New opportunity to see one of last season's successes. Coralina, la serventa amorosa returns to La Biblioteca theater next Tuesday, September 12, to continue making the audience laugh with the tools of a classic comedy, but executed through modern characters who make unexpected decisions. The play, written by Carlo Goldoni in the 18th century, is the latest production by La Perla 29, very different from the last time it was seen in Barcelona, at the Teatre Lliure, with a more dramatic text. Stretching the celebration of the theater company's twentieth anniversary a bit, it can be seen again for two long weeks, until September 29, at the Raval theater. Starting in February, it will go on tour throughout Catalonia.
Directed by Oriol Broggi, actress Mireia Aixalà is in charge of weaving the plot as Coralina, the servant of young Florindo. She accompanies him in his exile after his father, the malleable Ottavio, marries Beatrice, an evil stepmother who wants to take the inheritance from the firstborn and benefit her own son, Lelio, who is not very clever. Outside the tense family nucleus, a friend of Ottavio, the masterful Pantalone, tries to make him see how badly he is treating his son. Coincidentally, he has a young and attractive daughter who will end up getting involved in an unexpected love triangle. The extensive cast is completed by Joan Arqué Solà, Xavier Boada, Rosa Gàmiz, Clara de Ramon, Xavier Ruano, Sergi Torrecilla, Ireneu Tranis, Ramon Vila and Jaume Viñas.
"All the characters have a lot of entity, but the women are the ones who pull the strings and the men are dragged along and let themselves be manipulated," says Aixalà. "The protagonist is a woman and a maid. In addition, she is the most intelligent, always scheming, but she does it for the good of others, not for self-interest, without being foolish either. And she is not at the service of her master, as usually happens in classic texts, she even scolds him," says Aixalà about the character she plays with grace. The actress is also fascinated by her antagonist, Beatrice, "a strong woman who looks out for herself, even if she is a bit evil, this is classic Goldoni." Ottavio's new wife may be the least modern of all the characters, with a vision that has been repeated too much about how evil stepmothers are.
Goldoni lays his cards on the table from the very beginning and, from there, entangles the characters in comical situations and minor conflicts, with Coralina as the architect of most of them. It starts with easy jokes, eliciting laughter from a few, until the audience melts into a kind of collective catharsis, laughing their heads off with characters who have led them wherever they wanted. "It's very well written, it's all very mathematical. First, the characters are introduced, with Coralina taking her time to enter the scene, and then the tone gradually rises as the play progresses," says Aixalà.
It was not easy for the cast to fit into the mechanisms Goldoni articulated centuries ago. "It's not the typical Commedia dell'arte but it's not a modern comedy either, so it was hard for us to find the tone. We were either over the top or too low," recalls Aixalà. The fresh translation by Oriol Broggi and Ramon Vila helped, as well as lightening a text designed to be performed outdoors for many hours, repeating scenes in case someone had been absent at some point.
Goldoni lays his cards on the table from the very beginning and entangles the characters in minor conflicts, with Coralina always involvedAnd, most importantly, the story remains current. "When we read it, we thought, will this be interesting? Despite being written in 18th-century Venice, spectators connect a lot, which means that humans must not have changed too much," the actress argues. In fact, not only do laughter invade the audience, but the public is encouraged to answer the questions that the characters throw into the air, they even live intensely what happens to them, loudly lamenting their fate, from a pitiful "nooooo" to a forceful "you're fucked(you're screwed). "It fascinates me that people get so into the play and disconnect from their lives. It reminds me of when we do family theater," she confesses.
An easy comedy, not developed without precision, in which simplicity is also transferred to the costumes and the stage, with minimal elements so as not to distract the eye and suggest, as La Perla 29 always likes. Regarding the costumes, a detail, in the rehearsals, the theater not only served to recite and find the tone, but also became a workshop, in which the costumes were hand-woven, adapting to the gestures of each character. A handmade way of working that is always present in the Barcelona company.