Words, words, words (and only words) in Greek

Two shows with unconventional formats built on words. The surprising Manual for beings live shows from the emerging company La Mula, which swept the board with its first show (Thauma) and the History of love from the veteran Agrupación Señor Serrano, who far from following beaten paths seek new narratives with a creation of ambitious title and less surprising results.

After the magnificent Thauma (2024), Andreu Martínez Costa and Magda Puig Torres take on a playful and participatory proposal, playing with a series of written messages made of words and phrases. In a large, castellet-like theater, the words manifest themselves, playing with each other and giving instructions to the audience, who even end up singing along. A magnificent visual play of curtains and geometric shapes is set to a powerful soundtrack (Erol Ileri Llordella) that concludes (too soon; we would have to go far beyond the format) by laying bare its wit for the audience to discover. La Mula certainly has plenty of room to run with this one. Manual for living beings.

Can you write a love story? I imagine that with time and plenty of paper, surely some letter-savvy person could try, and even succeed. However, despite the title, Mr. Serrano doesn't intend to write a history but rather a brief, very brief, approximation of historical moments that give rise to love. Four postcards that evoke, with many words and a few photographs, his more or less loving relationships, from cavemen to present-day Barcelona. Four stories without much interest—saved by humorous asides, because things are never as they seem—and that are inserted into a much more ambitious, more interesting, and superb story performed by Anna Pérez Moya, which begins with a long, live close-up of a face that sighs, smiles, and enjoys. This story is a poetic journey with surreal haircuts through dynamic spaces in search of love, which closes with the impressive presence of a kind of golden totem. A beautiful image in a proposal with trivial elements, like movie kisses, and generally unrelated and successful.