'Bartleby' takes the stage: why did he prefer not to?

BarcelonaSala Beckett has a special history with Bartleby, the scrivener, by Herman Melville (1819-1891). When the theatre was still located in the Gràcia district of Barcelona, it opened in 1989 with a version headed by José Sanchis Sinisterra. Now the story about the clerk's job resignations returns to Beckett with a new adaptation by the playwright and director Llàtzer Garcia based on the translation by Carme Camacho and with the actor Albert Prat at the helm. This artistic tandem has given the form of a monologue to Melville's work and has focused the spotlight on the lawyer who sees how every time he sends a job to his worker, he responds with the phrase: "I would prefer not to do it." The show can be seen until March 9.

Melville published Bartleby, the scrivener in 1853 and gave it the form of a memoir in the lawyer's voice. To bring them to the stage, Garcia has brought the action closer to time and has chosen not to make Bartleby's figure explicit on stage. "He takes on the role of a shadow, almost a mythical character," says Garcia. The physical absence of the clerk means that the lawyer's words are directed at the audience, in a kind of dialogue in which the interlocutor remains silent. With this dramaturgical decision, the lawyer's gaze and the need to understand this clerk who, day after day, confronts him with his renunciations, gain weight in the show.

A resistance with good manners

"Bartleby stops everything, decides to get off the wagon with an intimate revolt. His is a passive resistance to the capitalist and social world that, many years later, has been the motto of movements such as Occupy Wall Street," explains Garcia. The peculiarity of the character lies above all in the fact that "his is a radical resistance with good manners, because he never says no," adds the director.

In contrast, the lawyer experiences a collapse of his person and of the system in which he is immersed. "He needs to understand Bartleby's attitude, because he is questioning the world he is part of. Why does he prefer not to do so? The clerk does not explain it clearly," stresses Albert Prat. Despite the fact that they are two contrasting characters, the artists see a bond of friendship in them and have thus transferred it to the stage. "The lawyer is understandable, he has some useless workers but he doesn't dare fire them," says the actor, and García adds that between them "a kind of obsession is created and also a friendship that recalls that of Melville with the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne."

Beyond incorporating dramatic action into the story, Garcia has also worked to adapt its language. "We have made it more accessible and direct, without ceasing to be faithful to its essence," says the director. One of the great values of the text, he adds, is "the different genres that it links, from office comedy to fantasy and drama." Bartleby It is a co-production between the Girona-based La Planeta theatre and temporada Alta and, in fact, it premiered in the autumn at the festival.