Before putting down the sails with the umpteenth revival of Mar i cel, the most famous production of Dagoll Dagom, the company directed by Anna Rosa Cisquella, with Joan Lluís Bozzo and Miquel Periel, wanted to produce one last great musical. The joy that happens, based on a story by Santiago Rusiñol, premiered with great success at the Poliorama in March and has now returned to be until January 28.
Directed by Marc Rosich, with music by Andreu Gallén and choreography by Ariadna Peya, the success of the musical also lies in the protagonist, Àngels Gonyalons, the Barcelona actress who has just turned 60 and who has returned to the company with which she triumphed in the first montage of Sea and Sky.
How does he manage to play this double leading role, the mayor of the town and the head of the artists’ company, which is so demanding in all disciplines?
I have done very hard things, like Memory, when I was 28, or Chicago, when I was 35, when I weighed 51 kilos and couldn’t gain a single gram. I think the body has memory, I have an athletic build like my father’s, I am long and I like to move, and that helps: I can’t win many medals.
So, she didn’t do anything when they called her for this musical?
Yes, I prepared to return, because people told me how could I do this now, but I don’t think: I’m doing it and that’s it. It is true that now it hurts here or it hurts there, but those of us who go on stage have a very high pain threshold, because we have to perform certain heroic acts, given that the performance cannot be suspended: we have no substitutes. But the stage also keeps you fit; Just by singing you already do a lot of sit-ups.
There are eight shows per week.
Exactly, and that’s why we can’t give one hundred percent every time. We have to manage our strength at 80% to be able to finish the week in good interpretive conditions, because it is a very demanding show, no matter how resistant you are. But we must not make the public suffer and we must pretend that what we do is easy. When I was little I didn’t like the circus because I suffered.
Maria Molins replaced her on the tour.
Yes, because I had a commitment with Sergi Belbel to perform The Party, but everything had already been discussed. I also have to say that I am very much a puppeteer and I like going to gigs more than clocking in every day at the office, although Poliorama is a wonderful office.
How do you work with all these young people?
The most wonderful thing is the human quality of the company, the self-demand and professionalism they demonstrate. Because we are difficult and, sometimes, with young people, the elderly sin of arrogance, and young people also suffer from youthful arrogance.
How come after so many years he returns to Dagoll Dagom?
I come back because they offer it to me. The first person who told me about this project was Andreu Gallén, who and Marc Rosich had wanted to work with me for a long time. And I am honored, because they are younger people and I believe that with transversality we are all enriched. They said that when they wrote it they were thinking of me and that they would surely have the complicity of Dagoll Dagom, and I would be delighted to put myself in his hands.
But I had to sing and dance again.
I hadn’t done it for nine years: the last musical was Sister Act in 2014. But the choreographies are by Ariadna Peya, which is another code. I discovered her in Spring Awakening and I thought that what she did, which is choreographing by telling things, is still difficult for us and I could learn a lot. And so it has been.
We said that the role he plays is double.
I like working with Marc Rosich because he is genuine. And I like genuine people because they are new, they refresh you, they force you to reset yourself and they make you go to places that I had not gone to. They told me that there were two characters and that, furthermore, they would meet in a scene. I thought about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and they told me that I didn’t have to worry, because we would do it with the essence of the camera noir and the actor. And I had a great time.
Aren’t you wrong about these two characters?
Look, luckily we have a councilor who is a genius, Tere Navarro, with a lot of professional experience, and during the first month of office I had to ask her every time where she came in and what character she was playing. “Now what do I do, as a clown or as a mayor?” And she, always with a smile, told me.
What has evolved since a musical like Mar i cel?
First of all, 35 years have passed. They were more lyrical musicals, with an epic, like The Phantom of the Opera, and now they draw on other sources, like Hamilton, but in L’alegria que passa a text from more than a hundred years ago is recovered that unfortunately has this validity. But something new has been done based on Rusiñol, which includes references to his other works and which ends up being a tribute.
Everything happens in a gray town.
Yes, it is true that it is gray, but there is also a message of hope in the young characters, who connect very well with the young audience, with a real feminism, not at all instructive. The conclusion, without being pretentious, is that as a society we talk a lot, but we don’t move.
And how does he manage to shine the way he does on stage?
I go out on stage to give it my all, I can’t conceive of working any other way, and I love challenges. It’s true that I didn’t expect to do something like this and I really like singing and dancing: I find it very therapeutic, even though it makes me suffer. I’ve been working on this for 43 years, it’s time for me to do it right.
Catalan version, here
