Do you know those moments when you are so absolutely fed up with society, with everyday problems, with people and with yourself, that you would go to a desert island?
This is the visceral, human and universal premise of Bouvetøya, a piece written by Ivan Benet, Cristina Genebat, Julio Manrique and Sergi Pompermayer. The play was born within the framework of the Temporada Alta festival in 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, but now it has been rewritten and updated to be premiered at the Teatre Lliure on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.
Bouvetøya places us in a not-too-distant future, in the year 2030, just after having overcome a second major crisis. We are presented with a dystopian reality characterized by great social control after the rise to power of authoritarian parties (whose precise ideology is not detailed, but whose direct consequences we suffer).
As a result of this second pandemic and the totalitarian rise, the cultural sector has been mutilated: theaters have been closed and many have not reopened. In this scenario, a group of performing arts professionals tries to resist as best they can on the margins of an anesthetized society.
The deconstruction of autofiction
The main success of the proposal is that it plays with the current trend of autofiction to, immediately afterwards, completely deconstruct it. The play begins by using the conventions of autofiction: the performers present themselves on stage calling each other by their own names, alluding to real people in their environment and demonstrating the friendship and affection they have after so many years sharing the stage.
This closeness generates a pact of truth with the audience. But the brilliant thing is that the play takes all these mechanisms of autofiction and introduces them into a story of pure fiction, in a beautiful and theatricalized tale.
Autofiction functions as an anchor to solid ground. It continuously connects us with the physical and emotional truth of the actors so that the viewer puts "their feet on the ground" while the plot they tell us is tinged with mythology, poetry and magic.
A story told from stillness
The staging is surprising: it opts for the typical nakedness of autofiction to present a natural space that is reduced to its minimum expression (barely a table and some chairs). The most striking thing about the stage direction is that, for more than half of the play, the actors and actresses remain still in their seats.
If you don't stop to analyze it as a spectator, you barely notice it because the performance captivates you. The performers build and personify the scenes without moving from their spot, a style that reminded me a lot of the classic figure of the storyteller. All the dramatic action rests on the word, the rhythm of the interpretation, and the mental projection of images.
The cast, made up of Mireia Aixalà, Damien Bazin, Ivan Benet, Cristina Genebat, Xavier Ricart, Marc Rodríguez, and Andrew Tarbet, embodies a group of professional colleagues who, suddenly, decide to embark on an adventure that, from the outside, may seem irrational, but with which, deep down, we all connect: the need to go in search of a remote island that will be our salvation.
The work of Marc Rodríguez stands out for its humor, naturalness, and freshness. He plays a relatable character who manages to relax the atmosphere and give it a touch of reality. His character provides the earthly, relatable, and humorous counterpoint that oxygenates the density of the more poetic metaphors.
The map of dreams
The first part of Bouvetøya shows the social context of suffocation and the accumulation of fatigue experienced by the protagonists. We see how each of the friends, gradually, allows themselves to be convinced to embark on a journey to an absurd destination: the most remote and inaccessible island on the planet, a floating piece of ice in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean.
The island is described as a frozen, inhospitable, small, and insignificant territory at first glance, but one that possesses an ancestral and mysterious memory. The journey to this island becomes a journey into the very fabric of dreams. The island is surrounded by gloom and fog, which gives it a dreamlike atmosphere that moves on the boundary between the real and the unreal.
They are not simply going to a geographical point: they are going to visit the world of dreams while being within the world of the living and the awake. Embarking on this journey implies breaking the boundary between the dreamed and the real, to find that magical and mysterious space and, thus, be able to connect with themselves and regain faith in who they are and what they do.
A love song to theater
In the end, marked by an unreal, dreamed, impossible and possible night at the same time, the group manages to break the barriers of reality and climb to the highest point of the island. Afterwards, they undertake the way back. It is very intelligent that the work avoids a triumphant or ecstatic resolution: the characters do not return transformed or miraculously saved; they simply return in peace.
Upon returning to their reality, they decide to physically bury a time capsule for future generations in the heart of their own ancient, solitary, small and inhospitable island. And it is at that moment when the metaphor takes on its full meaning: that remote island is nothing other than the theater.
This whole journey has been nothing more than a beautiful declaration of love for the theater. It reminds us of the need for theater as a space of salvation, as that reduced plot where we can still breathe, share moments of truth and reconnect.
The theater as that deserted, ancient and sacred island to which we can always go when everything else around us crumbles.