Pau Miró: "I felt expelled by Barcelona's prices"

BarcelonaTwo decades ago, the playwright and director Pau Miró (Barcelona, ​​​​1974) premiered It's raining in Barcelona (2004) in the former Sala Beckett. At that time, Miró's work spoke of "caring for people who come from outside and proudly opening the city to the world," he explains. Now, his view of the Catalan capital has turned upside down. "I felt expelled by the prices, by a city that is increasingly designed for people who only come to consume and who are squeezing Barcelona with economic criteria," explains Miró. This feeling runs through the characters in the work. Expulsion, starring three brothers who meet again after the death of their parents. The show, directed by Toni Casares, can be seen from March 5 to April 6 at the Sala Beckett.

For Casares, who also directed It's raining in Barcelona For twenty years, this stage reunion has been a wake-up call. "We are giving away our city and our lives to the big investment funds. They are companies and people with names and surnames; they are the ones to blame for leaving the city and people's lives in the hands of money and capital," Casares stresses. Expulsion explores this feeling of "absolute loss of a place in the world" from three perspectives. One of the sisters (Montse Germán) is an urban planner who tries to build a hopeful story, but fails. The brother (Xavi Sáez) has a more practical view of reality, while the other sister (Anna Alarcón) goes over to the other side. "What she values most is money. I've had to embody someone who represents the other side of the coin," says Alarcón.

While the three protagonists discuss what to do with their parents' summer house, the teenage daughter of one of them (Mia Sala-Patau) confronts them with reality and rebels against the world they will leave her. "She is angry with life, and that is a matter of age, but she also defends that we should not believe the discourse that there is no alternative, that the world will be what the big funds want. Yes, things can be changed," says Sala-Patau. His character has, according to Miró, "the intuition of where hope lies."

A barricade against Trump

Expulsion It was also born as a response to the narratives that praise extreme individualism and that, according to Miró, are gaining ground. "Countering the speeches of Trump and Musk is increasingly difficult. If you complain, they ridicule you. I am worried," says Miró, who believes that the left must reconstruct the discourse to confront it. For the company, the theatre is the place to give life to hope. "It is not only an escape route from reality, but also a barricade," adds Xavi Sáez.

Beyond the political and ideological component, Expulsion The film also explores this feeling from other angles, such as not feeling part of a family or feeling emotionally excluded. "Individuality is very fashionable these days, but the feeling of exclusion can do us a lot of harm as human beings," Alarcón stresses. "In this context, it is very important to know who our tribe is."