The north of Denmark

The Oresund Strait is a bottleneck, four kilometers at its narrowest point, separating the North Sea and the Baltic Sea (to give you an idea, the Strait of Hormuz is thirty). The Danes built Kronborg Castle there, a fortress to control the passage and charge tolls to commercial vessels. At the end of the 16th century, the fortress was transformed into a magnificent Renaissance castle, of an opulence that made it famous throughout Europe.The castle is in the city of Helsingor, today better known in the rest of the world as Elsinore, an English name that Shakespeare used when, a few years after the great reformation, he set Hamlet there. I was able to visit it this Sunday and rarely have I had the impression of a place where literature corresponds so exactly with what you see: corridors, guard posts, Nordic coldness and conspiracies, even the great hall where Hamlet could have had the death of his father performed. It doesn't matter that Shakespeare had never been there. To be or not to be is about that.

The impression a Catalan person takes away from Denmark is intense and related to this to be or not to be. Outside the castle, through the Danish streets and parks, I had the sensation of a represented utopia: civility, absence of slaves in humble jobs, respect for one's own language (everyone knows English but English has no public presence). The most striking were the children. Families with three children, pregnant women, prams and the happiness that children give and which we have practically forgotten here: children as proof of trust in the future, of the meaning of leaving a legacy. It's no wonder Danes always come out at the top of life satisfaction and happiness rankings. Everything that goes against heritage – in other words, murdering Hamlet's father – is barbarism, decadence, and submission. To speak of Catalonia as southern Denmark can only be a mockery.Precisely these days, Dinamarca, by Lluïsa Cunillé, is being performed at the Beckett hall, a reflection by our great living writer on this to be or not to be, and which can be read from the phrase that closes the second act of Hamlet: “The play will be the trap to catch the king’s conscience”. The play makes perfect sense in our country, where we are so used to living in pure representation. Despite the title, Dinamarca allows – in fact, demands – to be set in an apartment in Barcelona. Directed and performed with extraordinary talent, it is a first-class theatrical event that I fervently recommend.