Miseria

Barcelona, with its urban and marine landscapes, can be a paradise and can also be a hell. Misery is like a desert which stretches out and erodes everyone’s lives. This piece chronicles a suicide. A song about love and life, but mainly a sharp and cutting social criticism. Miseria is a snapshot of the here and now, showing reflections, feelings and impulses. It is a cry, it is silence. It is a little bit of light when everything that surrounds you is thick fog. Life and death can be both accidental and poetic or allegorical.

There is a man standing alone on stage. There is a man standing alone on stage who feels like he's the only man in the world. We accompany him on a journey through his intimate thoughts, his memories, actions and his occasional calm. Miseria is a bitter-sweet piece which transparently exposes beauty, pain, love and death. Because my house is your house, if anyone has a house...

The play is by Queralt Riera, a graduate in stage direction and dramaturgy from the Aeolian School of Dramatic Art (Barcelona) who has been performing her works since 2017 and sometimes directing them herself on stages in Madrid and Barcelona. No love No sex, Todos, Aquí, l’amor (no es per mi, va dir Medea) and Pruna (Adrià Gual Award 2019 from the Institut del Teatre, seen at Grec 2020) are some of her stage creations. Sergi Pompermanyer directs the staging, a playwright, director and script writer who has worked on well-known series and documentaries for television. He has also written plays, such as Zowie, Àngels, Refugiats, El sexe dels objectes and Cafè.

A Grec 2021 Festival de Barcelona, Sala Fènix Produccions and Suika co-production.

With the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Deperatment of Culture, Barcelona City Council, the Ministry of Education, Culutre and Sport (INAEM) and the International University of Catalonia (IUC).

Written by: Queralt Riera Director: Sergi Pompermayer Assistant director: Mireia Aixalà Performed by: Felipe Cabezas Lighting design: Mattia Russo Sound space: Orestes Gas Audiovisual: Àngel Grisalvo (Lantonia Films) Set and costumes: Anna Chwaliszewska Technical coordination: Manel Bocero Poster image: Martí Fradera, Isabella Pintani, Gabriela Marsal Video: Àngel Grisalvo (Lantonia Films) Communication: Isabella Pintani, Gabriela Marsal Administration: Asun García Production: Isabella Pintani, Gabriela Marsal Executive production: Gabriela Marsal (Suika) Distribution: Magrana Escena Aknowledgements: Pedro Garciamejía, Guada Cejas (La Badabadoc), Tania Brenlle, Ana García, Jordi Pérez, Patrizia Barbieri Photography: Martí Fradera