s painting, a Perrot is seated at a table along with two men, one of whom wears a military uniform. A

woman with a plunging neckline appears to be approaching them. While Soir bleu, one of Hopper’s largest canvasses, depicts a carnivalesque festival in France and is habitually considered a reflection of the artist’s travels throughout Europe, Batlle, in ironic contrast, employs the painting as a visual intertext in his portrayal of a mysterious non-European space. Subsequent references to Hopper’s works surface throughout the play, in addition—as Gallén notes—to references

to Joseph Conrad, Arthur Miller, the popular novels of E. R. Burroughs, the world of comic strips, and even popular music.*’ But it is Anna’s story—and her evocation of Hopper’s correspond-

274 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM ing painting—that will become an essential point of conflict in the play. She even mentions in scene 3 that Pol had given Marc a painting of similar characteristics as a gift.*° The question of whether or not her tale is true is the axis around which the dialogues turn, never to be resolved. Anna’s story brings into play two contrary approaches to life. One of these is grounded in a prosaic realm: the conventional, comfortable stability of domestic life that can only be nourished through dreams and romanticized fictions. ‘The other is grounded in spontaneous adventure: the uncertain surprise of otherness and exotic places. As Casares points out in his elegant program notes, Suite conveys images apropos of mirrors, dreams, and mirages: Com ens expliquem uns als altres les nostres vivéncies? Com les recordem i les rememorem nosaltres mateixos? ... Qui no ha acolorit el record d’una anécdota concreta del passat amb colors i detalls procedents d’experiéncies viscudes en altres moments 0, fins i tot, ni tan sols viscudes en la propia pell sino senzillament imaginades, escoltades en boca d’algti altre, llegides en una novella o vistes en una pel-licula? On s’acaba la veritat del record i on comenga la seva tergiversaci6? De qué serveixen la imaginaci6 1 la fanta-

sia sind és per redescobrir, reinventar o adequar la realitat a les nostres il-lusions?*!

[How are we to explain to each other our life experiences? How do we recall them and remind ourselves of them? ... Who hasn’t shaded the memory of a concrete anecdote from the past with colors and details derived from experiences lived at other moments or, even, not even really lived by oneself but simply imagined, heard from the mouth of another, read in a novel or seen in a film Where does the truth of memory end and where does its distortion begin? What are imagination and fantasy to be used for if not to rediscover, reinvent or adjust reality to our hopes and dreams? |

Suite is thus a play about the relationship between memory and desire. Viewed within the context of Batlle’s concept of fictionalization, or “‘literarization,” of reality, Anna may be reimagining the present as a function of her fantasies and reveries. ‘The real, consequently, never emerges as a fixed or closed notion; instead, ambiguity and opacity

emerge as both cause and effect. In Suite, it is never entirely clear whether Anna’s rapport with reality and her relationship to past events—a possible sojourn in Essaouira (the place with a terrace by the sea?), a possible love affaire with a young sailor—is grounded in the fiction of books, paintings, and the cinema, or may even be derived from a set of memories that are not her own. Striking images of Essaouira (also known as Mogador), with its whitewashed ramparts on

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 275

the Atlantic, have populated numerous films, from Orson Welles’s production of Othello (1952) to Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004). ‘This historic Moroccan city, therefore, functions as an apt point of departure for exploring the effect of dreams and fantasies upon one’s connection with reality. The poetic image of Essaouira, although unseen by the spectator and merely evoked through words and dialogues, haunts the space occupied by the characters in the play, for it signifies a set of memories—and, by extension, infidelities—that may or may not exist. Furthermore, Batlle employs Essaouira as a trope through which he is able to speak about space, culture, and locality. Its presence on the stage and in the lives of the characters encumbers the notion of a stable, unequivocal European identity. Batlle’s Europe, therefore, like the living room of Suite, is a disconcerting landscape of tension and uncertainty, and Anna, one might say, is what Werbner would characterize as a “cosmopolitan”: one of those “multilingual gourmet tasters who travel among global cultures, savouring cultural differences” with flair and ease.”

In Suite, moreover, Batlle deconstructs the privileged setting of modern drama that is the family home, the same setting found in the realist/naturalist works of Chekhov and Henrik Ibsen. The opening stage directions situate the action anywhere in Europe in the year 1999.8 Catalunya is never mentioned specifically. According to the text, the set design is composed of two contiguous spaces. ‘The first is a typical bourgeois living room: the home of Marc and Anna. The second is a more peripheral, transitional, undefined space: the hotel suite to which Berta has fled (suspecting the possibility that her family has been weaving a tapestry of lies and deceit). Both spaces, though, share a window and the sunlight that streams through it, a metaphor for the confusing, undiscovered, exhilarating world situated beyond the confines of the home. Both spaces, in addition, are suggestive of several paintings by Hopper portraying windows, hotel rooms, and women in a myriad of variations. Morning Sun (1952), for example, depicts a woman seated on a bed gazing out an adjacent window; in Hotel Window (1955), a woman wearing a hat and a coat draped over her shoulders is seated on a sofa, gazing out a hotel window; and in A Woman in the Sun (1961), a woman stands nude in a room containing a bed and window. ‘The presence in the play of the shared window (situated,

in theory, upstage) creates an indeterminate zone between the two spaces, suggesting to the spectator that neither space is really what it seems to be. ‘The degrees of openness and closure are relative to one another. Casares, with the help of scenic designers Max Glaenzel and Estel Cristia, emphasized this spatial deconstruction by placing the

276 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM bed and the telephone in such a way that the two spaces seemed to

intersect. Curiously, however, in his mise-en-scéne of Suite, Casares also imposed a series of concrete connotations upon Batlle’s space by incorporating into it small domestic details, such as the placement, in plain view of the spectator, of volumes of the Enciclopedia catalana (Catalan encyclopedia) on the living room bookshelves. He also integrated into his production several background recordings of songs that were pop-

ular in Catalunya during the 1960s and 1970s and the period of the so-called nova cangé, such as the folksong of medieval origins “El testa-

ment d’Amélia” (Amelia’s will) and the music of Guillermina Mota and Francesc Pi de la Serra. Casares’s version of the play thus offered an alternative, more specific, depiction of Catalunya and thereby conveyed a certain ironic self-consciousness with regard to its absence from Batlle’s text. At the press conference leading up to the premiere, Casares confessed his interest in appropriating and adjusting the play in accordance with memories of his own bourgeois Barcelona youth, ‘“perqué la historia podria haver passat perfectament a Barcelona, 1 segur que tots coneixem personatges com els de l’obra.” [because the story could have perfectly taken place in Barcelona, and surely we all know characters like those in the play.]*+* He thus appeared to be work-

ing against the invisibility of Catalunya that had been so prevalent in the theater of the 1990s (a situation that he would make a concerted

effort to rectify during his programming at the Beckett during the 2003-2004 season). Writing about Casares’s production, Pep Matorell noted that text manages to be credible, “because it doesn’t fall into a disconcerting and frozen exercise” and referred to the work of the

actors as “‘a docile, human choral performance, which is appreci-

ated.’

Batlle, in contrast with Casares’s interpretation, circumvents specificity and establishes the spatial geography of his play through a phe-

nomenological process; not in relation to particular references to Catalunya per se, but vis-a-vis a series of allusions to the “circles of belonging” that I have mentioned earlier: Essaouira, Morocco, Africa,

Europe. In so doing, Batlle positions his play within an ambivalent space of transnational transactions and dislocations, of cultural integration and disintegration in which contemporary Catalunya is implicated.

At the end of Swite, there is a defining moment in which the audience observes the collapse of a dollhouse upon the living room floor. The image is a metaphor of domestic and global instability, as well as an ironic intertextual reference to Ibsen.*’ Standing before the collapsed house of cards, in effect, the image of Marc/Lluis Soler was,

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 277

perhaps, every bit as powerful as that of Madame Ranyevskaya/Anna Lizaran, contemplating her ‘Teatre Lliure. The spectators, as well as the characters in the play, are left to wonder whether Berta, the young woman, who remains dazed and confused in the suite of an old hotel, will return to the mirage-like image of a home and marriage without foundations, or whether she will flee to the more exotic space of Essaouira, in North Africa, the space that has invaded her dreams and memories. Batlle’s interest in cultural identity and the figure of home (that of Catalunya, in particular), which began to take root in Suite, would come into view in a much more tangible sense in subsequent works. In Oasi, as in Temptaci0, he appears ever conscious of the considerable extent to which the complex experience of immigration in Catalunya and the cultural hybridities and crossovers that this experience entails are very much a part of Catalan historical memory, as well as presentday reality.

