Toni Casares, director of the Sala Beckett, confesses that he was moved when he read Pol Guasch’s novel Napalm al cor (Anagrama 2021 prize), so when he found out that a student from the Theater Institute a workshop, he was interested. The student is Guillem Sánchez Garcia, who is now directing the theatrical version made by Oriol Puig Grau.
The challenge seems gigantic, because there is nothing theatrical about Guasch’s novel. “It is a difficult and very suggestive text, with strength and contemporaneity, which shows a lot of knowledge of today’s world”, declares Casares.
But what is Napalm at the heart of, asks the former student now director. “Love seems to be the first answer, but it is about many things, such as language, family, politics, violence… In the dramaturgical proposal we wanted to keep this open and multiple reading, and not close the history”.
Puig Grau continues: “In all the theatrical adaptation work, it was necessary to keep the author’s words and bring them to the stage. What we have done is that the protagonist, who is the one who tells the story, does not appear on the scene. The protagonist is the audience and the other characters accompany him, talking to him. This is very different from the novel”. It’s the way to keep the unknowns about who the protagonist is, like the novel does.
On stage, Roser Batalla in the role of the dead mother, who believes that “we are lacking in talking to ourselves, and this play can help us”, Montse Morillo, Marc Domingo and Joel Cojal, who has made the whole journey with the director since that first workshop at the Theater Institute.
Sala Beckett has a unique way of celebrating Christmas and combines this premiere, co-produced with Magrana Escena and Raül Perales, with a production by Velvet Events and Teatro Circo Price in Madrid. It is about the particular tribute that the director of the circus, María Folguera as playwright, and the Rhum clown troupe
Folguera invited Joan Arqué and his company to create this circus tribute to Picasso, on the condition that there was a playwright; and he returned the invitation, so that a feminist playwright, who has always worked with female historical characters, had to face “the myth, a totemic figure”, she declares. “It was unavoidable not to address the figure in question today. He is pure 20th century and the women who accompany him at every moment also explain the character. The facts are enough.”
Jordi Martínez is Picasso and the other characters in Rhum
Picasso, king, monster and clown has been built as an altarpiece with three scenes. “Picasso was a predator and it is impossible to separate work and biography. But I don’t believe in cancellation; we have to find a way to dialogue with culture over the centuries”, concludes Folguera.