Àngels Gonyalons gives voice to the mistreated women of Víctor Català

On the eve of Sant Narcís, actress Àngels Gonyalons offered at the Teatre de Salt an excellent dramatized reading of short stories by Caterina Albert, as part of the Temporada Alta program, in co-production with the Classics Festival of Barcelona. Four stories by the writer from L'Escala, known by the pseudonym Víctor Català, are truly poignant, with touches of humor but very harsh and striking, of an impressive modernity that denounces without mincing words the sexism and violence of patriarchal society. They are short stories from different collections about the lives of women in small rural towns at the turn of the 20th century, with forced marriages, rapes, and murders. The poet Blanca Llum Vidal was in charge of choosing the stories and selecting some fragments, and Sergi Belbel signs the direction, intelligently guiding Gonyalons' reading, who was very dedicated and communicative.

The first story, L'amoreta d'en Piu, portrays with irony and malice the greed of a young man who, after courting a young maid with the hope of benefiting from the fortune she could inherit from her mistress, ends up marrying the rich woman directly. The second, titled La Pepa, recounts the cruel destiny of a woman condemned to marry the man who had raped her, living a whole life unhappy and submissive. The third, named Parricide, narrates in graphic detail the murder of Lena at the hands of her lover, which triggers a false accusation against her husband, who spent the night drunk beside the corpse, without the young son knowing how to prove his father's innocence. Finally, Gonyalons closed the evening with Prismatic Dialogue, a mocking conversation between two men about the female condition, which certifies the reasons why it is better for women not to get married.

Gonyalons reads them with highly accredited interpretive quality, which keeps the audience attentive from beginning to end. The proposal does not aim to turn the stories into a staged play, since they are eminently narrative texts, with extraordinary lexical richness, featuring forms of old Catalan and traits of the Empordà dialect. For this reason, the actress, with minimal scenography, recites them word for word, looking at the text, with voice inflections, perfect diction, and modulations of rhythm and intensity that further increase the vividness of Víctor Català's writing. In the dialogue parts, Gonyalons dramatizes the voices of the protagonists and the audience can imagine the story as if they had it right in front of them. A great actress telling the stories of one of the great writers of Catalan literature. On November 4th and 5th it arrives at the Frederic Marès Museum in Barcelona. It is very much worth it.