Oasi The conditions of globalization that characterize the contemporary ‘“postnational constellation,” an expansive indeterminate sphere of ever-variable spatial parameters and shifting geopolitical boundaries, have often stirred and inspired in many a curious desire for home and/ or homeland, roots and/or rootedness.** Marc Augé comments on this paradoxical circumstance when he notes that, “At the very same moment when it becomes possible to think in terms of the unity of terres-

trial space, and the big multinational networks grow strong, the clamour of particularisms rises; clamour from those who want to stay

at home in peace, clamour from those who want to find a mother country.”*? Oasi, in particular, expresses a parallel interest, and even anxiety, on the part of Batlle with regard to land, roots, history, and the particularities of home, offering us a striking example of how a new and culturally diverse image of Catalunya has begun to surface his work.

Oasi, a play in nine scenes, was a finalist for the “Born” Prize in 2001 and garnered Batlle the Premi Josep Ametller in 2002.°° While the play has not yet had a full-scale production, it has had staged readings in French (directed by Agathe Alexis at the prestigious ‘Théatre de la Cartoucherie, Paris, 2003) and German (at the Bremen Theater Festival, 2004).°! With Oasz, Batlle takes his geopathological concerns

a step further, conceiving the notion of Catalunya in relation to a clearly demarcated discourse of exile, displacement, homecoming, and

278 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM migration. While he does not name Catalunya or Barcelona directly in the text, they are subtly invoked in relation to other places: Madrid, Cardiff, Switzerland, and the North African desert. The play, moreover, contains a concrete reference to the Olympic games in an anonymous city. The opening stage directions state plainly and minimally that the action takes place in a valley near the Pyrenees in the year 2001.°? ‘The anonymous rural area of Europe depicted in Oasi is, in fact, reminiscent of the volcanic landscape of La Garrotxa, the prePyrenean zone of Catalunya, situated in the province of Girona, that is the site of the village where Batlle presently makes his home. Accordingly, it would be easy to presume that the spatial geography of the play is, perhaps, tied to his own memories and experiences. Like the area described in the play, La Garrotxa has a burgeoning Moslem population, and it is a place where it not uncommon to hear children of Maghrebian origin speaking Catalan with the local accent. The protagonists of Oasi, Xavier and Raixid, are two thirty-fiveyear-old men with a shared past. In fact, even their names bare a certain phonetic resemblance. It is revealed through their dialogues that, years earlier, prior to the diegetic space and time of the play, Raixid, a Moslem, who was born on a desert oasis, immigrated as a young boy

with his parents to the rural European setting near the Pyrenees. When he was a child, he and his family occupied a small house located on the property owned by Xavier’s family until Raixid’s parents were

killed in a tragic fire. Xavier’s parents welcomed Raixid into their home and the two boys were raised as brothers. While Raixid has remained at his childhood home, Xavier, in contrast, has embarked upon his own exilic journey: first to a Madrid prison (having been accused of “terrorism” when he participated in the political protests surrounding the Olympic games), and then to Great Britain, where he acquired a teaching position in Wales. The domestic situation is thus vaguely reminiscent of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, in which the character of ‘Teddy, also thirty-five years old, returns to his childhood home

in England, after having obtained a teaching position in the United States. When the play begins, Xavier has returned “home” following a ten-

year absence. While there, he engages in a search, through memory and desire, for his own signs of identity and belonging. Upon returning, Xavier discovers, however, that Raixid, in a sense, has appropriated the space that he has left behind: his land, his former life, his former lover, and perhaps even his memories. Raixid, to cite just a few examples, now carries the pocket watch that once belonged to Xavier (an emblem of the passage of time) and has even married Xavier’s former fiancée, Maria. Moreover, Raixid tries to persuade Xavier to sell

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 279

him the family property in order to clear the way for the construction of a reservoir and highway. Xavier’s homecoming, then, is imbued with an anguished sense of loss as he faces the impossibility of recuper-

ating the past and reinscribing it in the present. As Xavier puts it, “Quan obro una porta noto com si tots els mobles, com si tots els calaixos, totes /es nostres velles andromines, em tinguessin por, com si l’aire

fugis, com si no em fos permés respirar. I em passo el dia tancant armaris, tancant calaixos, tancant caixes, portes, finestres. .. . S6c un intras.’’>? [When I open a door it’s as if all the furniture, as if all the drawers, all our old pieces of junk, were afraid of me, as if the air were fleeing, as if I weren’t allowed to breathe. And I spend the day closing closets, closing drawers, closing boxes, doors, windows. . . . I’m an intruder.] On a more literal level, the spatial geography of Xavier’s past is in danger of being vanquished by the threat of rising water from the newly constructed reservoir. (The image of rising water and the fear of drowning that accompanies it are subtle echoes of similar images that surface in Combat.)

Thus, in Oasi, through an intriguing reversal of traditional paradigms, the uprooted, placeless, deterritorialized self is not the Arab immigrant but the European who has been living an exilic existence. As in previous works, Batlle uses a series of spatial metaphors and descriptions to play out the existential anxiety that is linked to the production of place. According to the stage directions, the introductory scene (scene 0) contains the striking image of a voluminous piece of undulating fabric that covers nearly the entire scenic space. In the scene that follows (scene 1), the fabric is hoisted upward, from the center, as though it were a Berber tent, or baima. Situated beneath the tent-like structure are traditional objects, such as a grandfather clock, all strangely reminiscent of a past life and of an underlying Western cultural identity. hus, with this poetic depiction, a veritable palimpsest, Batlle creates a visual metaphor that speaks about interculturalism, mestissatge, and the spatial inscription of cultural identity. Xavier’s

own “geopathology,” his anguished homecoming, his frustrated attempts to remember and recuperate his roots, are indirectly evocative of the situation of contemporary Catalunya, a space of migration and cultural flux. The notion of “home” emerges as a subjective figure that

is invoked through fluctuating emotions and relativistic relations, through infinite arrivals and departures. As in all his “relative” dramas, elements of fiction in Oasi cast a thick haze upon the relationship between memories of the past and desires in the present. Just as the rapport between fiction and reality remains unsettled, identity is conceived as a dynamic, rather than static, notion. In Oasi, it is never entirely clear whether Xavier’s rapport with

280 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM reality and with past events, like that of Anna in Suite, has undergone distortion. Perhaps, his view is the result of a series of books that he has read or some old photographs that he has seen, or perhaps his version/vision of the events has been colored by a series of memories that do not belong to him. It is through his contact with the Islamic world that he searches for answers. [his search is represented metaphorically through the image of the guwetan a fictional Arab board game (which Batlle invented, inspired by his readings of the fantastic novels of E. R. Burroughs) that Xavier learned to play by reading a sacred book during his year in prison. “Al guetan pots trobar el sentit de la teva existéncia.’’*+ [In the guetan you can find the meaning of your existence.] These are the words of wisdom offered, in versified form, by Abdal-la, an old man who has recently arrived from the desert. It is a game through which time, space, and distances are annulled, and which symbolizes the new parameters of a contemporary, “multicivilitzational”’ world, or, stated another way, an “extraterritorial” zone of linguistic and cultural crossings.*° Xavier’s anguish with regard to his state of uprootedness develops further in relation to Aixa, the young Arab woman, and granddaughter of Abdal-la, who has recently migrated “north” to Europe to fulfill the promise of what was to be an arranged marriage with Raixid. She, too, has embarked upon her own painful exilic journey, and she struggles, at once, to remember and to forget life on her desert oasis. She tells Xavier, ““m’enyoro d’una cosa que mai no ha passat.”*° [’'m missing something that never happened.] In effect, Aixa’s oasis is, at this point, merely a mirage that exists only in her mind. She has appropriated Xavier’s memories. In her possession is his old photo album, in which she believes that she sees her own reflection. Perhaps, in the end, Xavier will able to reencounter and recuperate a sense of self and identity by rediscovering the world through Aixa’s eyes as the two begin to forge their own oasis. The final scene in the play, interestingly, brings us back to Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard with an image of imminent destruction that can be taken to be an ironic quotation of, or even homage to, the work of the Russian dramatist. The grandfather, Abdal-la, remains in the house that eventually will disappear, obliterated by the rapidly rising water of the reservoir, which can be heard in the distance. He pours himself a glass of wine, a gesture that is more European than Arab, and offers a description of the guetan in the form of a poetic monologue: Cal col-locar les figuretes de manera que les peces negres juguin des del sud i les blanques des del nord

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 281 El joc s’acaba si un dels dos jugadors col-loca qualsevol peca a la casella que ocupa la princesa del contrari oO quan un cap s’apodera de l’altre*’

[One needs to place the figurines in such a way that the black pieces play from the south and the white ones from the north The game is over if one of the two players places any piece in the square that is occupied by the princess from the opposite side or when one chief beats the other]

The game, similar to a chessboard, is an allegory of the transnational crossings, from south to north, and from north to south, that the characters in the play have carried out. ‘Che approaching deluge at end of the play is thus evocative of the palimpsestic baima that appeared at the beginning, for the undulating fabric is akin to the surge of water that is about to inundate the house, superimposing itself upon a European past and traditions. With Oasi, therefore, Batlle has dramatized the situation of cultural hybridity that characterizes the Catalan postnational landscape. LEMPTACIO

