'Permafrost' arrives at the theater: "It is an unclassifiable work"

BarcelonaAt the first presentation of the novel Permagel (Club Editor, 2018), by Eva Baltasar, there was practically no one. "It was a devastating event. Afterwards, the four of us who were there went to dinner," explains journalist Natza Farré, who was in charge of hosting that event. Eight years later, the novel has become an editorial phenomenon and has gone beyond the literary field: Espai Texas is premiering the theatrical adaptation of the book directed by Victoria Szpunberg and starring Maria Rodríguez Soto. The show is a co-production by Dagoll Dagom – the company's latest – and Barc, and can be seen until June 28. Permagel recounts the story of a woman attached to reading and sex who, through her thoughts and reality, delves into lesbian desire, suicide, and motherhood. "It's an uncomfortable comedy, an unclassifiable work. It has a lucid and playful pessimism at the same time and contains high doses of pain that connect with our present," states Szpunberg.

Since the theatrical adaptation was launched, Eva Baltasar took a step aside and left the story in the hands of Szpunberg and Albert Pijuan, with whom the director and playwright often works. "My work is already done. I am amazed that, from that work, another one now appears," highlights Baltasar, who celebrates the success of Permagel because it allowed her to dedicate herself more to writing and "meet new characters". On stage, the story takes the form of a monologue, and Rodríguez Soto plays the protagonist, but also other characters such as the mother, the sister, the niece, and the lovers. "She is a woman very far from me, but it has been easy for me to embody her. When there is a very powerful text, the score flows and allows you to play," points out the actress.

Szpunberg and Rodríguez Soto already worked together on La marca preferida de las hermanas Clausman (2010 and 2019), the actress's second professional work. "When Anna Rosa Cisquella [co-producer of Dagoll Dagom] proposed that I do Permagel, I made the only condition that Maria interpret it. She is an actress who combines technical solidity with a lot of emotion, and that is difficult to find," says the director, who arrives at the Texas stage after triumphing with La tercera fuga at the Teatre Nacional last season and receiving the National Prize for Dramatic Literature.

The family, uncomfortable and hostile

To bring the novel to the stage, Szpunberg and Pijuan have changed its structure –"We have redone it architecturally", they say– and have focused on the themes and landscapes they have considered most interesting. "We could have done a virtuoso exercise reciting the book, but that was not our intention. We have made a selection of the material and have focused on how the story represents the family as a mirror of an uncomfortable and hostile social structure", emphasizes Szpunberg. The novel contains a muscular black humor –which they have maintained– and is written in a magnetic and vibrant Catalan. "Eva writes in a very different way from mine, with an oral quality that is very pleasing. I have connected with it in a very unconscious and human way", points out Szpunberg.

The staging takes place in a completely white space, a creation by Paula González Infante that simultaneously appeals to a hospital, a sheet of paper, the layer of permafrost, and the protagonist's mind. "We wanted to create an apparently austere space but with significant poetic weight and that contained a certain coldness. This way, we contrast the container with an interpretation that plays with the narrative," points out the director. From her point of view, transforming Permagel into theatre is important for the culture of our country: "Eva Baltasar is a profoundly contemporary voice, one that challenges citizens and is worth staging".