Director Ferran Utzet He has a commendable career behind him, although curiously his projects have never been premiered at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya or at the Lliure, the two largest publicly funded theaters in Catalonia. The new montage of him, ‘Unes abraçades insufferably llargues’, will serve to publicize in Barcelona Ivan Viripayev (Irkutsk, Siberia, 1974), one of the most interesting voices in contemporary theater who renounced Russian citizenship after obtaining Polish citizenship and resides in Warsaw. “It is a very curious work,” highlights Utzet, who knows well the space of La Perla 29 in the Biblioteca de Catalunya where the work opens this Wednesday. It is the same place where she triumphed with ‘Sopa de pollastre amb ordi’.
Viripaiev, an award-winning playwright, actor and director who also works in the world of cinema, likes to play with the codes of theater. He has constructed the work as if it were a score. Its protagonists are four dissatisfied characters between 30 and 40 years old. Charlie and Monica are a couple. Amy is Charlie and Krystof’s ex, a Berlin resident traveling to New York. The action pivots between Europe and the US and takes place in a few days. During the hour and a half that the function laststhe play dive deep into the human beingin the concerns of the contemporary citizen in the midst of the hustle and bustle of a hyper-accelerated world.
The stories intersect in this stark fable what portrays the existential emptiness. The characters assume several dimensions: they are narrators and also protagonists of the action. More than representing what happens, they tell it. The weight falls on the word. “Just start, on the first page there is a wedding, an infidelity and an abortion“, advances Utzet. The structure of the work is very special. It combines external incidents and internal dialogue. And everything is narrated in the present, except for a time jump at the beginning.
soul theater
‘Unes abraçades insufferably llargues’ (2014) portrays how hard it is to assume new stages in life through people whose existence is complicated by the lack of a solid spiritual foundation. Utzet presents the protagonists in a very naked way, in an empty space where light and projections play a key role with an Italian-style stage placed very close to the viewer. “It’s a very intimate theater and requires having the audience close because it goes straight to the soul,” says the director.
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Actors Paula Malia, Alba Pujol, Martí Salvat Morin and Joan Solé Martí They have entered the game. “Despite having a very limited form, the work leaves you with a great poetic and abstract space so that you can contribute things,” declares Pujol. The world of the unconscious runs through the work deeply. “There is a whole world of symbols,” adds the actress who addressed the issue of the loss of her father in ‘Aquest pais no descobert que no deixa tornar de les seves borderes de la cap dels seus voyagers de ella’. Death is also one of the themes of Viripayev’s piece. “It is the definitive change that we have to face, talking about it is also a way of treating and valuing life.”
Along with the protagonists on stage is always Jordi Busquets Rovira, regular collaborator of Quimi Portet and Albert Pla, who recreates environments and emotional arcs with his electric guitar. His chords create atmospheres, reinforce the word and the emotion. “The music connects the most earthly of the work with the most magical,” says Utzet. All the melodies are original. “I use non-conclusive, rather ambiguous, repetitive motifs to create soundscapes, dystopian environments or non-places“, explains the composer, who alternates between pop and theater, where he has worked, among others, as head of the sound space for ‘Instrumental’, an adaptation of the work by James Rhodes that premiered at the Lliure.