Over the years they have built a solid group, where everyone is transparent, they know each other's virtues and flaws… dinner is presented as always, lively, full of laughter, full of camaraderie… Until they decide to play. If the mobile is the little box where we keep everything… let's make everything visible. No secrets. We have nothing to hide.
The mobiles are placed in a bowl, in the middle of the table. And they decide that they will read all messages, however they arrive. Calls will be put on speakerphone. There is nothing to hide.
“I’d never seen you with those earrings”
The moon will hide behind an eclipse. Friendship, perhaps too
The mobile game begins with messages and calls that show friends that no one is what they seem. That everyone wears a mask. That everyone has secrets they need to keep well hidden. The slaughter splashes everyone.
Meanwhile, the moon begins to disappear. The night grows dark. And darkness fills everything. The stage and the friendship.
A good production that arrives in Barcelona
David Selvas has made good use of Paolo Genovese's text. The production, well adapted to Barcelona, seems to have been written. Llàtzer Garcia's adaptation is a success.
The three couples show different types of social success: the lawyers, the doctor and the psychologist, the veterinarian and the entrepreneurial taxi driver… and, next to them, the single friend, without a partner, without a job. Pep Carrión's costume design and characterization is a good element to situate who is who. Without any of the characters opening their mouths, we could identify who is who and who is whose partner. A very good characterization job.
Alejandro Andújar's set design is very efficient and, moreover, it places us very well in the type of family that owns the dining room where the dinner takes place. It's not just a set design, it's a declaration of intent.
Good interpretation and acting direction
The performers, very well directed by David Selvas, maintain the rhythm of the play and, at no point, exaggerate or overact. They are a group of friends who meet for dinner and we see them through the balcony. They laugh, chat, interrupt each other, argue... and they do it in a way that everything seems natural. There is chemistry between them.
All of them, without exception, do a very good job: Marta Bayarri, Biel Duran, Eduard Farelo, Júlia Molins, Albert Prat, Vanessa Segura and Cristian Valencia. But... yes, there is a but... if we had to highlight one, we would highlight Biel Duran who manages to make his character very tender without ever falling into ridicule.
Perfect Strangers is a comedy that makes you laugh a lot. And when you've laughed, ask yourselves... what would you do? Would you dare to make your mobile phone public? A comedy that reminds us that, when the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger. In this production, everyone looks at the finger and they will only see the moon in the photo they will take of it.