When we think of a road, we think of the landscape blurring through the window, the music that accompanies us on trips, the adventure and freedom breathed with every kilometer traveled. And, as Carlota Subirós says, all these figures are "paired with a kind of strange nihilism that makes nothing make sense, except the act of moving forward itself."
La Ruta turns 15 and, to celebrate, they have premiered an homonymous play at the Teatre Akadèmia, a play that places us in the middle of a route that has now become completely useless: a road that leads to an abandoned quarry. And it is on this path of strangeness and forced pause where the three characters of this proposal written by Lluïsa Cunillé meet. The playwright wrote this play especially for the company in 2019, but it has been now, due to the 15th anniversary, that La Ruta has wanted to stage it.
A town, a house, and a road that leads nowhere
We find ourselves inside a village house. Two men are having a drink while talking about anything. The atmosphere is strange: although the image seems very ordinary and natural, the truth is that the atmosphere breathed is neither ordinary nor natural. Something is happening, but we don't know what it is. Two men who seem stuck in life, without any clear objective, without haste, without explanation. Two men who share a few weeks in that house, but we don't quite know what relationship unites them and why this feeling of strangeness exists all the time.
Then, information explodes: Eduard (Albert Prat), the owner's son, has received a death threat and that's why he wanted to isolate himself in the village. But he didn't want to go alone and, for that reason, he asked Carles (Sergi Torrecilla) to accompany him, despite not having a very close or very friendly relationship. Carles, however, decides to accompany him on this peculiar getaway to nature. A third character enters the scene, Víctor (Alberto Díaz), a man who lives in the village, who knows the family slightly and who is looking for work because, since the quarry closed, he has no steady job. The three are the protagonists of La Ruta, a play that presents us with characters who are searching for themselves in an inhospitable and desolate village.
A disturbing and tense atmosphere
The direction of Carlota Subirós has opted to create a space where strangeness is the main protagonist. We don't know for sure what is happening, but we know something is happening. The relationship between the three characters is uncomfortable, as if broken, a relationship that moves on another plane that has little to do with the real world. This universe of past memories and future uncertainty is what captures the entire work and surrounds the characters at all times.
The stage design created by Bibiana Puigdefàbregas is very well executed. The house, despite showing that village essence, has a different counterpoint with paintings with avant-garde touches and wall colors that enhance this entanglement where the characters find themselves: a painting of different colors that mix, blend, and create irregular and unstable textures. Like the characters we see on stage.
Silence and stillness for a confusing work
We know that Lluïsa Cunillé opts for works where silences say more than words, where subtext has more weight than text, and where the message is intertwined with the characters' actions. She is not a literal playwright, and this is evident in this proposal. But, on this occasion, she has erred too much on the side of this enigmatic writing and has created a story that raises too many unanswered questions. Throughout the plot, we witness the opening of many unknowns: who they are, what they do, what is happening to them, why they act as they do..., questions that are never resolved. The viewer must be prepared to, at the end of the play, give it the meaning they wish or have received; the problem is that the message is diffuse and too hidden.
Carlota Subirós defends Cunillé's text in the following way:
"La ruta" is a text that does not resolve many of the enigmas it poses. Cunillé's writing once again manages to be both extraordinarily clear and extraordinarily evasive. It is up to us, as readers or spectators of the piece, to intuit what beats behind the words, in the air of the silences, in the sparkle of the gazes. And, if we do, we will surely glimpse and recognize some of our most intimate and universal experiences, treated with a singular mixture of strength and delicacy.
However, this ultimate intention of finding our most intimate and universal experiences is not seen on stage. I understand that the will of the proposal was to let the silences speak more than the text, that the weight of the drama was more important than the action itself, but I believe it has been a failed experiment. The feeling at the end of the play is one of maximum strangeness and not knowing very well what you have seen.
Enigmatic characters
The will on the part of the technical team to create this metaphorical force means that the direction of actors has opted for interpretations that move in a somewhat ambiguous terrain. It is hard to believe that the dialogues presented to us can be real in life, that the relationships projected can actually happen. This weakens verisimilitude and makes the scenes a bit cold and distant.
Nevertheless, the cast of actors competently defends the text and the characters. The atmosphere of mystery and stillness is present at all times, and the latent tension between the characters is evident in both words and gestures. However, all the expectations that the play builds end up resolving in a certain anticlimax.
In the synopsis of the play, we are told that the protagonists are "crossed by silences, enigmas, wounds and universal doubts, while time advances and forces them to face an essential question: what path have I taken so far, and what remains for me to travel?". But, certainly, at no point in the proposal are these "universal doubts" seen, much less that the question they ask themselves is what path remains for them to travel. The only character to whom we can find a little of this dramatic intention is Eduard, but the other two characters go completely unnoticed and trapped by the atmosphere of strangeness that surrounds the entire play.
I understand that the intention of the artistic team was to create a work full of hidden intentions, universal enigmas and meaningful evasions. But, the result seen on stage does not fulfill this intention. We find a play that has a very flat rhythm, characters that could well be the same, forced interpretations and a story that, with so many enigmas, ends up being an enigma in itself.
La Ruta is one of the most beloved and acclaimed companies in our theater. Behind them, they accumulate very successful works such as El llarg dinar de Nadal by Thornton Wilder or Cúbit, by Josep Maria Miró. On this occasion, the proposal created by Lluïsa Cunillé follows the reins of her style: projecting questions, betting on silence, and disconcerting the audience. A singular, very particular theater that always generates debate. This time has been no exception either.