Temptacié 1s the result of Batlle’s yearlong participation in the [6 workshop at the ITNC. With this play, he constructs a concrete depiction of contemporary Catalunya without ellipses and circumvolutions, and without strategies of evasion and elusion. Temptacid, consequently, represents a crucial moment in Batlle’s trajectory, in which Catalunya, once again, becomes fully visible—having been shrouded, since Combat, in numerous veils and disguises and subjected to a diverse gamut of ploys and pretenses. As the opening stage directions plainly indicate, “L’obra transcorre a la Catalunya actual.’”** [The play takes place

in the Catalunya of today.] Despite the localism of Batlle’s proposal, Temptacié has received an impressive quantity of international attention. In 2004, the prestigious Stiickermarkt festival of Berlin chose to showcase Temptacié in its selection of the most compelling and innova-

tive European plays of the moment. The German translation, by Thomas Sauerteig and Hans Richter, received a staged reading, under the direction of Rafael Sanchez, at the Stiickermarkt.°? Then, during

282 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM the fall of 2004, Temptacié received its Catalan debut, under the direction of Rafel Duran, as part of the IT6 programming at the Sala ‘Tallers of the UNC. ‘The text went on to a run at the celebrated Burgtheater in Vienna, under the direction of Michael Schoéndorf, in December of that same year. It has also had a staging in Germany (directed by Alexander Nerlich, ‘Tubington, 2005), a production for German radio (directed by Martin Zylka, on Radio WDR, 2005), and three productions in France (translated by Isabelle Bres, directed by Jean de Pange, at

the Théatre du Saucy de Metz, the Théatre du Moulin de Toul, and the Théatre de Lunéville, 2006). The Barcelona of 2004 was immersed in the political rhetoric, social celebration, and urban revitalization associated with the Forum Universal de les Cultures, a series of encounters and events offering a curi-

ous combination of entertainment, art, education, and conscious raising. [he Forum placed a spotlight upon questions of immigration and cultural diversity and attempted, with irregular success, to create a politically correct air of reconciliation in a city in which issues of racism, xenophobia, and ethnocentricity were (and still are) part of the everyday. If, during the Pujol presidency and beyond, Catalunya habitually presented itself to Spain and to the rest of the world as a terra @acollida (land of welcome) a place that has habitually received displaced peoples and exiles with open arms, then Batlle appears to have set out to demystify this conception.®! here are, consequently, thematic parallels between Temptacié and Belbel’s Forasters (2003), a play with official ties to the Forum, which also premiered during the fall of

2004. But, whereas Forasters portrays otherness and cultural stereotypes from the point of view of a bourgeois Catalan family, Batlle, in contrast, focuses on the lives of those who have immigrated to Catalunya from beyond European borders. He contemplates with profound concern and apprehension the clandestine trafficking and brutal treatment of immigrants from Maghreb, as well as the extent to which their displacement and marginalization remains indefinitely unresolved. For the hidden, often invisible, society of those living in Spain sense papers (without legal residency documents) an infinite number of borders and barriers must be crossed. Temptacié represents a case in point of Batlle’s relative drama in its most sophisticated form. With five scenes and a coda, the play gradually reveals to the spectator the intricate threads of an enigmatic plot that implicitly begs to be deciphered. “With all of this,” Foguet observes, “like one more step to bring content to relative drama, Batlle constructs a subjective, polyhedral, stratified, but complete fiction, susceptible to creating polemics, which brings the spectators close to

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 283

the phenomenon of immigration and invites them to interpret it and fill it with meaning[s].” The character of Guillem is a Catalan antique dealer in his thirties, who is not only involved in the business of buying and selling furniture; he also deals in human commerce: specifically, the trafficking of

“illegal” immigrants from Morocco. Aixa is a young Moroccan woman in her thirties, who works in Guillem’s home and has become his lover. The third and final character is Hassan, a Moroccan man in his fifties, who was once employed as a film extra. Several years earlier,

Guillem’s late father, a scriptwriter, met Hassan while working on a film set located in Morocco. ‘The result of their friendship was a pact whereby Hassan agreed that someday he would sell his daughter to his European friend so that she could become the wife of his friend’s son. The spectator who is able to join together the pieces of this puzzle may arrive at the conclusion that Guillem, as it happens, is the son of Hassan’s friend, and Aixa, in turn, is Hassan’s daughter. The three characters, nevertheless, are unaware of these connections and coincidental relations. A chain of misunderstandings and chance occurrences will bring them together in time and space in an odd love triangle that ultimately will lead to the death of Hassan in a fatal fall from Guillem’s bedroom balcony. ‘The circumstances surrounding his fall (eerily reminiscent of the plot of Benet i Jornet’s L’habitaci6 del nen [2001]) are never completely divulged, as they are recounted from a myriad of perspectives though the monologues of both Guillem and Aixa. What is suggested, though, is that each of these characters is somehow implicated in Hassan’s demise. On the level of structure, Batlle takes his interest in monologue and monologistic forms to a new level of experimentation in Temptacid. According to the stage directions, each scene opens with a grainy projec-

tion of jagged lines and numbers representing a rough cut of a film. The lines eventually come into focus as an opening title bearing the name of the character whose monologue will be highlighted during the ensuing scene (“Hassan,” “Aixa,” “Hassan,” “Aixa,” and “Guillem’’). In scene 1, Guillem positions a video camera in front of Hassan. It will remain on stage throughout subsequent scenes, capturing close-

ups of the monologues and suggesting that Guillem is the creator of the film that is being projected on the screen. Through the employment of the camera, the monologues take on a confessional tone, invoking the voyeuristic presence of an implicit spectator/receptor, a silent interlocutor whose presence is invisible, yet subtly insinuated. Situated in front of the camera, the characters exude a degree of selfconsciousness that suggests the possibility that what is being played out on stage, in fact, may be a fictional drama within another fictional

284 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM frame; yet it is never clear to the spectator where the limits of fiction and reality begin and end. ‘The final coda, bearing the title ‘“ITemptacid,”’ contains a brief monologue by Hassan in which he repeats the opening lines of his first monologue. ‘The play Temptacié is thus framed by a circular cinematic premise, whereby each scene represents a segment of a film that is, likewise, titled Tezptacié. Batlle’s filmic frame, therefore, creates an aesthetic dilemma involving multiple layers of theatricality and fictionalization.

In Duran’s mise en scene, which emphasized the presence of the video camera, the audience was able to witness elements of each monologue in both live and virtual/projected forms. ‘The production, which included Mireia Aixala in the role of Aixa, Jaume Bernet as Hassan, and Santi Ricart as Guillem, received mixed reviews. Juan Carlos

Olivares, for example, critiqued the credibility of the plot and the characters, finding fault in the complex situation of chance encounters: “It’s not true to life because of the concentration of fatalities and terrors that it presents.”°? Olivares, nevertheless, appeared to neglect the play of fiction and reality that is an integral part of Batlle’s drama-

turgy. In a more positive review of the production, David Barba underlined Batlle’s interest in questions of cultural identity: “in it BatIle dares to narrate the conflict between the dynamic identity of the nomad and the osteoarthritic identity of the person who stays put.” Although the presence of the film within the play has a structural function, Batlle emphasizes the cinematic frame of Temptaci6 on a thematic level, as well. Guillem’s father, the scriptwriter, once worked in Morocco on location during the filming of powerful masterpieces such as Lawrence of Arabia. The opening scene is a conversation between

Guillem (in the bathroom, shaving) and Hassan (in the bedroom). While it is ostensibly a dialogue, it quickly collapses into a kind of monologue, for as Hassan speaks, Guillem, offstage and physically ab-

sent, does not appear to be listening to the stories that Hassan is recounting. Hassan’s monologue addresses the existence of a mythic, cinematic image of Morocco, similar to that which emerged in Suite and which many westerners erroneously associate with the truth. ‘The remaining scenes of the play will set out to undermine this fictional representation of North Africa. Like the Aixa that Batlle introduced in Oasz, the Aixa of Temptaci6 is a young Moroccan immigrant who has made the journey to Catalunya from a desert oasis where she has left behind her life and her family.”

