Barcelona surrenders to Tricicle's 40 years

Finally, I have been able to visit the exhibition dedicated to Tricicle at Palau Robert. I was really looking forward to it. The exhibition reviews four decades of the Barcelona theater group and its silent humor. The truth is that Tricicle Clic does not disappoint, thanks in large part to the skill of architect Juli Capella, who curated the exhibition, whose first impact for the visitor is the giant chair used in the show Sit, from 2002, with three mannequins with the masks that the actors used in Terrrific ten years earlier.

As it could not be otherwise, the journey through the 40 years of the group's history begins with the already immortal gag of Soy un truhan, soy un señor, in which the trio performs a hilarious mime to Julio Iglesias' song. I remember as if it were yesterday how one night in 1983 they blew up in an Un, dos, tres, responda otra vez, the mythical contest created by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador for Televisión Española. Since then, this gag has become part of a collective imaginary of humor that has escaped the hands of its authors to become public heritage, like Martes y Trece's empanadilla and the way Eugenio and Chiquito de la Calzada tell jokes.

That historic night, some 22 million astonished spectators burst out laughing at what they saw on their televisions, and Tricicle's career took off overnight. Until then, their audience was limited to those who fit in venues like El Llantiol. They only increased that audience when they participated in the closing of the 1992 Olympic Games. Few, including new generations who did not witness that phenomenon live, have since resisted imitating Tricicle's gestures when they hear Soy un truhan, soy un señor.

The exhibition honors the golden chapter that Paco Mir, Joan Gràcia, and Carles Sans have written for Barcelona theater, inventing a new humorous language. Tricicle Clic delves into their 10 great shows, with videos and the exhibition of original objects and costumes, which Capella organizes in thematic nativity scenes for each production. Thus, the public walks through the atrezzos of Manicòmic, Exit, Slastic, Terrrific, Entretres, Tricicle 20, Sit, Garrick, Bits and Hits. Among the collection of mythical objects from their career, the public can admire the ring and boxing gloves from Slastic; the chainsaw and the Texas massacre costume of Carles Sans in Terrrific, and the LED suit from Bits, restored for the occasion and which lights up as visitors pass by.

Now that data information is in vogue, the exhibition also exploits it. Thus, after visiting the Palau Robert, we know that Tricicle has performed 6,196 shows, which have been distributed in 450 theaters in 20 countries and seen by 4,231,656 people. And an unprecedented fact: the group's audience has laughed an average of every eight seconds, totaling 17.7 trillion laughs in four decades. A good indicator.

Tricicle was born on November 1, 1979, when its members were still students at the Institut del Teatre. After performing in the street and alternative spaces, in 1982 they entered the professional circuit with the premiere of their show Manicòmic at Sala Villarroel. A year later, their explosion occurred in Un, dos tres and from then on their career was almost dizzying. In 1984, they premiered Exit, with which they began to perform outside the country. Slastic, in 1986, was their definitive consolidation. In 2020, they retired from the stage.

Although they no longer perform, it will take a long time for them to stop doing so in the public's memory. The exhibition includes the following words from Chico Ibáñez Serrador from when they performed in his contest with the Julio Iglesias gag: "I remember that, when I saw the rehearsal that Tricicle did on the set, I was certain that these three guys would go very far." Indeed, the mythical director was prophetic.

I recommend visiting the exhibition, a great and well-deserved tribute from Barcelona to Tricicle.