"We would sneak into hotel pools pretending to be tourists, and if we got caught, we would answer in French."

Barcelona"I just got back from Menorca." Playwright Marta Buchaca spent a week on vacation with her children and her sister, the journalist Imma Sust. The photo she shared with ARA shows a summer scene between sisters, but without children, on the beach in Tossa de Mar, forty years earlier. Until she was fifteen, the playwright spent her summers there because her parents rented an apartment next to her grandparents', near her aunt's apartment, and also near her uncle's family's. The routine was always crowded: "There was all the family and friends; there were thirty of us on the beach every morning." She remembers, amused, going from one apartment to another and collecting good food, complaining every time they hadn't given her a snack. She also remembers the weekly family appointment of going to the phone center to call her grandparents.

Her partner in mischief was Xavi, a close friend with whom they cycled everywhere. "In the morning, it was the beach, and in the afternoon we played sharpie and ate sweets" with the money they earned painting stones and selling them. "We would sneak into hotel pools pretending to be tourists, and if they caught us, they would answer in French," she recalls. Because by then, tourism had already arrived in the town, but not as if "you can't stay there." They also used to play pelota court. In short, "I'd just stop by the house to grab a sandwich and then go back to my adventures."

Inspired by that experience, she has rented a shared house in Empordà with two other families. The difference with the city is abysmal. "I wanted to give my children their summer to the town. They go out to the square to play. You can give them responsibilities that are impossible in Barcelona," she comments. There are six children in total. "They form a tribe, each one has their role. They also get into mischief. The other day they were writing tickets on cars, or going crazy and running away. That's what we've all done," she adds.

The end of summer always came in the form of drama. "It was terrible because we wouldn't get back until the following year," explains Buchaca, contrasting this with her current reality, which, lacking a schedule, allows her more flexibility to take the children on vacation. In fact, the comparison between her upbringing as a daughter and that as a mother is the central theme of the play she's preparing for La Villarroel, A slap in the face in time, "a comedy about education and how we set limits and how our parents set them."