The performance dates of La plaça del diamant have changed for logistical reasons on the Montjuïc mountain.To guarantee the technical quality of the show, as well as the mobility in the area, we are forced to change the performance dates to July 13 and 16 at the same time.
Theatre director Carlota Subirós has once said about Mercè Rodoreda that one of the author's great merits was knowing how to accept the trauma of exile caused by the civil war and make it useful. And indeed, it was while in exile in Geneva that Mercè Rodoreda dreamed up the novel now being brought to the stage. La plaça del Diamant [The Time of the Doves] is not only one of the best-known Catalan novels; it is also one of 20th century Europe’s essential works and a universal creation. The novel portrays the experiences of a working-class woman in the Barcelona neighbourhood of Gràcia, during the Second Republic, the war and the misery of Franco's regime. The protagonist has so much weight in this production that she is played by not one, but eleven actresses of different ages and profiles, in a kind of scenic and feminine kaleidoscope that reveals nuance and shows us contrasts in Natàlia's life, while also alluding to our own lives and those of our mothers and our grandmothers. Because, how are women's experiences transmitted and transformed from one generation to the next? A contemporary perspective and live music performed by the composer Clara Aguilar are some of the other key points in a show that is a real theatrical challenge. We are presented with the universal experience of a woman, from distress and near madness to the recognition of her own identity and the acceptance of the present.
In addition to the piece Amor, Fe Esperança (Grec 2005), Carlota Subirós also created another production featuring this author at the Grec Festival in Barcelona: Rodoreda. Retrat imaginari, a personal approach to the writer through her texts, which could be seen during the Rodoreda Year (Grec 2008). The director is one of the essential names in Catalan directing and playwriting, although since the beginning of her theatrical career she has never ceased translating. She has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya and of the artistic direction team of the Teatre Lliure and was one of the founders (today she is a collaborator) of La Perla 29. Her staging of La plaça del Diamant takes place in the same year that the sound experimentation collective cabosanroque is also presenting a production inspired by another of the author's texts, the compilation of stories Viatges i flors.
A production from the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya and the Grec 2023 Festival Barcelona.
At the representation of this show on July 16 (10 pm), there will be an audio-description and accompaniment service.
Directed by: Carlota Subirós. Adaptation and playwriting: Carlota Subirós, Ferran Dordal. Playwriter: Ferran Dordal. Set: Max Glaenzel. Costumes: Marta Rafa Lighting: Carlos Marquerie. Sound: Damien Bazin. Musical composition and live music: Clara Aguilar. Movement: Cecilia Colacrai. Characterizacion: Imma Capell. Director assistance: Erik Forsber. Set assistance: Paula González. Costumes assistance: Alba Paituví. Lighting assistance: Laura Clos “Closca”. Cast: Clara Aguilar (live music), Lurdes Barba, Màrcia Cisteró, Montse Esteve, Paula Jornet, Vicenta Ndongo, Neus Pàmies, Anna Pérez Moya, Alba Pujol, Vanessa Segura, Yolanda Sey. Trainee student MUET (Màster Universitari d’Estudis Teatrals) Mariona Hauf. Trainee student ESAD (Escola Superior d'Art Dramàtic): Elisabet Rovira. Photography: David Ruano.
