Sergi Belbel, imitate, play, imagine

Student of Sanchis Sinisterra and Benet i Jornet, reader of Racine, Beckett and Mamet. Belbel is the author of more than thirty theater texts; almost all of them have premiered, fourteen of which have been published in two volumes by the Punto de Vista publishing house at the Teatro Reunion (2021); It is the second compilation of his work after the one he made in 2021. In 2005, La Avispa and Selected Works title, also in two volumes. This reassembled Theater is of course not a complete theatre, but a selected theatre, since unpublished works such as Tu, abans i després remain in the drawer, and scattered fragments are not rescued in magazines, such as the monologue La nit del cigne (L’impossible). Silenci) or published in Catalan under the title En Companya d’abisme, nor any of the six collaborative works, nor the three short works written for the T de Teatre company. As Belbel notes in the introduction, the texts have been revised with some changes, which gives the book a definite print character and includes texts from today’s kaleidoscopes and lighthouses to the comedy Las rosas de la screws (the hooligans for two players, the hooligans for two players). actors and a dog) (2018).

Belbel’s internationally resounding career has overcome the initial setbacks of unsuccessful productions such as today’s Kaleidoscope and Lighthouses, establishing Caricias as one of the theater scene’s most valued writers, not only in Catalan but also in Spanish. Although in Elsa Schneider (1987) we witness the acidic process of self-destruction (life and death) of the heroes with an epilogue punctuated by absurd humor, in the stage play Tálem (marriage bed) (1990) it is still accompanied by its dramatic structure (repetition, division) and repetitive communication. With its shortage, Oulipo will have to resort to a few friends, but this time in a married couple, who will have to make a newly ordered two-by-two meter bed. by doing so.

Among the published works we can highlight Caricias (1991), which consists of eleven chained scenes showing eleven ambiguous, empty, anonymous characters who feel like victims, misunderstood, disenchanted, incapable of communicating with others (even if they allegedly love each other). ) and bound together in a pathetic microcosm (Girl: “boring girl, tour of duty, forced family reunion, bland meeting, boring menu”), disturbed by the hurtful harshness of heartbreak and doomed to navigate the predatory terrain of others’ accusations, loneliness. , contradiction, loneliness, blows and accusations (Boy: “I asked you a question and you did not answer. I don’t know how we like to waste time like this. Call me, call me, you call me almost every day and always repeat the same thing”); An exercise in introspection in human relations with a tragicomedy tone, a shameful look at hidden interiorities, a distinctive multi-faceted structure, a dominance of ellipses and verbal economy, as well as violence lurking in insignificant actions that are evidence of a deficiency. And one caress.

Dying (a moment before death) (1994) and the ineffability of death, the arbitrariness of human fate, because Belbel offers us a series of scenes in which the character dies, but later shows how the same character saves his life, just like a play from Oulipo mirrors. Belbel received the prestigious Borne and National Dramatic Literature Awards for this work. Blood (1998), on the other hand, is divided into five scenes and tells the story of the kidnapping of the wife of an important politician. The payment period is forty hours. An abandoned girl was punished without compassion as a watchman. Love and hate, fear and coldness. We learn the evolution of the kidnapping through some characters and a network of coincidences that always involve blood in one way or another.

Influenced by Eduardo de Filippo, the work titled Forasteros (family melodrama in two periods) (2003, initially titled Extranjeros) oscillates between two periods and establishes parallels and intersections between the two parts of the work, which are 40 years apart but intertwined. so that repetition becomes inevitable and the inexorable passage of time has improved nothing. A family experiences two traumatic events that coincide with the arrival of a stranger, 40 years apart, on the upstairs floor of an immigrant family, which undermines the closure of the family nucleus. The mother character says, “everything is so clean and shiny on the outside, but the inside is completely rotten and smells bad.” A broken family with a full belly and an empty heart, insults and screams on the surface, contempt and anger, pride and hypocrisy, loneliness in friendship, selfishness and jealousy, much needed and damaging money, broken promises, merciless hostility. The characters develop in the image and likeness of their parents, so time moves on but the characters don’t seem to because they repeat the same mistakes, the same attitudes, the same pain and collide with the world of the immigrants upstairs. Immigrants (first Andalusians, then foreigners) became involved with self-serving heroes, despite the fear of difference and latent distrust. Belbel masterfully handles the emotional tension and frantic tempo of the work, achieved by constant time jumps, and presents us with a work that carries echoes of Planck’s choral Time and traces of Thomas Bernhard, which moves the reader’s heart without compromise. if characters of the present (21st century) confront the turbulent past, characters of the past (20th century) show what the discouraging future will be like, and the vital pattern is repeated as something inevitable, combining memory, pain, and fear of loving. the other turns the characters into strangers. The daughter returns defeated to the family home (she is a stranger to the family), suffering from the same disease that killed her mother forty years earlier. It is the beast of irreversible time, the inevitable weight of inheritance. Likewise, Forasteros is director Ventura Pons’ third film adaptation of a work by Belbel, after Caricias y Morir.

Móvil (digital phone comedy) (2005), 28 scenes (mostly monologues), four characters talking on a mobile phone and another absent (Sonia), Sara (an abandoned housewife, 55 years old) and her daughter Rosa (30 years old) and millionaire Claudia (rich and active, 49 years old) and her son Jan (sincere and lively, 27 years old), emotional dependence and the mother-child relationship. Lives intertwined in a hotel due to an attack at the airport, heartbreak, tension, pursuit of pleasure, secrets and impulses brought under control, but Sara has the ability to rebel, turn her weakness into strength and discover the beauty of life in a moment of crisis. . The mobile phone is a mask to hide behind, like a bitter cry of paradoxical lack of communication.

In the dramatic comedy Tuscany (2007) and, according to Belbel, “the guilt of feeling happy in a crazy world”, successful architect Marc and his wife Joana spend several days in the Italian location of the title; A comedy of worries, doubts, dreamy nonsense and a touch of eroticism. In the midst of a midlife crisis, Marc tries to rekindle love and thus avoid the pain and ghosts of maturity that oppress him. According to Huerta Calvo, Belbel favors “an acidic view of contemporary society characterized by cyclical structures, syncopated dialogues, and lack of communication and loneliness on a recurring basis as fundamental pillars.” This edition is a good opportunity to enjoy an author who will take his place in the history of Spanish theater. Sergi Belbel, imitate, play, imagine.