She suffered a painful and torturous experience during her passage across the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain (which included her rape by one of the traffickers), and she dreams of assuming a new identity as a fully assimilated Catalan woman with a Catalan name: “Hi haura un dia que

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 285

la casa on viuré sera casa meva, 1 que els meus veins em saludaran pel carrer i em diran ‘bon dia, senyora tal,’ i el nom que diran sonara ca-

tala. Aquell dia no hauré de passar cap més frontera d’amagat.’’® [There will come a day in which the house that I live in will be my house, and my neighbors will greet me on the street and say “good day, Mrs. whatever,” and the name that they pronounce will sound Catalan. ‘Chat day I won’t have to cross another border in secret.] Her desire to break with the past and with her father’s oppressive authoritarianism will compel her to facilitate—or, perhaps, to be complicit in—his fall from the bedroom balcony. The title of the play represents a vague allusion to the often-cited

words of Oscar Wilde: “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it,” and “I can resist everything but temptation.” Atxa refers to these aphoristic expressions on more than one occasion when she recalls a book by Wilde that Guillem has given to her.® As Foguet notes, the characters find themselves confronting temptation in relation to historical and cultural memory: “renouncing one’s own memory, that is to say, identity.” For Guillem, the fantasy of surrendering to temptation and marrying Aixa, and of possessing her in the most violent physical and sexual sense, becomes a way of abandoning his European past and the histories and memories that such as past would entail. In a manner similar to Oasi, the antique furnishings in his home signify this past: quan pensava en tu els mobles em sobraven, i els quadres, i totes les mandangues de tants i tants anys. Com havia pogut viure tots aquells anys entre tantes andromines, com no me rhavia adonat fins ara? Era un amargat, un mort en vida, vivia pels morts i algun dia moriria sense res, una mortalla de memoria i res més, res més. Memoria. De qué ens servia la memoria?® [when I thought of you I was left with furniture, and the paintings, and all the rubbish of so very many years. How could I have lived all those years among so many pieces of junk, how did I not realize it until now? I was a

bitter person, a dead person among the living, I lived for the dead and someday I would die without anything, a veil of memory and nothing more, nothing more. Memory. What good is our memory?

The layers of historical memory to which Guillem alludes were expressed visually by Anna Alcubierre in her imaginative scenic design for Duran’s production at the INC. Here, Alcubierre piled up a mass of antiques and old furniture in the space designating Guillem’s home. She did so in such a striking way that it appeared as though she had placed an immense art installation on stage. In the end, Aixa, an object of desire, as well as hatred and fear, will

286 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM become once again the victim of brutal torture and sexual abuse, this time at the hands of Guillem. As the monologues indicate, Guillem, while standing on the street below his bedroom balcony, was able to observe Aixa with Hassan. Unaware that Hassan is her father, Guillem is convinced that she has betrayed him. He has projected his desire for cultural difference and otherness upon Aixa, but his inability to fulfill that desire will lead him to violence and frustration. At the conclusion

of Duran’s production, as the final credits of Guillem’s film were flashed upon the screen, the pop song “Aicha” (1996), written by French composer Jean-Jacques Goldman and interpreted by Algerian singer Cheb Khaled, inundated the space of the Sala ‘Tallers. ‘Che lyrics, an amalgam of Arabic and French, represented an ironic correla-

tion with Batlle’s interest in cultural hybridity. Played at a high volume as the audience exited the theatre, the song, floating through the air, invited the spectator to ponder the timely implications of BatIle’s text and Duran’s mise en scene.

Comme si Je n’existais pas Elle est passée a cdté de moi Sans un regard, Reine de Saba J’ai dit, Aicha, prends, tout est pour toi

Oooh! Aicha, Aicha, écoute-moi Aicha, Aicha, t’en vas pas Aicha, Aicha, regarde-moi Aicha, Aicha, réponds-moi Nbrik Aicha ou nmout allik (Je te veux Aicha et je meurs pour tol) Hhadi kisat hayaty oua habbi (Ceci est l’histoire de ma vie et de mon amour) Inti omri oua inti hayati (Tu es ma respiration et ma vie) ‘Tmanit niich maake ghir inti J’ai envie de vivre avec toi et rien qu’avec toi) [As though I had never existed She passes by my side Without a glance, Queen of Sheba I said, Aicha, take it, it’s all for you Oooh! Aicha, Aixha, listen to me Aicha, Aicha, don’t go Aicha, Aicha, look at me Aicha, Aicha, answer me I want you Aicha and I’m dying for you This is the story of my life and of my love You are my breath and my life I want to live with you and only with you]

6: EUROPEAN LANDSCAPES: CARLES BATLLE 287

Like the setting of Belbel’s Forasters, Batlle’s Catalunya—and his Catalunya invisible—is a place where disruptions, ambiguities, hybridities, and uncertainties create discomfort. Zygmunt Bauman has observed that it is, indeed, the “strangers” in society, those “who do not fit the cognitive, moral or aesthetic map of the world,” who jar us into a state of self-recognition that is, at times, painful and even unbearable: “If they, therefore, by their sheer presence, make obscure what ought to be transparent, confuse what ought to be a straighttorward recipe for action, and/or prevent the satisfaction from being fully satisfying, pollute the joy with anxiety while making the forbidden fruit alluring; if, in other words, they befog and eclipse the boundary lines which ought to be clearly seen; if, having done all this, they gestate uncertainty, which in its turn breeds the discomfort of feeling lost— then each society produces such strangers.’ With his landscapes of relativity, which come into view as an intricate configuration of fictional frames and artistic constructs, Batlle makes visible the strangers who often have remained invisible in Catalan society, and who are, nevertheless, transformative forces. In Chekhovian fashion, he reveals a fascination with the meanings embodied in the figure of home—be it a living room, a bedroom, a mountaintop, an empty field, or even a desert oasis—as well as a self-conscious and, sometimes, nostalgic mood of anxiety with regard to the past, present, and future of his homeland. Embracing the complexity of cultures and nationalities that have come to define this Catalunya in contemporary times, he portrays a European landscape of tensions and hybridities, of images, languages, and ethnicities that flow together without confines, within a single space. And he does so without falling into the trap of proposing facile clichés. Batlle’s concerns with regard to culture are equally apparent in a new play Transits (Patchwork, 2008), which is set on a moving train and contains an experimental pastiche-like structure. One would expect to see this train forge new inroads as it travels across the terrain.

7

Scenes of Miscommunication: Josep Pere Peyro Good drama has no stage directions. It is the interaction of the characters’ objectives expressed solely through what they say to each other—not through what the author says about them. —David Mamet, Writing in Restaurants!

Tue Zero DEGREE OF THEATRICALITY STUDENTS WHO HAVE ATTENDED THE SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS

habitually offered by José Sanchis Sinisterra (1940) at the Sala Beckett,

Barcelona’s preeminent experimental theater laboratory, frequently recall with enthusiasm an exercise in which they are encouraged to contemplate what is known in Catalan as e/ grau zero de la teatralitat (the zero degree of theatricality). According to the exercise, Sanchis asks one of his students to remain upon an empty stage, ostensibly without performing, virtually doing nothing. ‘Then, at the conclusion of fifteen minutes, he asks the other students to analyze what they have

observed. The exercise consistently engenders surprising results in terms of the extensive list of features and gestures that the students are

able to perceive, for it compels them to contemplate the powerful “zero degree,” or limits, of theatricality that are signified through the mere presence of the actor within a bare space, a performance stripped down to its minimal quintessence.” Viewed through the lens of what has been a nearly twenty-year history of pedagogical and creative endeavors at the Beckett, Sanchis’s exercise may be taken as a parable of

minimalism that alludes to the theater of the legendary Irish playwright who gladly lent his name to the sa/a; yet it is also a reflection of a predominant attitude that has informed the work of many of those actors, directors, designers, composers, and playwrights who have had

a relationship with this locale. An aesthetic based upon the axiom menys és més (less is more) has permeated the walls of the Beckett, evi-

dent in its programming of contemporary drama, its seminars, and 288

7: SCENES OF MISCOMMUNICATION: JOSEP PERE PEYRO 289

his | Ce ‘ah i - i ¥ a's - ini -e e

| iiHy!i :Vo it ‘ “i ae ’ BA ad 4

K, mt (fe Mf 4 :: \se WAR "4 s . de ae : ion « we q

A pid ,i «4 ot eis “Ga "“ ' |

——— = er.al. ” Soe — 4 ‘ kyesac | date

Les portes del cel, be Josep Pere Peyr6, directed by Josep Pere Peyr6é 2004. Photo courtesy of Josep Pere Peyro.

even its logotype. It 1s a setting in which risk, experimentation, and pedagogy are emphasized over commercialism and frivolity, and where subtlety and discreetness are granted precedence over hyperbole and excess.

Much of the work to emerge from the Beckett can be characterized as displaying a certain pared down simplicity and economy of expression in terms of plot, space, and character development, along with

special emphasis devoted to intricate structures and forms that, at times, are almost mathematical in design. It is this type of aesthetic purity and discreetness that one finds in the work of Josep Pere Peyr6, a direct disciple of Sanchis Sinisterra, born in Palma de Mallorca in 1959. Peyré’s theater is a product of the vibrant atmosphere of creative energy that is the Beckett. It is there, in the theater laboratories that Sanchis has offered since the late 1980s and in his work with Sanchis’s Teatro Fronterizo, that Peyr6 received much of his training in acting, directing, and playwriting. Throughout his artistic trajectory, he has managed to combine seamlessly these three dimensions of his work with the stage, delving into the fields of television screenwriting

290 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM and teaching, as well. He has offered classes in acting and dramaturgy

at the Aula de ‘Teatre (the extracurricular theater workshop) of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, the Institut del Teatre in Terrassa (just outside the city), and the Beckett, in addition to a diverse gamut of universities and schools both in and outside Spain. Peyr6’s work has gained particular notoriety in France and in several Latin American countries, and it has garnered him several awards, including an Accéssit (runner-up, or honorable mention) for the Premi Ignasi Iglésias 1992 for La trobada (The Encounter, 1987); the Lloren¢ Palmireno Prize of Valencia 1993 for Suefio (Dream, 1986); the Premi de la Critica for the

best play text staged in Barcelona during the 1996-1997 season for Deserts (1989); the Butaca Prize (chosen by Barcelona spectators) for T de Teatre’s production of Criatures (Kids, 1998), which he shared with coauthors Sergi Belbel, Yolanda Garcia Serrano, Miriam Iscla, Paco Mir, Jordi Molla, Joan Ollé, David Plana, and Agata Roca; a Premio de la Critica at the Festival Internacional de Chile for the Spanish production of Una pluja irlandesa (Una Muvia irlandesa) (An Irish rain, 1995); and a Serra d’Or Critics’ Prize 2005 for Les portes del cel (The doors to heaven, 2004).

