"Instead of thinking about having children I am locked up for three weeks living at the Lliure"

BarcelonaInflatable mattresses, messy pillows, open suitcases and scattered clothes have been filling the lobby of the Teatre Lliure de Gràcia for a week. The entrance windows are covered with cardboard, and anyone who doesn't know what's going on might think that one of Barcelona's most iconic venues has been occupied. Behind those responsible for this action is the Col·lectiu Miserable, led by director and playwright Miquel Mas de Fiol. When the director of the Lliure, Julio Manrique, proposed that he revisit La bella Helena as a tribute to the iconic 1979 show to celebrate the theater's 50th anniversary, Mas de Fiol and the entire company decided to go all out and camp in the hall. From this process will come Tot fent 'La bella Helena', which will be performed from September 22 to October 18 at the Lliure de Gràcia.

"We are living here to pay tribute to the cooperative spirit of that era and to great figures like Anna Lizaran and Lluís Homar. We want to recover that cooperative spirit, where everyone did everything and things were decided collectively. In an individualistic world like today's, that is being lost," explains Mas de Fiol. The same idea serves as a starting point for the show: a group of nostalgic people who think that current theater is a disaster will pull out all the stops to recover the essence of the 70s and stage Offenbach's operetta. Gerard Franch will have the challenge of embodying the character of Helena—originally played by Anna Lizaran—, and Lluís Oliver will be Paris. The cast also features Mel Salvatierra and Carme Milán as actresses and, on the musical side, Sergi Boqué, Jordi Cornudella and Núria Vinyals. "As they get into it, they will see that with today's contradictions it is very difficult to do La bella Helena", says the director, who adds that they have built a show "with a lot of criticism and also a lot of passion", since what moves them, above all, is finding the love for the craft again.

This Beautiful Helen is the result, in part, of a generational impasse. "We are at a point, at 30 years old, where everyone decides to go their own way. We see people leaving the theater, who can't take it anymore, who are not happy. And we are still here, pushing forward. My friends are starting to have houses and I, instead of thinking about having children, am locked up for three weeks living at the Lliure," reflects Mas de Fiol. This dramaturgical approach connects with his previous works, especially the Trilogy of the millennial condition, which was also marked by the experiences of his generation. "This is an experience that, most likely, we will never live through again. It is so immersive that a part of us is, truly, on stage. We play characters that are ourselves in a hyperbolic and caricatured way," states Milán.

Recovering the 1979 balcony

Manrique's commission was to "take La bella Helena and do whatever they wanted with it", in the director's own words, but the company did not want to move completely away from the original show. Above all, this intention is perceived in the musical direction, led by Pablo Ruz. "I have relied heavily on the original score to extract ideas, arrange them, and change their context. I have fled from the aesthetics of the French operetta and have moved closer to an arrangement from the beginning of the 20th century," points out Ruz. The score passes through the sieve of a current interpretation that, according to the director, gives it "a re-reading without losing respect for the original".

The set design, signed by Mireia Sintes, gives a clear nod to the 1979 one by Fabià Puigserver. At that time, before the theatre's renovation, the hall had three balconies and Puigserver built a fourth one so that the stage space would be circular. Sintes has recovered this fourth balcony on the same wall, where only a door had remained. "We have taken this 1979 layout and reconstructed it," says the set designer. The show will also contain scenographic elements under construction with the idea that the company is in the process of putting up the play and with the objective, according to Sintes, "of highlighting all the trades related to the theatre, from making curtains to painting them and using machinery".