I sometimes struggle with the term "necessary" applied to culture: a necessary book, a necessary play, a necessary concert. From time to time, it seems to me that we burden culture with this responsibility too much, and that, in doing so, we forget about fun and entertainment for its own sake, about reading or watching a movie for the sheer pleasure of it, with no other goal than having a good time. This week I recommended the novel The life of bookseller AJ Fikry, by Gabrielle Zevin (Periscopio; translation by Octavi Gil Pujol), saying that it's "pleasant to read." Someone asked me: "That means you didn't like it, did it?" I was surprised. Is it a bad thing to say that a book is pleasant? I could also say that it entertained me, because that's the absolute truth: I read it almost in one sitting. Is it a book that will remain forever in my memory? No. Did I enjoy reading it? Yes, because it's a novel...pleasant to read.

Given Claudia Cedó's professional specialty as a psychologist and playwright working with people with disabilities, we might think that the title of her new work refers to Ramon's overcoming process, but that's not the case. In fact, Ramon is the simultaneously omnipresent and absent protagonist of a fantastic tale. Omnipresent because, from birth until the end of the long performance, he is the trigger for everything that happens to the inhabitants of Santa Aurora de la Piedad. And absent because his presence on stage, somewhere between tender and disturbing, is that of a soulless object. Ramon is a rag doll, the son of Josep (Francesc Ferrer) and Clara (Anna Moliner), who comes into the world in a small town with deep-rooted traditions.

There's an apartment on Barcelona's Gran Vía where you can't help but feel like it's a theater. "So you say to me: 'Candela, scrub the dishes!' Come on, tell me, tell me!" Andrea Álvarez asks Jordi Galià, taking him by the elbow. In the deep, sinister voice of the Innocent—one of the least innocent characters in the show—Galià bellows: "Candela, scrub the dishes!" And Álvarez takes the lead to continue stretching the scene. They imagine they're in the bar of Santa Aurora de la Piedad, the setting for Clàudia Cedó's latest play, Fantastic Ramon, which premieres on April 2nd at the Fabià Puigserver Hall of the Teatre Lliure and will run until May 4th. But they're actually in the dining room of the Barcelona apartment that, for the past few weeks, has become their home.