Thus far, over the course of his career, Peyr6 has established and/ or helped foster an assortment of small theater companies that have largely been engaged in the production of his own texts. ‘These include Morel ‘Teatre (1987), Poco (1995), Maleits (1998), and, most recently, La Invenci6é (2000). The Sitges ‘Teatre Internacional Festival—which

had its final edition in June 2004 under the directorship of Magda Puyo, and which had served as a platform for emerging Catalan playwrights—gave substantial impetus to Peyrd’s work by showcasing several of his texts. His work at Sitges inspired Pablo Ley to proclaim on the pages of E/ Pais, in his daily coverage of the 1996 edition of the festival, that Peyro is “a playwright of substance.”? While Peyrd’s work, indeed, exemplifies the type of minimalism that the Sala Beckett has cultivated over the course of the past two decades (especially during Sanchis’s term as artistic director), what stands out in his plays is the way that he has taken this minimalist aesthetic into a discursive terrain. His theater, as several critics have observed, habitually treats the problem of communication and the inadequacy of the word as a potent form of expression.* He thus translates the investigation of the limits of theatricality that was a recurrent theme in the work of Sanchis’s ‘Teatro Fronterizo into a type of theatrical quandary with regard to the limits of verbal expression. Specifically, he considers a myriad of approaches to staging the discursive dilemmas that exist when men and women attempt to communicate with each other. Peyr6 thus partakes of a contemporary theatrical tradition that includes the work of

7: SCENES OF MISCOMMUNICATION: JOSEP PERE PEYRO 29]

Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett, David Mamet, Harold Pinter, and also Catalan dramatist Sergi Belbel. In particular, three of Peyr6é’s most accomplished works—La trobada, Quan els paisatges de Cartier-Bresson (When the Landscapes of Cartier-Bresson, 1992), and Una pluja irlandesa—speak to these dis-

cursive dilemmas, forming as a whole what Marcos Ordofiez has designated a ““Irilogia del Desenteniment” (Trilogy of Miscommunication).° The three plays premiered between 1994 and 1995 in Barce-

lona and Sitges, and they solidified and propelled forward Peyr6’s career as a dramatist. The possibility of contemplating them as a single

unit became all the more clear in September 2003, when the Sala Beckett hosted a reprisal in Spanish of all three plays as part of a joint Catalan-Argentine production. ‘The production, titled Triptico (Trip-

tych), directed by Peyrd, Fanny Cittadini, and Paula Miranda, included the participation of Peyr6é’s company La Invenci6é and a group

from Cordoba, Argentina, Los Modernos.® It offered spectators the opportunity to attend performances of the individual plays during the week, along with a three-hour marathon replay of all three pieces each weekend. As Peyr6é noted in the press conference leading up to the premiere, when viewed in succession, the three works take on new meanings and dimensions.’ Each of these exemplary works reveals a distinct approach to the problem of communication and to how this problem is inextricably linked to the notion of desire. Pondering the discourse on desire from its Platonic origins to the contemporary age, Judith Butler has observed how language has always had a “vested interest in,” or is inevitably “bound up with,” desire; indeed, the linkage between the two terms produces an inherently paradoxical relationship.* Desire originates in the body; speech, in turn, finds its origins in desire. Yet, while desire is, in a sense, the raison d’étre of rhetoric, it also frustrates any semblance of linguistic transparency; it creates an allegorical structure of deferral whereby signifiers seek to capture or grasp through words an ever illusive signified. Language, as Butler remarks, is “the vehicle through which desire is displaced, that founders in every effort to present and communicate desire.’? Peyré draws our attention to the opaque and ambivalent discourse that desire inescapably engenders, of the difficulties of expressing with words, and of concretizing and elucidating, those feelings, yearnings, and longings for human affection and proximity that fall beyond the grasp of verbal communication. The result, as we shall see, is often pure poetry. In the plays that comprise Peyr6é’s ‘Irilogy of Miscommunication, stage directions are minimal. As in the work of David Mamet, verbal discourse becomes the primary form of dramatic action, and the pit-

292 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM falls of communication become exceedingly apparent. Like Mamet, who strives, under the influence of Stanislavsky, to dramatize through dialogue the inner life of the individual, Peyr6, correspondingly, uses the struggle of his characters with verbal expression to offer us momentary glimpses of their inner truths and mysteries.'!° Despite the emphasis on language as dramatic action, his plays, nonetheless, do contain a significant visual dimension. His characters often appear to contemplate the landscape through an aesthetic filter akin to that of an impressionist or expressionist painter, or to the photographic lens of a camera. It is through their verbal depictions of their exterior surroundings that Peyr6o is able to uncover flashes of truth, elements of poetry. The analysis that follows will center on the plays in the trilogy. I shall then move on to describe, in the form of a coda, one of Peyré’s most recent projects, Les portes del cel, which represents a new direction for his theater. LA TROBADA

Of the three works that form the so-called ‘Inilogy of Miscommunication, La trobada, a one-act play, primarily naturalist in tone, is the least experimental and, yet, quite interesting in terms of the surprisingly incongruous way in which the characters express themselves. Their dialogues are at once minimalist, disjointed, earthy, and lyrical. Peyr6o situates the action of the play in a Mediterranean setting—true to his Majorcan roots—during the late hours of Christmas Eve (or, the early hours of Christmas day) on a quay overlooking a bay. When Peyr6 premiered La trobada with his company Morel ‘Teatre at the Sitges Teatre Internacional Festival in 1994, he staged the play, most intriguingly, on the beach at two o’clock in the morning. ‘The reception at Sitges was somewhat lukewarm, for although it is was not uncommon for festival programming to extend well beyond midnight, it is possible that, in this case, as Ord6fiez surmises, the show was too late for even the most ardent theatergoers and festival enthusiasts. Santiago Fondevila notes that the production on the beach, with its lofty realist ambitions, engendered so many logistic and technical difficulties for the cast and playwright, that it was enough to “drive them mad.”!! The production, which included a group of four accomplished actors (Lluisa Mallol, Xus Estruch, Ferran Madico, and Peyr6, himself), did, however, inspire a more positive reception when it was transferred to Barcelona’s ‘Teatreneu during the Grec summer festival.! La trobada presents two friends (conceivably in their early to mid

7: SCENES OF MISCOMMUNICATION: JOSEP PERE PEYRO =. 293

twenties), Lluis (Madico) and Eduard (Peyr6), who habitually commemorate Christmas Eve in an unconventional manner by visiting a raucous whorehouse situated on a desolate beachfront quay. On this occasion, however, they have brought with them a young woman, Raquel (Mallol), whose relationship to the two men is, at first, somewhat vague, but gradually becomes less so as the action progresses. Lluis, it appears, is hoping to engage in a sexual relationship with Raquel and attempts to persuade her to allow this to happen. As he converses with her, his friend Eduard, in the meantime, is in the brothel, presumably enjoying himself with Magna (Estruch), a prostitute with whom verbal communication is not particularly necessary. Raquel’s intrusion in the annual ritual that the two men share creates a odd love triangle with a curious disequilibrium, all of which incites both young men to gain new perspectives with regard to the past and view the landscape in a different way than ever before. Their differing perspectives are highlighted in a telling a scene in which Lluis and Raquel contemplate the spectacle of the winter landscape on the waterfront and notice the fish jumping in and out of the bay. Lluis insists that they are mullets (/ises), while Raquel is certain that they are sea bream (ob/ades). The fish, in effect, signify their contrary ways of viewing the world. As the conversation progresses, they find that the landscape is nothing more than a reflection of their inner selves. It is as though Peyr6’s characters, in an expressionist sense, were using their subjective portrayal of the landscape to express their innermost angst. As they observe their surroundings, they engage in the following exchange: Ragvuet: ... Alguna vegada t’ha passat que... No sé tenir la sensaci6 que aquest no és el teu lloc. Luuvis: La casa de putes?

