There are few shows on the Catalan stage that bring together top-tier actors and actresses and give them leading roles designed to make them all shine on stage. The children, Lucy Kirkwood's play is one of those opportunities, and the public knows it and has made it known: before the opening on Saturday, February 7th at the Villarroel Theatre, more than 15,000 tickets have already been sold, a new advance sales record for the venue. The first four performances are sold out, and for many of the others (the play runs until March 29th), only a few seats remain. The three main attractions of the show are the actors Emma Vilarasau, Jordi Boixaderas, and Mercè Aránega, who star in a tragicomedy about the responsibility of current generations for the future. David Selvas directs, in a production by La Brutal with a translation by Cristina Genebat.

Ramon Madaula writes comedies about what he sees – and he is a great observer – and what surrounds him. In his works there is always something of himself and, in the case ofThe bonds, from his own history. If to the above, Loop (which was seen at the Flyhard Room last season and will be revived in Texas), touched on the sentimental confrontation between an artist father – a sculptor – and a daughter who had flown out of the nest, in The bonds looks back on his childhood. As a child, Madaula from Sabadell frequented the La Farándula theater in Sabadell to see Folch and Torres' Pastorets, and his sympathies ran more toward the good Satan than the not-so-good Archangel Gabriel. From those memories comes a comedy that is also a sincere tribute to amateur theater and will surely become one of the season's greatest achievements.

Ramon Madaula (Sabadell, 1962) and Jordi Boixaderas (Sabadell, 1959) share a hometown, a profession, and a generation. Performers with a very long career, their work has brought them together on several occasions, such as in the Catalan version ofA wild god (2010) or in the very popular TV3 series Ventdelplà (2005). This autumn, for the first time, they will go up together and alone on the stage of the Teatre Poliorama to perform The bonds, a comedy written by Madaula—who has been developing his playwriting skills over the last decade—and directed by Paco Mir. The show contrasts two friends, their good and bad behaviors, in a peculiar setting: the performance of the village Pastorets. The bonds It premieres on September 10th and arrives after a successful run in dozens of theaters throughout Catalonia.