La Perla 29 revives its founding show with a new company

BarcelonaLa Perla 29 premiered in 2003 at the Sala Beckett with Shelter, a piece by American Jessica Goldberg directed by Oriol Broggi and starring Clara Segura. Two decades later, the company is bringing back that piece with a completely revamped cast. Mònica Molins directs this production with Laura Roig, Daniel Mallorquí, Joan Esteve, and Lua Amat in the cast. The show premieres on May 7 and will be on stage at the Biblioteca de Catalunya until June 1. "For us, it's a magical opportunity to revisit a founding performance of La Perla 29," says Molins.

Shelter It's a 1999 text that explores the story of three siblings living without their parents. The eldest, Amy, has taken it upon herself to raise the family in the absence of her parents and has managed to establish a peaceful coexistence that is shattered with the return of another of the siblings, Sam. "All the characters inhabit an extreme everyday life within a comfortable environment. Their story speaks to how we are constantly trying to find love and that hurts, because we don't know how to do it peacefully," the director highlights.

Goldberg wrote Shelter without contextualizing it in any period, placing it in "a present moment." Taking advantage of this particularity, the company has brought it closer to the present and worked from its own perspective, avoiding Broggi's 2003 production so as not to be influenced. "What do we have to say? How do we work, twenty years later?" says Molins. From these questions, they have constructed an approach to the text that focuses on caregiving and how it affects Amy, who, with the arrival of Sam, will seek male approval and personal validation through him.

With ShelterClara Segura made her theatrical debut in her first leading role. Now the situation is repeated with actress Laura Roig, whom we have seen in productions such as Iphigenia (2024) and Saint Peter the Pretender (2023) and who will play her first leading lady on stage. "Amy is a normal girl who simply has to take care of her siblings. I feel like there are many like her today. She's tired of life, everything seems too much like her," says Roig. The performer also highlights the challenge that this production has represented for her. "It's been a long time since I felt it was so difficult to do theater. This show is pure theater and pure text, and we younger people aren't used to that," says the actress.

To give all the strength and presence in the text, the staging of the play is simple. "We worked with the idea of ​​a shop window, of a display. Everything takes place on the horizontal plane, in a stage space curated by Yaiza Ares and where there is no object that is not being used. We didn't want to adapt the play to modernity but to stage it in a realistic way," explains the director. The space also appeals to fragility to reflect one of the key themes of the play: the fragility of the characters and their families. "They all have a wound and learn to live with it in the best way possible. In the end, they end up accepting that this is their reality," notes Daniel Mallorquín. And Joan Esteve adds: "Ultimately, it's a show about everyone's need to be loved, to seek refuge and a roof that protects us, each in their own way."