My Verdaguer

There are a thousand ways to evaluate a theatrical show that gathers us around the bonfire of heritage, but mine ---who knows if the most spontaneous and elemental--- is the ability for a sung text to help me rush to the library and thus re-encounter or discover an author. Well, here is one of these examples, because as soon as the monologue Sum Vermis by Teatermacher Ferran Dordal and actor Albert Prat finished, taking advantage of the European schedule of the proposal in question, I ran like crazy to the Ateneu library to borrow copies of Flors del Calvari, En defensa pròpia and Al Cel (in the Docta Casa we do things as God commands, and the three books are volumes curated by my dear Narcís Garolera). Now it would not be necessary to say that these are some of the masterpieces of our Mossèncinto; or perhaps we should, because this monologue is, in a way, about the distance that exists between the myth of the letter, founder of the Catalan land, and our persistent ignorance of its gènit.

The promoters of the Teatres del Farró promised that in their spaces ---La Gleva and La Fàbrica--- we would see texts of literary and scenic excellence without too many concessions to the gallery. Now we can say that they are people of their word, as demonstrated by this biographical review of our national poet and the fact of titling it in the least commercial way possible, Sum Vermis, in honor of the homonymous poem found almost at the end of Flors del Calvari. No joking with these verses, my dear readers: "Escombrau mes petjades en l'altura;/ ja no hi faré més nosa, la pobresa/ serà lo meu tresor, serà l'oprobi/ lo meu ergull; les penes ma delícia". Abandoned by the patron who had covered him with honors and money, defamed as an exorcist unable to say mass normally, exiled from his beloved Barcelona, ​​Verdaguer spends his last years defending himself from the bastards and flagellating his flesh according to the dictates of the Imitatio Christi. To exalt someone and then destroy them is a very Catalan thing, and this flagellating ourselves with the pains of the damned usually makes us run with pleasure.

But anem a pams, I'm getting too lyrical. This is a pretty well-crafted one man show; Ferran Dordal knows how to weave very well the transition from an anecdote that links him to his actor in relation to Verdaguer to launch us into a biographical journey that goes from the glorification to the decline of the poet. Under an apparent lightness, here a good job of biographical-textual documentation about the great Jacint is surprising, and the playwright-director has the delicacy to make the spectator proud with the texts of his founding father while also taking the opportunity to mock the imposted pride of the tribe and that curious habit of exalting figures of whom we have not the slightest idea. Usually, monologues make me supremely lazy and when I see an actor trying to sympathize with the audience (even more so, if accompanied by a little guitar) I feel like embedding both picarols into a switch. But I dare say that Albert Prat is the best actor of his generation and has the delicacy to speak our language like a saint and to act like a scoundrel with that distracted air of his that makes us fall in love.

While listening to the actor Prat recite the texts where Verdaguer protects himself by attacking ignominy, I thought about how foolish we are to claim intellectual dignity through topical (and undoubtedly venerable!) pieces like J'accuse while we could show off the homemade product of En defensa pròpia which, along with Cinto's travel literature, is one of the wildest and most modern things ever written in our Catalan language. It's somewhat amusing that Dordal and Prat survive the mortal leap of transforming Verdaguer's biblical dignity into a certain thuggish pride of a crooner in a rock version, who explains very well that the only moral obligation of a writer is only to believe and have faith; also that, in turn, this country of ours has a certain tendency to label as crazy anyone who does not adapt to the prevailing norm. The recited word moves like silk in the wind, aided by an austere but diabolical space by Silvia Delagneau and refined lighting by Marc Salicrú. Prat will get better at delivering the long speeches every day as the show runs, and I hope it tours the country like a mobile library.

Sum Vermis will be at La Fàbrica theater until January 4, and it would be worthwhile for fellow citizens to rush to see it, well aware that ---by the grace of European time--- when they leave they will have to run to the nearest library or bookstore. I have returned to Verdaguer, to my Verdaguer, once again; "A la vida o al cor quelcom li prenen/les ones que se'n van;/si no tinc res, les ones que ara vénen, digau-me, ¿què voldran?"