The Public | Madách Nemzetközi Színházi Találkozó

Federico Garcia Lorca

The Public 18

A coproduction by the Teatro de La Abadía and the National Theatre of Catalonia

Director: Alex Rigola

In Spanish with Hungarian subtitles

1 hours 20 minutes, without breaks.

Very few directors have dared to put this play by Federico Garcia Lorca on stage. It is perhaps his most enigmatic, surreal, scandalous, and revolutionary work, as well as a pithy embodiment of his artistic creed. Lorca attacks norms, mediocrity, and intellectual narrow-mindedness, as well as art and theatre that have been crippled by convention. In contrast, he presents a “theatre under the sands,” which speaks to one’s innermost spaces—spaces the existence of which we are hesitant to admit even to ourselves—and forbidden, often shamefully concealed truths.

Alex Rigola and his theatre company excavate this theatre from the sands and make it sparkle, presenting us with a complete theatre in which text, gesture, music, and the audience itself as a fundamental partner in the creation of the work form a unit. The director does not force an interpretation of the play, but rather—remaining true to Lorca’s text and always being attentive to preserve the two threads, the personal and the social—raises the fundamental questions: what are the uses and functions of the theatre? What do we expect of the theatre? The real audience, or “public,” the anonymous protagonist of the play and a metaphor for society, becomes a part of the production.

We recommend the production for people 18 years of age and older.

Színészek/Actors: Nao Albet, Jesús Barranco, David Boceta, Juan Codina, Oscar de la Fuente, Laia Duran, Irene Escolar, María Herranz, Jaime Lorente, David Luque, Pau Roca, Jorge Varandela, Nacho Vera, Guillermo Weickert

Díszlettervező/Set designer: Max Glaenzel, Fény/Lighting designer: Carlos Marquerie, Jelmez/Costumes: Silvia Delagneau, Hangtervező/Sound designer: Nao Albet, Koreográfus/Choreographer: Pastor Bobo Laia Duran, Dramaturg/Dramaturge: Eleonora Herder, Rendezőasszisztens/Assistant to the director: Carlota Ferrer

Director

Alex Rigola

Gobbi Hilda Stage

Alex Rigola

Born in Barcelona, in 1969, Àlex Rigola has staged four shows at La Abadía: Husbands and Wives, based on Woody Allen’s film script, which has been touring for two years, Richard Dresser’s Better Days, O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, and Jarry’s King Ubu.

From 2003 to 2011, he directed the Teatre Lliure, one of the main theatres of Barcelona, where he staged, among many other shows, Cat on a hot tin Roof, Peter Morgan’s Nixon-Frost, Tom Stoppard’s Rock & Roll (awarded by the Critics of Barcelona, for the best show and best actress), 2666, after the huge homonymous novel by Roberto Bolaño (several awards: Premio de la Crítica de Barcelona, Premi Terenci Moix and two Premios Max), Richard III and Julius Ceasar, Brecht’s Saint Joan of the Stockyards, Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, and European House (prologue to ‘Hamlet’ without words).

Rigola also directed the opera The flying Dutchman, coproduction between the Liceu (Barcelona) and the Teatro Real (Madrid), and after finishing his period at the Lliure he worked as a free lancer. We may highlight his shows Coriolanus by Shakespeare,Tragedy, a visual poem based on Nietzsche’s Birth of tragedy, and Police Rat, based on a short story by Roberto Bolaño.

Many of his shows have been performed abroad: in Australia, Austria, Bosnia, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rusia, Taiwan and Venezuela.

Recenty he directed two shows in Germany: his reencounter with Bolaño’s 2666 at the Schaubühne (Berlin) and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus.

Since 2010, Rigola directs the theatre section of the Biennale of Venice.

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