"If Fassbinder saw this show, he would go crazy"

BarcelonaWhen defining the stage director Rakel Camacho, Josep Maria Pou (director of the Romea Theatre) says she is "one of the most promising of recent years", especially for her ability "to perform somersaults on ancient texts and try to make spectators discover new things, suitable for today's extreme life rhythms". Nominated for the Max awards with Fuenteovejuna (2025), Camacho has been characterized by adapting authors such as Francisco Nieva, Federico García Lorca, and Roberto Bolaño for the theatre. Last year, the director dared to tackle The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, in a production that arrives this Tuesday at the Romea Theatre and will be performed there until May 24.

The show, in Spanish, stars Ana Torrent, who embodies the iconic character of Petra von Kant, a successful designer who has just separated from her husband. To approach her love story with Karin, a young woman of humble origins who is quite interested, Camacho has opted for "explosive, disturbing, intense and suffocating" staging, says Torrent. With this aesthetic decision, the director seeks to distance herself as much as possible from the film directed by Fassbinder himself and released in 1972, which was also an adaptation of the play that the German author had presented in 1971. "Rakel wanted to make a distanced and symbolic melodrama. They share loneliness and bitterness with the film, but this version is made from rage and hatred. It has nothing to do with that slow-paced, low-key, beautifully shot and delicate film," emphasizes the actress.

Rebeca Matellán, who plays the character of Karin, expresses herself in the same vein. "Rakel's proposal is very expressive, full of color and with music that envelops a very specific universe," says Matellán. From her point of view, the play "speaks of the complexity of human relationships" under the premise that no sentimental relationship can ever be equitable. "There will always be someone who will have power over the other, and surely that person will be the one who loves less within the couple," emphasizes the actress, and Torrent adds: "Fassbinder was accused of hating women, but he denied it. He only wanted to show that, when we reach situations of power, we end up having the same behaviors as men, and we generate a lot of harm and pain".

Among the changes the play includes compared to the film is the incorporation of the protagonist's mother, played by María Luisa San José. "Fassbinder wrote a drama, but we are making a visual spectacle. It's surprising, because it has nothing to do with the film. If Fassbinder saw this show, he would go crazy," says the performer, who describes her character as "a bourgeois, selfish, and scorned woman, but with a corner where motherhood still weighs on her."

Five toxic relationships

The cast of the play is completed with the characters of Maribel Vitar, who embodies the protagonist's friend and confidante, and Julia Monje, who takes on the role of Petra's secretary, a woman who practically lives enslaved under her yoke. "Each character in this show represents a toxic relationship. It falls to me to embody love through submission. It's a choice she makes freely," Monje defends. The secretary is omnipresent in the story, "a shadow that sees and hears everything" and who will suffer Petra's downfall in her own flesh. Through all these women, the show offers a stylized portrait of romantic heartbreak, power relations, and the toxic need for external validation in a purely feminine universe that, according to the actresses, is still relevant today.