Social networks are extremes: they either lift a character or push them to fall off the cliff. This is what happens to the protagonist of Cacophony, the play by Molly Taylor that Anna Serrano premieres at the Sala Beckett (until February 25).
“In London, I was surprised how a group of friends talked calmly about a rapist footballer”, explains Serrano with surprise. In the British capital, the director also found a piece of contemporary theater that captured her.
“Cacophony tells the story of a girl, Abi, who is at a feminist demonstration against this rapist player, and in this mani there is an attack. She posts a write-up, which immediately goes viral. At a given moment, it is discovered that she has not been completely honest, and this causes the situation to be turned upside down and destroyed by the same networks that have taken off”.
In the original, the work starts from the rape committed by a footballer from Belfast, but in the translation and version made by Oriol Puig Grau with Serrano, the action has been moved to Barcelona, ??”as if it happened here ”, and the footballer is no one known.
The director adds that Taylor had been commissioned to write something based on Jon Ronson’s book Humillación en las redes. “The journalist talks about a concept that I really like: the democratization of justice”.
“It’s a very engaging story, like a thriller, which you discover little by little as it goes. The scenes are very short and to the point”, describes Clara de Ramon, the actress who stars in this story, with Gemma Martínez, Mariona Pagès, Sandra Pujol Torrent, Chelis Quinzá, Albert Salazar and Clara Sans.
In the upstairs room of the Beckett are the Las Huecas Collective who set up shop there. Resident company this season, the actresses were very pleasantly surprised with the previous production, Those Who Shouldn’t Die. and now they are releasing De l’amistat.
The co-production of Las Huecas with Temporada Alta and Monte Isla precisely explores the friendship that unites this group of female artists, but bound by a working and creative relationship.
“The show was born from the desire to talk about friendship, based on our relationship as friends while doing theater – declares Núria Coromines-. Our friendship is linked to work and creation, but we wanted it to be universal. We thought it was the most honest way.”
“We didn’t want to do mysticism or politicking – he continues – and that’s why we went to the rehearsal room. The mess begins with the metatheatrical dimension. We have made it a tragicomedy, putting into play all the positive and negative aspects of friendship. We didn’t want to glorify friendship, but also show its shit. There are current discourses that present friendship as something idyllic, but if people love each other they also get hurt. The fact of being friends and working also creates tensions”.
Andrea Pellejero adds: “To contextualize where this piece is located, we must say that we imagine a triptych, three perspectives around friendship. There is this show; then there is a performative conference with Marta Echaves, Algo de amor; and the third is an audiovisual piece, which consisted of recording the entire creation process of De l’amistat. We’ll see if it ends up being a documentary or what comes of it.”
Júlia Barbany emphasizes that “the great innovation of this show is Las Huecas working with other actresses”, who are, in addition to the aforementioned, Esmeralda Colette, Núria Dalmau, Agnès Jabbour, Blanca Javaloy and Laura Roig. Until February 18, a proposal that will surely not leave anyone indifferent.
