Where are the Donets? No news of Louisa May Alcott.

When an author adapts a classic or well-known work and announces that what he or she has created is a "free or very free version," we must be careful because it is usually an excuse to create a work that is unrelated to the original but takes advantage of its universal appeal. I think this is very much the case with the unfortunate version of the classic that Lucia del Greco premiered at the Lliure de Gràcia. Women, by Louisa May Alcott (1868).

Del Greco became known with an interesting proposal about the difficult theatre of Caryl Churchill in The heart's desire (Tantarantana, 2022). Goes provoke David Plana's anger due to the changes introduced in its original text ofThe enchanted ones (Sala Beckett, 2023) and with Pure passion, an adaptation of the story by Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux, won the Critics' Award for best small-format show and sound space in 2024 (Teatre Akadèmia, 2024). With Little Women I wanted to bring the lives of the four teenage protagonists of the film closer to contemporary times. Women and defend their spirit of soaring free from the yoke of society.

Although the names of the actresses appear in the program with the characters they play, on stage they are difficult to differentiate because, in addition, they dress and wear the same makeup. We don't see Meg, Yo, Beth and Amy but four puppets enclosed in methacrylate boxes, four strippers of a possible peep show which Del Greco manipulates at will. Infantilized puppets that young Laurie follows and observes, while inexplicably speaking in English (without any subtitles), and with the figure of the mother, March, who sings and wanders aimlessly through the aisles between the boxes.

Of Louisa May Alcott's original, only the title and a handful of monologued phrases devoid of dramatic meaning are preserved, superimposed on an audiovisual installation that, despite its initial appeal, soon becomes redundant and theatrically sterile. Perhaps the director clearly understood what she wanted to say and how to say it, but the result is disappointing and exudes disdain for the reception—"In Catalan!" shouted one audience member at the end—which was evident in the limited and timid applause at the premiere. Aside from the aforementioned visual aspects and the soundscape, it's sad to see such fine actresses subjected to a doll's game, lost in a scattered nightmare.