Antoni Benaiges was born in 1903 into a Catalan family of rural republicans living in Montroig, Tarragona. He trained as a ‘mestre’, a teacher, and on graduating found work in a mixed school in a tiny village in Bañuelos de Bureba, Burgos. There, in a brief two years, Benaiges quietly revolutionised the lives of the… Read more »
Heavy themes of war, poverty, racial and gender violence are lightly thrown in A Man of Good Hope, a slick musical theatre production in English set in Africa and performed by Cape Town company Isango Ensemble. Based on 2014 book by white academic Jonny Steinberg, it tells the story in song, dance and narration of… Read more »
“In Cádiz where I was born there was a place I loved called Palacio de la Moda. You’d go in and there were mirrors everywhere: on the walls, on the ceiling. You drowned in the spectacle of yourself.” José Troncoso is director of La Estampida, a Spanish theatre collective that burst onto the scene eight… Read more »
The judges at Jocs Florals d’Olot in 1898 reacted in shock when they discovered the author of the prize-winning short story Infanticide was in fact a woman, Catalina Albert i Paradis. It was simply unheard of that one of youth and privilege from the pretty L’Escala in coastal Empordà (Catalonia) could be capable of broaching… Read more »
When the prestigious choreographer Marta Carrasco convinced Albert Hurtado, the charismatic zumba teacher at her local gym to cross-dress before a live audience at the TNC, how could he refuse? The result, the breezy performance piece Jo, dona. A Lili Elbe., a heartfelt tribute to Lili Elbe: a Danish landscape painter and transgender woman, and… Read more »
The Teatre Nacional de Catalunya launched its new season in dramatic weather last Saturday which seemed generated for the occasion. The theatre’s pledge to open ‘a gateway to the world’ – written in bold deep-blue letters across the entrance – gave way into something more ambitious and self-aware: that vast spacey lobby that you feel… Read more »
In March 2016 propagandists, located (according to Google Analytics) in Saint Petersburg, infiltrated my blog lookingfordrama.com. ‘Vote Trump!’ They urged on a number of posts about Catalan theatre productions. Of course it’s nice to receive any comments, but it was disconcerting that having perused my online persona (courtesy of Facebook) my unwanted guests would have… Read more »
Amidst the chaos: injustices, strikes, rabid press reports, soaring temperatures and prices, it’s hard to know what to do with the kids. Do we take them to the aquarium (of dubious ethics), the zoo (worse), a football match (potentially inciting a negative spirit of rivalry), or leave them locked in their rooms to play violent… Read more »
This Catalan adaptation of British playwright Hattie Naylor’s multilayered play Going Dark is an understated yet cosmically ambitious production that transforms the Espai Lliure into a planetarium; a claustrophobic yet mentally expansive dark space, where the wonders of the universe are projected onto a stage dressed up as moon’s surface. With significantly fewer resources than… Read more »
The circus and performing arts troupe Baró d’evel, formed by the award-winning French/Catalan duo Camille Decourtye and Blaï Mateu Trias, expands its repertoire with a smart and sophisticated production for eight human performers, one white horse and a flock of pigeons. Falaise, that premiered at Barcelona’s Grec festival in July, is the second half of… Read more »
