The musical in Catalan that arrives from Madrid loaded with awards

BarcelonaWhen Dídac Flores (1992) and Mikel Herzog Jr. (1995) met by chance on the AVE train from Barcelona to Madrid and discovered that they were both going to the same casting call, they could not have imagined that, three years later, they would have become a pseudo-marriage and would be living through an overwhelming success together in the Spanish capital. For three seasons now, the performers have played all the roles in Murder for Two, a musical by Kellen Blair and Joe Kinosian that swept the PremiOFF awards, the Broadway World Spain awards, and the Teatro Musical awards. The show, directed by Zenón Recalde, is performed at Teatros Luchana in Madrid and, starting this Tuesday, it arrives at the Teatre Goya, where it will hold performances on Mondays and Tuesdays in November.

To bring the musical to Catalonia, the Focus Group set the condition that it be done in Catalan. This requirement was also fundamental for the performers, who cannot contain their excitement about performing at home in their own language. "For us, doing this version here is very special. Being able to perform in Catalan is not just luck, it is a privilege," highlights Flores. The translation of the text was handled by David Pintó. "He worked in record time, and this comedy was not easy to adapt at all. The songs and the rhymes change," adds Flores. The two performers have made a considerable effort to relearn a text with a breakneck pace and full of wordplay.

The piano, the third character

The premise of Murder for Two is simple: an aspiring detective (Herzog Jr.) finds himself in the middle of a crime and will do everything in his power to find the culprit among a dozen characters, all played by Flores. "It is inspired by the stories of Agatha Christie, but the crime soon becomes the least important thing. The fun is the character game, which gets crazier and crazier," explains Herzog Jr. In this race-against-time comedy, there is a third character: the piano, which both of them play live. "Theatrically, the play is a complex exercise, but many actors could do it. The thing is, it has an added element: we both have to play the piano at a very high level. We studied at the conservatory as children, and we are lucky for that," emphasizes Flores.

In fact, at the Teatre Goya, they have installed the same set design as in Madrid—consisting of a chaise longue, some red velvet curtains, and a majestic piano—but in reality, they only need the instrument to be able to perform the show. "We have even performed it in the living room of a very special person who has a piano there and cannot walk, so they could not come to the theater," relates Herzog Jr. The musical virtuosity of the production is accentuated because neither of them uses sheet music. "If an actor goes on stage without the printed text, a musician should not carry sheet music either," argues Flores.

Murder for Two will occupy the Goya stage on Mondays and Tuesdays, thus alternating the performances with those of A View from the Bridge, which is performed from Wednesday to Sunday. Midweek, Flores and Herzog Jr. will take the AVE train to Madrid to perform the show there in Spanish during the weekends. "I don't know if any actor has ever done this madness, but to us, it seems like a monumental challenge," say the performers.