The decline of Europe makes for a good theatrical meal, but not to everyone's taste.

The fall of the Berlin Wall opened the gates of heaven to the citizens of so-called Eastern Europe. The defeat of communism promised a new life in democracy that would guarantee the rights restricted by the ferocious socialist dictatorships. They were deluded, because storm clouds quickly covered those skies and joy turned to resignation. This is what the photographer, suffering from fibromyalgia, says, who survives with her husband in a city in one of those countries and who won a prestigious award precisely for her photographs of the fall of the iconic German wall. They came out of the fire and into the embers. The embers of capitalism. The Europe of illusion turned into the Europe of frustration in metaphor. fog from the work of Lluïsa Cunillé winner of the 2014 Frederic Roda Prize.

The most prolific and most successful playwright in Catalan theater paints a portrait of the decline of the European dream, personified by a group of losers. The photographer's incurable illness is merely a metaphor, as is the husband's resignation, the alcoholic frustration of the astronaut neighbor who could have gone to the moon, the uncertain life of the couple's son, both victim and executioner of the cursed militaristic legacy, and the mysterious uncertainty about a journalist who has lived. Fog It is surely one of Cunillé's most complex yet most explicit works. A mature work faithful to his canon of subtraction dramaturgy that invites the spectators to complete what is not explained.

Lurdes Barba's proposal follows the lines forged by Cunillé's associates such as director Xavier Albertí within the current of withholding emotions within the framework of a false realism. A realism that is expressed in the stage space (which underlines decadence with excessive obviousness) and in small actions (such as turning off the room lamp when the guest has left), but which is subverted by the sobriety (except for the very appropriate histrionics of Jordi Collet's neighbor) and Àurea Márquez's hierado) of the performances and a lighting design that deliberately hides the performers' faces. All of them admirable. The opening monologue by Lina Lambert (the photographer) is fantastically natural, and the emotional restraint of the husband (Albert Pérez) is magnificent. It's good theater, but not to everyone's taste.