Pedro Calderón de la Barca (Madrid 1600 – 1681) poet, playwright, Roman Catholic priest and soldier was an all-round kinda guy. A contemporary of the painter Diego Velázquez and the writer Miguel de Cervantes (creator of madcap adventurer Don Quixote), his life ended with that of a period of Spanish history called the Golden Age, a time… Read more »
Author: Alx Phillips
REVIEW: Dispara / Agafa Tresor / Repeteix dir. Josep Maria Mestres
Seven interconnected mini-plays, selected and reshuffled from the 16 that comprise Shoot / Get Treasure / Repeat, bring coherence and resonance to Mark Ravenhill‘s satirical text, that explores the effects of war on our personal relationships and public lives. Directed by Josep Maria Mestres and staged at Barcelona’s Teatre Lliure, Dispara / Agafa Tresor / Repeteix is an unflinching, funny and… Read more »
REVIEW: Los Hijos se han Dormido, dir. Daniel Veronese
Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull (1896), a quietly unsettling “comedy in four acts”, is pepped up in Argentinian director Daniel Veronese‘s abridged Spanish version, Los Hijos Se Han Dormido. The setting is rural Russia, where a group of ‘artists’ – some past their best, others frustrated with their future, a third lot not able to enjoy their… Read more »
REVIEW: Aventura! T de Teatre dir. Alfredo Sanzol
0 0 1 405 2312 19 5 2712 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:JA;} Six colleagues own a company in Barcelona. The company is… Read more »
REVIEW: Ivan i els Gossos (Ivan and the Dogs)
0 0 1 40 229 1 1 268 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:JA;} A Catalan version of Ivan and the Dogs (Ivan i… Read more »
REVIEW: MCBTH (Macbeth) dir. Àlex Rigola
Àlex Rigola’s now slightly notorious MCBTH (Macbeth) (in Catalan) has already disturbed many audience members, though perhaps not in the way that the director intended. Peppered with visual references from ‘popular culture’, (although the term, like the culture, tends to be imposed upon us), there is a carefully cultivated cheapness about the play – from its… Read more »
REVIEW – El Montaplatos (The Dumb Waiter) Animalario
A “free interpretation” of Harold Pinter’s classic play The Dumb Waiter sticks to the original text but reinterprets the playwright’s famous pauses, filling those sinister silences with action. Spanish theatre troupe Animalario, directed by Andrés Lima, turns up the volume on Pinter’s puzzling play, seating the audience on two sides of the stage while its… Read more »
REVIEW: Oleanna by David Mamet – dir. David Selvas
David Mamet’s Oleanna, a Catalan version of which is on at Barcelona’s Teatre Romea until December 2nd, is an intense, clever and, at times, tough play that deals with issues of political correctness, and trust in authority figures and systems. The 1992 piece, the title of which refers to a utopian society invented in a 19th century… Read more »
REVIEW: Jordi Casanovas – Els Millors Ocasions
Jordi Casanovas is the award-winning author of play Els Millors Ocasions (The Good Times) which was staged at his little Sala Flyhard theatre near Sants (Barcelona). Directed by Ferran Utzet, the play is a darkly comic example of Catalan noir. Set in a men’s toilet in a train station, Alonso is the TV journalist who is handcuffed to a… Read more »
REVIEW: The Master and Margarita – Complicite / Simon McBurney
0 0 1 144 821 6 1 964 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:JA;} Like being sucked into a massive time-travelling Google Earth then shuttled… Read more »