A magnificent drama of historical memory

A good text, three magnificent performers and an impressive direction. Despite a title that is not very clarifying, quite the opposite, the work of Òscar Constantí Bosch about the theft of babies in Spain –from the Francoist prisons to democracy– is at the same time an irrefutable denunciation of political inaction, a recommended revision of historical memory and a magnificent exaltation of the struggle of some mothers to find their descendants again.

We knew nothing about Òscar Constantí Bosch until now. He is a social educator with extensive experience and trajectory who has poured his humanistic and ideological commitment into the theatre within the so-called inclusive theatre and who in 2016 already co-wrote the monologue Sembla que rigui with Mont Plans. Spurred by the testimony of a mother who was a victim of the thefts by Doctor Eduardo Vela in Madrid in the seventies and eighties and based on a sufficiently clarifying, and also terrifying, documentary basis, Constantí raises an emotional drama full of life and hope, sprinkled with humor and with a good portrait of the characters: that of a mother, Adelina (Montse Esteve), who addresses Lola (Mont Plans), a veteran communist fighter whose son was also taken away after the Civil War, to ask her for help in the presence of Eduardo (Manel Barceló), an old man who was adopted as a child by a family from Madrid.

A direct language and a well-played temporal game with which Xavier Albertí offers one of the best directions of recent times. Three characters at a table, with the script they can consult, and three or four white fluorescent lights. Nothing more. And nothing else is needed. Everything is credible and exciting, even some slip-ups by the veteran performers. Mont Plans is wonderfully serious with a penetrating gaze that expresses all the pain she carries, as well as a Montse Esteve of bitter serenity. Manel Barceló nails the role of a grateful adopted son and a fighting lawyer. It is a pity about the final scene, which ratifies what we had already suspected and which in any case was better left in the air. A show that moves you. Highly recommended.