RaquEt: No, no vull dir només el lloc . . . El moment, també el moment. Com si en realitat ara jo hagués d’estar en un altre Iloc, en un altre... potser en un altre temps, en un altre moment, m’entens? . . . (Pausa.) Lluis, sense entendre-ho: Crec que si. . . Si, entenc el que vols dir.'+

[RagueEL: ... Has it ever happened to you that .. . I don’t know having the sensation that this isn’t your place. Luvis: The whorehouse?

Raguet: No, I don’t mean just the place . . . The moment, the moment too. As if in reality right now I should be someplace else, in another .. . maybe in another time, in another moment, you know what I mean? ... (Pause.)

Lluis, without understanding it: | think so .. . Yes, I know what you mean. ]

294 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Their disharmonious dialogue exemplifies the type of communicative void in which Peyr6o’s characters often find themselves. ‘They are out of syne in terms of both time and place. It is evident that Raquel is experiencing a large degree of anxiety with regard to having agreed to accompany the two men to this isolated location. She speaks about the landscape in a poetic, metaphysical, sense—even of the mysterious reflection of the droplets of water that form icicles on the trees. Lluis’s response, in contrast, offers a more literal rendering of their surroundings. They appear to be disengaged, unable to connect, despite the hints of desire that permeate their dialogues as they pursue with their words the illusive signified of which Butler speaks. Their conversation gradually degenerates, becoming increasingly coarse in tone with the arrival of Eduard and Magna on the stage. Eduard, like many of Peyro’s male characters, radiates with stereotypical masculinity in his single-minded appetite for sex and power. Other male characters in Peyro’s plays exude, quite often, a similarly voracious appetite with regard to wealth and money. (It is an element

of overt maleness that is yet another reminder of the theater of Mamet.) In contrast, Peyro’s female characters, as Orddfiez observes,

tend to be more aloof and intangible: “they can always be found in another place: further up or on the other side of the looking glass, but always afar.’’!* ‘Chey also tend to be defined according to more abstract terms.

Eventually, Raquel expresses her desire to leave the place where Lluis and Eduard have taken her, while, at the same time, she does not wish to be alone. The play ends with a crude but strangely lyrical scene

in which Eduard, while inciting Magna to engage in oral sex with Lluis, recounts a story from his past: Tu no saps com era abans. Era magic. Ara qué . . . Ple de llises. Abans podies pescar. Ie n’anaves amb el cistell ple. Oblades . . . Jo li vaig ensenyar a pescar .. . Oblades, es podien menyar. Jo les pescava. Les pescavem tots

dos... . Ja no hi ha res. Jo era especial. . . . Tenia dotze anys i era especial .. . Tenia magia." [You don’t know what it was like before. It was magical. Now what... Full

of mullets. Before you could fish. You left with your basket full. Sea bream ...I taught her to fish... Sea bream, they could be eaten. I fished for them. We both fished for them. . . . Now there’s nothing. I was special. .. . I was twelve years old and I was special . . . It was magical. ]

Eduard indicates that the same bay that was once full of sea bream is now full of mullets. His allusion to the sea bream, consequently, suggests in its opaqueness that he and Raquel once shared an experience

7: SCENES OF MISCOMMUNICATION: JOSEP PERE PEYRO = 295

in the past. Perhaps she was the girl with whom, as a child, he shared a love of fishing for sea bream. It was an encounter that occurred years earlier, when the landscape was a different, magical place. Their attempts to recapture this romanticized past have ended in frustration. In La trobada, Peyro appears to undo, and even parody, traditional melodramatic structures. The love triangle typical of popular melodrama serves as a source of dramatic tension, but it also opens up unresolved questions. Rather than develop his plot around the sort of high moral conflict of heightened emotion that is characteristic of melodrama, Peyr6é unravels what Peter Brooks has called the “moral occult’’—that is, the hidden “domain of operative spiritual values’”—that is often imbedded in melodramatic discourse.'!? According to Peyr6’s pessimistic view, there are no spiritual values, no remnants of the sacred to be uncovered; rather, the characters and their verbal discourse appear to be motivated only by a desire to fill an empty void. QUAN ELS PAISATGES DE C/ARTIER-BRESSON

The triangular scenario of intrusions and intruders is a structure that Peyr6 would continue to explore in Quan els paisatges de CartierBresson.'® Here, Peyr6 also takes up once again the relationship between his characters and the landscape. ‘This time, the pictorial references are impressionistic, rather than expressionistic. Quan els paisatges also bears a thematic linkage with La trobada, in that it explores the effect of the presence of a woman (or, female lover) upon an established friendship between two male friends. Of all Peyrd’s texts, Quan els paisatges is perhaps the one that has enjoyed the greatest international circulation. It premiered under his own direction at the Sala Beckett in March 1995. Peyro cast himself

in the role of the friend, with Pep Salvat as the generic protagonist and Montse Peralta as the girlfriend. ‘The French translation, by Isabelle Bres, recetved staged readings in France during the 2002-2003 season, including a presentation at the Studio-Théatre of the Comédie Francaise, under the direction of Michel Didim. Additionally, Sanchis Sinisterra’s Spanish translation of the text has been performed in Buenos Aires and Cordoba, Argentina and was staged at Madrid’s Sala Cuarta Pared in 2006.'” Quan els paisatges de Cartier Bresson portrays a situation that Ley, in

his review of the production at the Beckett, called “A delicious betrayal”—“‘delicious” in the sense that the humorous undercurrent of the text combined with the poetic dimension of the dialogues and overall elegance of the mise-en-scéne to create an experience that was

296 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM tremendously appealing to audiences and critics.*° Ord6fiez even referred to the play as “The sleeper of the week.’””! The conflict, involving three characters in their thirties, centers upon the predicament of a man, known generically as E// (““He’’), who has suspicions regarding a possible romantic relationship between his girlfriend, EW/a (“She’’), and his best friend, Avwic. Uncertain as to who might have initiated the affair, he sets out to discover the truth and disentangle the threads of reality and fiction that obscure his suspected betrayal. The action takes place during the month of September and is situated on a terrace that looks west, out toward the sea. During a total of eighteen sequences, the characters look out in the direction of the audience (and, ostensibly, in the direction of the ocean) to contemplate a series of eighteen sunsets. Each scene begins just as the sun is setting and ends in darkness. According to the stage directions: L’escena representa un parell de cadires de terrassa, enfrontades al pati de butaques que se suposa que és el mar orientat a l’oest. Els tres personatges es col-locaran aixi: a l’esquerra, punt de vista de l’espectador, Ella, al centre Ell ia la dreta l’Amic. Som al mes de setembre i la nit comenga a refrescar.”? [Che stage represents a pair of patio chairs, facing the audience, which supposedly is the sea oriented toward the west. The three characters are placed as follows: to the left, according to the spectator’s point of view, She, in the center He and to the right the Friend. We are in the month of September and the nights are beginning to cool down.|

The scenic design for the production at the Beckett, by Joaquim Roy (known for his work with the Teatro Fronterizo), contained little more than two beach-type chairs, a bench, and the addition of a camera resting upon a tripod. Ignasi Morros’s lighting design invoked the sunsets through the use of a cycloramic backdrop that was well suited to the intimate, yet cavernous, space of the Beckett. The stylishly postmodern costumes, bearing the signature of noted Galician designer Adolfo Dominguez, rounded off the production with an added dimension of sleekness and sophistication.

Though pessimistic in tone, the text has an element of piercing humor and dark comedy that clearly contributed to a positive reception on the part of Barcelona audiences and critics. In his review of the production at the Beckett, Joan-Anton Benach, contrasting Quan els paisatges with La trobada, underlined the comedic dimension when he asserted, “he tragic, sordid gaze that was present in La trobada has little to do with that of a proposal that, from the second scene on pro-

7: SCENES OF MISCOMMUNICATION: JOSEP PERE PEYRO =—-.297

vokes intermittent snickers when it’s not uproarious, uncontainable laughter.’ A humorous element often emerges in the text through repetition, such as the numerous occasions in which, in her confusion, Ella asserts that Van Gogh was an expressionist painter or that Strindberg’s first name was “Albert,” rather than “August.” At the end of scene 8, the friend comments upon the circumstances of unresolved truths and lies: “I ara nosaltres sabem que ella no sap que ho sabem, 1 ella no sap que nosaltres sabem que ella no ho sap, saps qué te vull dir?’’*+ [And now we know that she doesn’t know that we know and that she doesn’t know that we know that she doesn’t know, do you know what I mean?] Though certainly humorous in tone, his commentary, filled with rhetorical twists and turns, summarizes the ironic situation of uncertain betrayal that the play portrays. Perhaps, it is not a mere coincidence that these circumstances might also be evocative of our own rapport with a postmodern reality that is always at the service of multiple perspectives and subjectivities. Yet, the situation can also be understood as a metaphor that refers to the creative process; that is, a self-referential commentary through which Peyré is able to speak about his own dramaturgy and the theater in general. The title of the play refers to the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), the celebrated French photographer whose interest in perspective and perception inspired a quest to capture through his work what he called “le moment décisif”’ (the decisive moment), a term, which was the title of his 1952 exhibition at the Musée du Louvre and which refers to the idea of encapsulating visually, within a fraction of a second, the significance of a specific scene or event. In Peyr6’s play, E//a is a photographer who is interested only in portraying sunsets with her camera. She is inspired by the work of CartierBresson—although, contrarily, he was known not for his landscapes, but for his urban scenes. Her confusion, nonetheless, is in keeping with her somewhat unpredictable, flighty disposition, and she sets out to capture a seemingly impressionist representation of the ever-changing landscape as the sun disappears beneath the horizon. She explains the process in the following way: Ja és gairebé fosc. M’agrada la fosca. A tu no? Tot aixd que fins ara véiem. AixO que era aqui, davant nostre, tot aixO que era tan clar a la nostra mi-

rada, tan real, tan definit, lentament va perdent els seus contorns i s’es-

vaiex. Ja no hi és. No és allo que semblava fa uns instants. Per aixo m’agraden les postes de sol. (Sospir.) Les meravelloses postes de sol de setembre. Les meravelloses postes de sol del meravell6s mes de setembre. M’agrada la fosca. A tu nor?

