La Calórica brings its explosive and committed theatre to a 3Cat series

BarcelonaOne of the most popular companies in Catalan theatre is launching its first television project this Monday. This is La Calórica, which is the director of the 3Cat series Multipurpose room, a compilation of six episodes with independent stories that all take place in the space that belongs to no one and everyone, which are the multi-purpose rooms of the civic centres. In the first chapter, for example, a basic survival workshop is developed that becomes grotesquely real after a banal accident. With the usual language of this theatrical combo – halfway between the grotesque and conscious social criticism – each story poses a different starting point with the same actors but also different characters.

The project is headed by director Israel Solà and playwright Joan Yago. Both have long wanted to make a series about the multiple realities that come together in multipurpose rooms, where life begins anew at each time slot and those who finish must leave with their utensils and junk so that the next ones can create their micro-world. In their opinion, there is a special poetic quality to these shared spaces, which they define as "the uncomfortable encounter of unknown characters who come into a room with the sole objective of doing something together, whether it be dancing, learning to defend themselves from a knife attack or moulding a vase for the mother-in-law's birthday."

From here on, each episode poses a different formal challenge. One day there is a scene of blood and liver, while on another occasion a dinosaur makes an appearance or the whole story is shown in a single sequence shot.

Despite the diversity of proposals and plots, there are elements that weave the whole series together. As Joan Yago explains in the ARA, "there is an underlying plot that is built in each episode and that has to do with the theatre performance in the final chapter, which is the end of the course for the room. And there is also a thematic link. Because all the stories, from different themes, address a single issue: the community. Letting people into our lives that we may not like, but we have to do it."

About the change of medium, from theatre to television, Yago admits that it inspired apprehension but that Filmax, the production company that has accompanied them, has made it very easy for them. "We didn't want to do filmed theatre. We wanted to do audiovisual, with cinematographic language and codes. But, at the same time, we also wanted to bring some things from theatre to television and for the result to include our way of understanding the stories and our way of telling them."

An international reference for this 3Cat proposal can be Room 104, a series by the Duplass brothers consisting of 48 episodes over four seasons. Each episode tells an independent story, but they are all set in the hotel room that gives the series its name. However, in this case the directors and actors change from one chapter to the next.

Although this will be La Calòrica's first series, the company had already tested the television format in 2022, when it was part of the program Incidents, a format created by Andreu Buenafuente that was based on offering four theatre groups the chance to create pieces that reflected their way of telling stories. At the end of each episode, the company briefly explained its work philosophy. In the case of La Calòrica, they offered a political satire set in the Generalitat following the arrival of a ship loaded with gas that caused a serious diplomatic crisis.