“In musicals, love can do everything, it’s a maxim that you can’t even question.” This is how forceful Daniel Anglès, director of the Condal, was when Jumon Erra and Daniela Feixas began working on the text of the musical comedy Un amor particular, which premieres this Thursday at the Paral·lel theater.
Xavier is an executive from the upper part of Barcelona, ??with high purchasing power and who has had it all easy, but he reaches a point in his life where his wife tells him that if he doesn’t make her laugh, she will leave him . This is where Ada comes in, an actress who lives in the Raval and earns a living doing all kinds of jobs, such as private theater lessons.
Xavi Navarro and Mara Jiménez are the performers who bring these two characters to life, who belong to different worlds but who, despite everything, will end up connecting. Jiménez feels very identified with Ada: “I share many things with the character. There is a connection and an attraction and on the other hand there are his principles and his way of thinking”.
And it is precisely here that both characters will have to learn to manage this connection, which overturns not only their social origins, but also their mentalities.
With them on stage, there are also Andrea Mir and Albert Solà, who are the musicians who play live. “We included the musicians in the dramaturgy, as neighbors of the performers, so that they are on stage and can interact”, explains Erra, who remembers that it was the author of the music, Miquel Tejada, who defended it “because the result it was like a kind of pop concert”. Anglés emphasizes that, in addition, “the songs have their own entity”.
The surprise comes when Jumon Erra, who in addition to being a co-author is the one who directs this “comedy with a musical twist”, as they define it, confesses where the initial idea comes from: “The origin of the story is based on a student of mine, that to save his marriage he asked me to teach him how to make him laugh”. Erra does not feel comfortable explaining this, he admits that he has not yet invited that former student to the premiere, but that it seems that the couple is still together.
He denies, however, that clichés have been used in the opposition between the two Barcelonas. “Rather, we have worked on the prejudices of people who are different from us”, explains the director. For the movement, the assembly has Gara Roda, who has brought the latest trends from New York and ended up making them dance more than was originally planned.
A particular love is a bet on the musical created in Catalan by Focus and the Grec Festival in Barcelona, ??which will be performed at the Condal theater until August 6.