[It’s almost dark already. I like the darkness. Don’t you? Everything that we saw up until now. What was here, in front of us, all that was clear to

298 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM our eyes, so real, so defined, slowly loses its contours and fades away. It’s

no longer there. It’s not what it seemed some instants ago. ‘hat’s why I like sunsets. (S7gh.) The marvelous sunsets of September. ‘The marvelous sunsets of the marvelous month of September. I like the darkness. Don’t you? |

Like the many impressionist painters and poets before her, she is inspired by the intangible, fleeting colors, lines, and lights of an autumn sunset and by the capacity of the camera to seize an ephemeral, instantaneous glimpse of reality. Her interest in this impressionistic form of photography surfaces in the play as a multifaceted metaphor that alludes to the hazy, obscure (even opaque) clouds of darkness that shield

the uncertain truths surrounding her relationship with the friend. When the truth does reveal itself from behind the clouds, its appearance is only a momentary insinuation, emerging merely for an instant. At the end of scene 3, E// attempts to explain her photographic exploits to his friend: Ext: Gairebé exclusivament ... Només es dedica a fotografiar les postes

desol...

Amic: Nomes les postes de sol. . . Exit: Només . . . Interessant, no? Aixo li provoca sensacions. Amic: Li provoca sensacions .. . Ext: Li provoca sensacions, i l’ajuda a captar... Vol captar . . . Tot aquest

moviment extern... o intern...

Amic: Moviment.. . Ext: El moviment i l’estaticisme . . . ‘També. L’estaticisme . . . Amic: L’estaticisme .. . Ext: L’estaticisme dels colors en moviment . . . ”°

[Eii: Almost exclusively ... She only photographs sunsets . . . Amic: Only sunsets. . . Ext: Only . . . Interesting, isn’t it? It provokes sensations in her. Amic: It provokes sensations in her .. . Ext: It provokes sensations in her, and helps her to capture . . . She wants

to capture... All this external movement... or internal... Amic: Movement... Ext: The movement and the stagnation ... Also. The stagnation... Amic: The stagnation ... Ext: The stagnation of the colors in movement... ]

The characters appear to engage in a verbal game of ping-pong, thus revealing Peyrd’s awareness of the internal poetry and rhythms of colloquial speech. If EW/a is only interested in capturing sensations,

movements, and stagnation with her photography, then perhaps

7: SCENES OF MISCOMMUNICATION: JOSEP PERE PEYRO 299

Peyr6’s characters, in their verbal discourse, are in effect replicating this gesture. El/a’s photography (and that of Cartier-Bresson), consequently, becomes a metaphor that alludes metatheatrically to Peyré’s dramaturgy. With his words, he attempts to detain the movement of the landscape for a mere instant in order to produce a particular emotion. In this stasis, however, verbal language is unable to apprehend the desired sensations; instead, the words displace them. ‘The temporal

dimension of her photography, and that of Cartier-Bresson, has special resonance here, for it echoes the experience of the theater. Just as Mamet has observed that the theatrical event “must be an adoration of the evanescent, a celebration of the transient nature of individual life

(and, perhaps, through this, a glimpse at some less-transient realities),”’” Peyrd’s photographic metaphor, similarly, draws our attention to the unrepeatable, nonreproducible, ephemeral nature of the theatrical experience. As the character of E// gazes out at the transitory sce-

nery that emerges on the western horizon, he searches for hard evidence and specifics amid a series of momentary words and utterances. [he audience, likewise, searches for an unwavering truth amid fleeting images and ephemeral realities that are conjured on the stage. With Una pluja irlandesa, Peyr6é would continue to explore the hidden poetry contained in these brief instants. UNA PLUJA IRLANDESA

Perhaps the most minimalist and poetic of Peyr6’s works to date, a fascinating exercise in repetition, rhythm, and lyricism, Una pluja irlandesa is the final component of the ‘Irilogy of Miscommunication. It represents a culminating point in the triptych in that, with this piece, composed of four scenes (less than an hour in length when staged as a whole), the gap in communication between human beings reaches a point of angst-ridden intensity. Elements of comedy and tragedy are intertwined with anguish as two characters, an anonymous man and woman (E// and El/a), invoke a series of significant moments that they have shared: from their first encounter, to her abortion, to their separation. In the premiere production, under Peyro’s direction at the ‘Teatre Prado during the 1995 Sitges ‘Teatre Internacional Festival, Francesca Pifidn and Peyr6, himself, masterfully incarnated the two characters. The play was also produced in Cordoba, Argentina, under the direction of Jorge Diaz in 1998 and enjoyed a staged reading during the fall 2004 at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, where Catalunya held the prestigious position of “guest of honor.”

300 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM At the heart of the structure of Una pliyja irlandesa are four nearly identical monologues, recited by the female character. Each monologue opens each of the four scenes, which are as brief as they are captivating. Following each monologue, there is a dialogue between the woman and her lover/companion. The play is set at a table in a bar, located in an unnamed city. As the woman peers through the glass windows of the locale, which are covered with droplets of rain, she gazes voyeuristically at passersby on the street and recites her monologue. The following fragment is illustrative of her melancholic tone, which imbues the entire text with a wistful air of nostalgia: Si, aixi devia ploure a Dublin. Afora plovia ia dins estava ocupada a fer allo que més m’agradava, mirar sense ser vista. Potser sembla facil, pero no ho és, no ho és. Per fer-ho cal tenir una qualitat especial que molt poca gent té: ser del tot insubstancial, una absoluta falta de substancia. Jo la tenia. Aix6 em permetia ocupar-me de mirar sense ser vista. Igual que el fotograf, captava en la fugacitat del moment la topada amb uns personatges, un moment tinic, singular i irrepetible. ‘Tan punt l’escena s’havia format, es desfeia per compondre’n un altre.’®

[Yes, this is how it must rain in Dublin. It was raining outside and inside I was busy doing what I liked most, seeing without being seen. Perhaps it seems easy, but it’s not, it’s not. In order to do it you need to have a special quality that very few people have: be totally unsubstantial, an absolute lack

of substance. I had it. That allowed me to occupy my time with seeing without being seen. Just like a photographer, I would capture in the fleetingness of the moment the chance encounters with people, a unique moment, singular and unrepeatable. As soon as the scene had been formed, it would become undone only to compose another. |

Her reference to the Dublin rain, which is echoed in the title of the play, may call to mind for some spectators the literary Dublin of James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, John Millington Synge, or Samuel Beckett. Reality

appears to her as though it were filtered through the rain-covered panes, through the hovering mist, or through her own eyes, which are filled with tears. Her view of the city, transformed and diffused according to the play of light, color, and perspective, is much like that of an impressionist work of art. Moreover, her allusion to the photographer who aims to seize fleeting, yet unique, moments is evocative of the photographic images of Quan els paisatges de Cartier-Bresson. Peyr6

has thus created an intertextual dialogue between this play and Una pluja irlandesa.

Elements of ironic humor are interspersed with the woman’s pain,

which appears to grow deeper with each successive monologue.’?

7: SCENES OF MISCOMMUNICATION: JOSEP PERE PEYRO 301

Throughout Una pluyja irlandesa, her visual references to the exterior

world, of which she is an observer more than a participant, reveal

her interior anguish. The verbal discourse of her companion— contrastingly, more literal, superficial, and violent—brings to the surface their failure to communicate. As he puts it, “Aha... (Pausa.) Mai no whem parlat. Vivim junts, mengem junts, dormim junts .. .’° [Oh ...(Pause.) We’ve never talked about it. We live together, we eat together, we sleep together.] His words—truculent, menacing, and even insulting at times—deliver a succession of assaulting blows. ‘The violence of his expression creates a curious contrast with the poetic mood of the text, which, on the whole, contains an internal rhythm and lyrical play with repetition comparable to the structure of a minimalist musical composition. With an almost mathematical ease and adeptness, Peyr6é takes us back, again and again, to her monologue and to the Irish rain, in a gesture that becomes a metaphor for the repetitive tedium and monotony of unsuccessful or futile human relationships.

