'Marie, the red': just to celebrate 8-M
Rosa Maria Arquimbau's text connected with the historical moment, the Republic, but today it is more difficult to find someone who recognizes himself as a proletarian than a cheap coastal sole.
Marie, the red one Author: Rosa Maria Arquimbau
- Director: Ester Villamor Baliarda
- Performers: Mercè Arànega, Borja Espinosa, Tai Fati, Oriol Guinart, Meritxell Huertas, Antonia Jaume, Jordi Llovet, Alba Montaño, Carlota Olcina, Martina Roura
- Small Hall of the National Theatre of Catalonia. Until April 6
One of the obligations (we say this because it is included in the programme contract that the director on duty assumes) of the TNC is the recovery of historical Catalan drama. At the request of the writer Julià Guillamon, this season the spotlight has been turned on the writer, journalist, playwright and activist Rosa Maria Arquimbau (1909-1992), considered a reference as a "woman of letters" and one of the six best Catalan novelists of the 1930s together with Merca Aña and Merca Aña with Merce Aná Murcia Análite with Merce A.
Marie, the red one It talks about politics, feminism and love in a women's prison that the author places in France. The protagonist is a girl imprisoned for having attacked a policeman. She is surrounded by a prostitute, a gypsy, a child murderer, a murderess who has killed her husband and a pregnant girl. Certainly, Marie, the red one Marie must have been seen and heard in a very different way when it premiered at the Teatro Catalán de la Comedia (now the Poliorama) in November 1938. The Marxist demands of the protagonist were certainly fully connected with the historical moment (the Republic), just as the feminist demands showed the path still pending to achieve equality between women and men. We already know that Marxism is not in vogue at the moment and that it is more difficult to find someone who recognizes himself as a proletarian than a cheap coastal sole. Consequently, Marie's protest monologues give off the painful naivety of a poorly developed character, beyond the love story with a guard with whom the always efficient Carlota Olsina fights.
The small group of imprisoned women (with actresses of the stature of Mercè Arànega) are so clichéd and schematized, even in the costumes, without any kind of development, that their claim, which curiously is made by a man, does not serve much more than to celebrate March 8. And that is despite the fact that the director and adapter have perpetrated some notable modifications (among them, changing the candid ending), but without any luck in dusting it off and bringing us closer to the work and the author.