Playwrights who want to premiere a play know that the number of performers is essential for the project to move forward. Producers and programmers estimate that plays with a cast of between three and five characters tend to be viable if they receive public favor. A larger company can only be hired, nowadays, by a public theatre, as has been seen at the TNC with the thirteen performers of The Criminals, by Jordi Prat i Coll, or at the Teatre Lliure with the ten of Ifigènia, by Euripides, adapted by Albert Arribas and directed by Alicia Gorina.
At the other end, the Barcelona billboard is full of proposals, about thirty, with a single artist performing a monologue which, in many cases and according to the specialized rooms, respond to the humorous genre, along the lines of the pioneer El Club de the Comedy These days, the Borràs theater hosts, in intermittent performances, Paloma de parque, by Clara Ingold. The Mallorcan actress and singer won the Insomnia Festival and here she performs this 70-minute monologue, co-directed with Josep Orfila, about self-destruction as individuals and as a society.
Another option that is increasingly present in the programming is that of a first-rate artist, a star who is usually the headliner, who decides to face the challenge of building a monologue, not necessarily humorous, all by himself. It has rained a lot since Lola Herrera started performing Cinco horas con Mario, by Miguel Delibes. It was in 1979 when the actress premiered the monologue about the tragedy of a woman who watches over the body of her recently stabbed husband.
The path opened by, among others, the actress from Valladolid is today paved by headliners such as Victoria Luengo, Sergi López, Enric Cambray and Toni Gomila. The characteristic of these solo bets is, curiously, longevity. That is to say, if they like, the performers can retrieve these assemblies over many years intermittently.
Toni Gomila, for example, who has completed roles at Espai Texas with Acorar, has been representing it for twelve years. Enric Cambray has been performing another monumental monologue, Hamlet.01, written by Sergi Belbel from the first act of Shakespeare’s work for more than two years. In a while we will see if Victoria Luengo (read the interview here), who premiered last year’s Prima facie, by the Australian playwright Suzie Miller, and who is now presenting it at Poliorama, becomes another one of these artists faithful to a monologue for years and years.
Another phenomenon with a long record is held by Sergi López. In 2005, the actor from Vilanova i la Geltrú premiered Non solum, which he wrote with Jorge Picó. And now it’s back, in a reduced version (from two hours and ten to one hour and ten), to get to the essence. Between filming in Monegros and Morocco, we chatted with the actor about this renewed revival, which will be seen at the Poliorama theater for just five days, from June 26 to 30.
“The show is equal and different characters at the same time, because we are all the same and we are all different. Theater is research and it is making a theater in which you recognize yourself and have a need to explain things. That’s how Non solum was born”, says López. “I thought this monologue was already dead and buried, and that’s why I’m looking for something new – continues the actor-. But the Argentines from Timbre 4, at Temporada Alta, told me why not do it again, so I tried it for two days at Tinglado de Vilanova, because I wasn’t sure it hadn’t aged. I got things out of it that, even though they were iconic, were like a mushroom, they worked on the side. With a more essential show, the show takes on another dimension. The characters emerge and speak in a stronger and deeper way about how we are as people”. The actor believes that the Poliorama is one of the best theaters to perform this production there, and it was a happy coincidence that, while he was thinking about it, Anna Rosa Cisquella called him to propose it there.
Sergi López considers himself lucky: “I am lucky enough to empathize with the public and make them laugh or cry. After all these years, I have come to the conclusion that theater is necessary. Saying that theater should only be entertainment is a fascist approach. The theater has to propose things and it has to serve to create catharsis with the public”. And he considers that we are in danger: “There is a serious danger of collapse in the world. Everything is a consumer good. Capitalism has taken us so far that we are all sales agents. Culture does what it can, because it also has to sell tickets.”
In this singular review, the last note is for Andreu Buenafuente. On scattered days and until June 20, the journalist and humorist presents the radio that gave birth to me at the Victoria theater. Popular for the great monologues he gives at the beginning of his television shows, Buenafuente now climbs on stage to do a different one, lasting more than an hour. In this proposal, he reviews his experience of 40 years in the radio profession and also pays tribute to the more than one hundred years of history of Ràdio Barcelona, the radio that saw the comedian grow professionally. “There is nothing I like more than talking about the radio. It’s where I learned everything: what to do and what not to do. It’s where I have the best time”, concludes Buenafuente.