At the end of the play, there is a final reference to Dublin, but this time it is the male character who invokes the image of the Irish rain—

curiously, after he has already told her that he is capable of reading her thoughts: Ext: Si, ja és tard. (Pausa.)

Has estat mai a Dublin? (Pausa.)

No has estat mai a Dublin? (Pausa.)

Evxa: No. (Pausa.) Ext: A Dublin plou aixi.*!

[Eix: Yes, it’s already late. (Pause.)

Have you ever been to Dublin? (Pause.) You’ve never been to Dublin? (Pause.) Evia: No. (Pause.) Ext: In Dublin it rains like this.]

Perhaps, as his concluding words appear to suggest, he and she are finally beginning to communicate or connect (at least, in a telepathic sense); although, ironically, as he points out, it is too late. With Una

302 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM pluja irlandesa, Peyr6 uses a minimalist aesthetic to paint with words a

poetic portrait of the emotional void that emerges when desires are left unfulfilled.

LES PORTES DEL CEL

At the final edition of the Sitges Festival, held in June 2004, Peyr6o’s

professional trajectory appeared to come full circle as he returned to the seaside for another production. ‘This time, the centrally located beach known as Platja de la Fragata served as the setting for his play, and this time, the piece was staged during the early hours of the evening, rather than the morning (as with La trobada). Peyro’s choice of a sandy venue, however, was one of few similarities with any previous productions, for, while a strong poetic undercurrent remains, his dramaturgy takes a new turn with Les portes del cel, both politically and aesthetically. A timely, politically committed performance piece, written and directed by Peyr6, Les portes del cel speaks about the phenomenon

of clandestine trafficking of immigrants from Maghreb and SubSaharan Africa to the Iberian Peninsula and thus bears a thematic rela-

tionship to Carles Batlle’s Temptacié (2003). Peyr6 created Les portes del cel with a group of actors from Casablanca and Rabat whom he located

with the assistance of Ahmed Ghazali, a Moroccan playwright with professional ties to the Sala Beckett and La Invenci6.*? Peyr6’s spectacle was produced by La Invenci6 with the collaboration of several ad-

ditional entities: the Sitges ‘[eatre Internacional, the Mercat de les Flors, Spain’s Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y la Musica, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Instituto Cervantes of Casablanca, the Moroccan AFVIC (Amis et Familles des Victimes de I’Immigration Clandestine [Friends and Families of Victims of Clandestine Immigration]), and the Municipal Government of Sabadell. Following the premiere at Sitges, the production traveled to several points in Catalunya, including the Festival Temporada Alta 2004 in Girona, the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona, and the gardens of the Monastery of Sant Cugat del Valles. Les portes del cel is brief piece of environmental theater (a performance, like those of La Fura dels Baus, which enters into a dialogue with it’s surroundings) of approximately fifty minutes in duration, which requires the collaboration and participation of the audience. It is per-

formed in an authentic freight container, the same setting in which immigrants often hide during their journey from Morocco to Spain. Set designer Eduard Bucar and members of La Invenci6 adapted such

a container for the production, and at Sitges (where I witnessed the

7: SCENES OF MISCOMMUNICATION: JOSEP PERE PEYRO = 303

performance), it was set directly on the beach, a few steps from the shore.

After the spectators arrive at the entrance to the container, Abdel Aziz El Mountassir, in the role of guide, escorts them to a series of benches lining the perimeter of the interior space. They find themselves in a damp, dark, inhospitable place that is covered with sand and

dirt. The container can only accommodate a maximum of twentyseven spectators, and the intimate seating compels them to feel a sense of complicity with each other and with the theatrical event, in general. As they embark together upon a unique experience, the doors of the

container are abruptly closed, and the spectators find themselves in complete darkness. From this moment on, they are enveloped by the drama of the moment, converted into stowaways along with the two stowaways who are portrayed by actors Jorge Yamam and Ali El Aziz.

Sitting in the claustrophobic space of a container (a space in which immigrants have been known to die from lack of oxygen), the audience will have the opportunity to acquire a small taste of the harrowing experience, of the feelings of anguish and desperation, of the clandistine

immigrants who risk their lives in order to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. Several significant moments take place along the journey, which I

recount here in random order. The walls of the container shake and wobble, and the spectators, as a result, may have the impression that it is being transported in different directions. A police officer or customs inspector, played by El Mountassir, enters the container to survey its contents. A corner of the container is illuminated to display a stowaway, played Nwatchok Amedé, who is suspended in a tank of water. His body, fully clothed in a tracksuit, appears deformed and bloated as a result of the lighting effects, the water, and the transparent glass. The tank continues to fill, and he struggles to breathe, his body growing limp as he appears to drown. His body will remain suspended in

the water throughout the remainder of the performance. It is a disturbing reminder of his horrific struggle. ‘The container itself begins to flood with water. One of the actor-stowaways appears with explosives strapped to his chest, as though he were a suicide bomber. ‘The actors recite in Arabic a series of moving poetic prayers and passages by Saadi Yusuf of Iran and Mahmoud Darwish of Palestine, along with a text titled “Europa,” by El Mountassir. A translator, Sofia El Fakir, conveys the meaning of the poems in Catalan. ‘The musicality and lyri-

cism of the poetry contrast starkly with the severity of the circumstances. As the press packet for Les portes del cel states, the show has the intention of representing a gesture of solidarity with those who regularly

304 IN THE EYE OF THE STORM struggle to bring to public attention the harsh and brutal realities of clandestine immigration. La Invencio clearly does not pretend that a brief theatrical experience could possibly begin to approximate the terror that these immigrants face. he spectators, likewise, are not so naive as to experience a genuine sense of fear; nevertheless, the performance does create (or recreate) a series of conditions that are suffi-

ciently uncomfortable and realistic as to have the capacity to incite significant reflection with regard to the horrendous conditions (genocide, torture, war) that compel human beings to risk their lives in making such a frightening voyage. ‘The direct point of reference here is North Africa/Spain, but there are obvious correspondences with the migratory paths of other contemporary refugees and displaced peoples, such as those who have furtively traversed the border between Italy and Albania, or between the United States and Mexico. Les portes del cel, in effect, recreates a piece of a larger drama that is played out daily, throughout the world, and after such a theatrical experience, it is difficult for one to remain indifferent. Peyr6o’s theater continues to evolve in new directions, while remaining rooted in the principles of minimalist drama that he learned as a disciple of Sanchis Sinisterra. With a clear focus upon risk and experimentation, he has created with Les portes del cel a politically engaged

performance piece that maintains the purity of form and poetic dimensions that surfaced in his text-based drama. Les portes del cel is a provocative piece of intercultural theatre that is, perhaps, a sign of what his future efforts as a dramatist and director may bring.

Epilogue: New Spaces and New Visions I think that’s what has defined contemporary creation during this last decade . . . , the bewilderment of the artist in confronting the world; we don’t have answers, it’s clear that everything is a disaster but... all around the conditions are already begging for the same: Let’s be daring, let’s move beyond our bewilderment and begin to show a positive view, not in the sense of saying that all is well and fine, but let’s look for new inroads. . . . New questions. —Toni Casares, “J6venes directores en el teatro catalan”!

A CHANGING LANDSCAPE CxXTALUNYA’S EVER-CHANGING POLITICAL CLIMATE DURING THE FIRST

decade of the new millennium has left an imprint upon the Barcelona theater scene in multiple ways. In the year 2000, the Catalan parliament passed a law creating the Institut Catala de les Indtstries Culturals (ICIC) (Catalan Institute of Cultural Industries), an institution designed to engender new mechanisms for promoting Catalan theater (along with other cultural genres, such as literature, the visual arts, music, and film) and increased levels of professionalism for the theater

industry. ‘he ICIC was also created with the intention of facilitating relationships between public and private theater producers.’ Disappointingly, however, the complex network of alliances among the pub-

lic and private sectors has been unable to grapple with the financial woes and/or administrative burdens of certain longstanding theater projects, and as a result several doors have closed. In December 2002, the Teatre Malic, once the smallest member of the Barcelona alternative theater scene, located near the historic Born Market and managed by ‘Toni Rumbau and his marionette company La Fanfarra (1976), closed down after eighteen years of sustained activity. Yet another painful closure occurred in January 2006, when the “alternative” ‘Teatre Artenbrut ended twelve years of continuous activity in the Gracia district of Barcelona with its final show, a Catalan version of Moisés Kaufman’s Gross Indecency (1997).

Other impediments have emerged as a result of sheer misfortune, 305

a ie a ;

7)

ei Oy, 4 a»Yriy47 iS : a! S

24 i P)iw—s ”fy a|a

.—3

‘| y 4 > 4 \ 3 ; a! —_—_ 4 ” 4 " th: ‘, ja i