One hundred years after its inauguration as a cooperative building, the work of architect Rafael Masó, inaugurated in 1923, shines again in Canet de Mar (Maresme). A large number of adversities have delayed for 23 years the rehabilitation of what during the seventies was the epicenter of a great cultural, political and protest explosion in Catalonia. Yesterday, after a parade through the streets of the town, the legendary Odeon café-theater reopened, the birthplace of the Comediants theater group and within whose walls the members of La Trinca created the Sis Hores de Cançó. The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, attended the reopening.
The construction of the two-story building began in 1920. It featured a ground floor supported by a Catalan volta. Initially, it was the headquarters of a consumer cooperative in which an assembly hall was already set up. The inexorable deterioration led to a young protest movement to face its restoration, which had, among others, the support of La Trinca, by giving up the revenue from the bars of the first Sis Hores de Cançó and Comediants, which since 1970 was established in Canet de Mar. “The Odeon has been the birthplace of Comediants, they started out staying in private homes and stayed,” recalls Quirze Planet, partner of the Odeon Platform Cultural Cooperative, whose association has promoted the reactivation of the cultural center.
At the beginning of the seventies, the Odeon was the headquarters of an intense protest movement in which artists such as Pi de la Serra, Lluís Llach and Raimon paraded. Later, the Dagoll Dagom arrived to accompany Comediants and artists who over time have achieved worldwide fame, such as Núria Espert or Els Joglars. “Thanks to Comediants, the Odeon offered programming never seen before in Catalonia,” recalls Planet, who was also the first president of the cooperative.
All this movement made it possible to guarantee not only the continuity of the emblematic theater and its café show, whose fame transcended the borders of Catalonia, but also led to the evolution of groups such as the Companyia Elèctrica Dharma, which produced L’oucomballa, or the Comediants con Plou themselves. i fa sol in 1979 or its definitive emergence with Sol Solet together with incipient artists such as Tortell Poltrona or Claret Papiol.
The cultural bustle in the small café theater was constant at that time. Decorated in the bohemian style of modernist establishments, with wooden chairs, a piano and marble tables supported by wrought iron structures, it was the headquarters in 1977 of the Assemblea de Catalunya that organized, in the midst of late Francoism, the freedom of expression campaign when Els Joglars were convicted in 1977 for insulting state forces.
Until the first half of the eighties, the Odeon generated a constant cultural and protest ferment. Pau Riba, La Vella Dixieland, Toti Soler, Marina Rossell, Huapachà Combo, Maria del Mar Bonet, and even Xavier Cugat performed on its stage, as David Estrada details in a book published for the occasion by the City Council. Until 1981, more than 500 shows had been scheduled at the Odeon. But unfortunately it fell into disuse and abandonment caused the roof to collapse, so it was closed for seven years, until in 2000 those men and women who had spent their adolescence at the Odeon began to plan its recovery.
The renovation works began in 2007 and were interrupted by the tragic accident that cost the life of a worker. The center fell into ostracism. “It was a mess, but we were able to save something, as part of photographer Eugeni Forcano’s fund,” Planet recalls. Until yesterday, public institutions will have invested around 6 million.
Comediants has taken the reins again. The Canet de Mar City Council has hired company member Jaume Bernardet for two years to start the machinery that will return the center to its splendor, if possible offering residence spaces for new creators. “The programming will have a marked Comediants accent,” says Bernardet, with shows such as Papers de la guerra by the Castells brothers or that by Montse Colomer, “who directed the choreography of the 1992 Olympic Games.”
The new era of the Odeon will allow it to host all types of shows, since it has a new multipurpose room with capacity for 300 people, with retractable seats for the evolution of dance or audiovisual companies such as the Companyia Elèctrica Dharma, “which will exhibit its documentary”, Xavier Dotras with his new album, the Orquestra de Cambra de l’Empordà, with the Concerto a Tempo d’Umore, “the people of Maldà with the Paella dels Dijous or Estimadíssims malvats”, lists the artistic director, Bernardet, who recognizes that “when my contract ends, in 2025, I would like to celebrate it with a Comediants show, those of us who still like to act,” he ironically.
Apart from the stable programming, the new Odeon adds a new space on the ground floor that will allow us to recover “that spirit of the café theater” that the mayor, Pere Xirau, describes, “with small-format works and exhibitions” that will harmonize with the modern restaurant . In short, re-emerge from the remote pole of cultural attraction that it was.
