The Teatre Nacional de Catalunya kicks off the season of the Sala Petita with the premiere of El Cadell, the new play written and directed by Josep Maria Miró. It is an in-house production directly commissioned by the artistic direction of the TNC, led by Carme Portaceli, which will be on display from September 30 to November 1.
Josep Maria Miró, National Prize for Dramatic Literature and one of the most international Catalan voices, returns to the TNC, the house that saw him succeed with works such as Fum or Temps salvatge. In El Cadell, he will delve into a universe linked to the land and that speaks about aspects such as heritage, identity, power relations, and the cracks in gender roles.
A rural, contemporary, and Catalan tragedy
Miró once again sets his work in the rural world from which he comes. As the author himself explains, the continuity or destruction of heritage is a central theme that runs through the history of Catalan theater and has been addressed by authors he admires such as Santiago Rusiñol, Víctor Català, or Josep Maria Benet i Jornet.
The action takes place in a farmhouse which, in fact, is also one of the characters in the proposal (played by Marc Tarrida). Tarrida himself explained at the press conference that "Even though it is a house, it is a space that transmits voice. It is a narrator that accompanies, that explains and that shows the memory of the stones." The house as a living architecture that conditions and governs the existence of its inhabitants from 1900 to the present day.
Miró presents a contemporary and Catalan rural tragedy, where we will find oracles, a marked destiny, and a family very close to the audience. The walls of the farmhouse cease to be physical elements to become spaces charged with emotion, fears, and "ghosts." The author explained that "Those of us who come from a rural world know that farmhouses also have many ghosts (...) I believe they exist and that they are wounds of memory."
El Cadell: the weight of family heritage
The title of the work refers to the heir, a figure subjected from birth to strict codes to preserve heritage and avoid any deviation from the norm. In this sense, the proposal also offers a study of the construction of masculinity, as well as its fragilities and cracks. Actor Marc Tarrida takes on the challenge of interpreting the three male characters of the saga (the father, the son, and the grandson), avoiding the cliché of the alpha male of the countryside. The grandson will be, precisely, the one who tries to combat the weight of generations to build his own identity.
But, as Miró explained, the work pays tribute to the figure of women (mothers, sisters, and, very especially, aunts), since, thanks to them, farmhouses have remained standing. Women who, despite being pillars in history, do not have their own name: we know them by the appellations men give them: the male characters do have their own names, but the seven actresses (Mercè Arànega, Rosa Renom, Àurea Màrquez, Lurdes Barba, Alba Pujol, and Roberto G. Alonso) are called exclusively by appellations or "words" such as La Garsa, La Fura, La Incerta, or La Pètals. A detail that aims to reflect the violence that women have experienced, and continue to experience, in a world made, designed, and created by men.
A work that transcends the space-time convention
In the scenic section, the team has avoided carrying out a naturalistic or realistic reconstruction. Set designer Alejandro Andújar has designed a "theatrical artifact" based on a black box where the characters inhabit an unconventional space and time, as if they were part of a fixed photograph of memory. This commitment has posed a technical challenge in costume and lighting, as all figures move under the same chromatic pattern in black, forcing to illuminate "black on black."
The musical composition is by Xavier Albertí and features the live performance of the Cobla Ciutat de Girona, which contributes Catalan personality and identity. As for movement, Roberto G. Alonso has proposed an essentialist spatial conception (without conventional choreographies) that seeks fluidity and harmony in the dialogue of bodies with architecture.
At the text level, great work has also been done to recover the living orality of rural Catalan, avoiding folklorization to offer a rich, direct, and expressive language.
On the occasion of the premiere of the show, the TNC has edited the text of the piece within its official theater collection, with a prologue by the Doctor in Art History Sergio Fuentes Milà. The volume will be available at the lobby box office starting September 30, for only 5 euros.