The T's of Teatre don't cry and the public laughs heartily

T de Teatre is the oldest all-female Catalan company (though they do include actors in certain productions). They have been performing on stage for 35 years, since those fantastic... Misogynistic storiesPatricia Highsmith's plays, which launched their careers, have a long history (14 shows and nearly 3,000 performances), during which they have created a unique style of comedy, choosing a different director and playwright for each project. I will not cry today. They have placed themselves in the hands of one of the most acclaimed Argentine directors among us, Nelson Valente, responsible for shows such as The madman and the shirt, The dogs,Amnesia and Happy endings are for others.

T de Teatre's territory is comedy, and Valente's is too. In particular, comedies about dysfunctional families, which is to say, almost all families. The family ofI will not cry today. They are three middle-class sisters who drag out their conventional lives with more cynicism than sisterhood. Bibiana (Àgata Roca) is a functional alcoholic married to an inconsistent and hesitant man (Jordi Rico); Lola (Mamen Duch) is a housewife in a failed marriage to a rich, chauvinistic, and irascible man (Albert Ribalta); and the third, Luz (Carme Pla), is a depressed woman with repeated suicide attempts who is recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital and will have to be closely monitored. And if the relationships between them are comically conflictive, the arrival of a fellow patient from the psychiatric hospital (Marta Pérez) will trigger the most explosive confrontation.

All of this creates a cast of characters drawn with a ruler, lacking emotional depth, who form an appealing group in a story meant to entertain. We're talking about a comedy that's sure to make you laugh, with gags expertly delivered by all the performers, some of them truly memorable, because, as we all know, madness can be both shocking and hilarious. The rotating stage design (Alejandro Andújar) works very well, and, as we mentioned, the direction is also very attentive to the strengths of each actor and actress. They tell us the actors won't cry, but it's certain the audience will laugh heartily and leave the theater satisfied. AT de Teatre has plenty of comedy left in them.