The celebration of La Peste de Arenys de Mar incorporates numerous novelties this year, with new ideas and changes. The first big novelty will be its location, since it will be a performance of about forty-five minutes in the Plaza de la Sardana, within the grounds of the Parque de Lourdes de Arenys de Mar, with a capacity for 500 people per function.
This historical recreation show has been built from an immersive universe in a closed and delimited space, which wants to transport the spectator in Santa María de Arenys from the 16th century, as it has always been done, in a return to the past. Innovation, interaction, audiovisual format, without forgetting the current context that society is experiencing as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. That is why it has gone from a street show to an immersive experience.
Theatre, music and dance go hand in hand to create this dreamlike format that can be seen on August 12, 13 and 15, with tickets on sale for the different sessions at the Teatre Principal https://teatreprincipal.cat/. The show will also transform the contents to more abstract ones, since the plague was a pandemic of the 16th century in a current society that has lived since 2020 in another pandemic, that of Covid-19.
The Pesta Association will put on a show guided by a common thread with several scenes that will end with Sant Roc saving Arenys from the pestilence. For this representation there is an artistic and technical body of more than 100 people who altruistically will make this recreation a reality.
However, the street spectacle is not lost. The streets of Arenys de Mar will experience the arrival of the pestilence with an event renamed “Plague News”. On Monday, August 15, in the afternoon, the news of the plague throughout Catalonia reaches Santa Maria de Arenys. The Junta del Morbo, with jurors and morberos, will tour the streets of the town to control the epidemic. The town of Santa Maria de Arenys will relive the hell it suffered in the middle of the 16th century, and will seek medical and medicinal help.
