With very high expectations and with all the paper sold for the four weeks of performance, yesterday the theatrical version of Francisco Casavella's novel El día del Watusi, adapted and directed by Iván Morales, premiered in the founding hall of the Teatre Lliure.
The 896 pages of this cult novel published by Anagrama became, including the intermissions, four and a half hours of immense spectacle. An immense novel corresponds to an immense play, with an immense protagonist, Enric Auquer, and an equally immense cast, which shines especially in the roles of Raquel Ferri and Guillem Balart.
Who is that actor who plays Pepito Yeyé? asked some viewers who had not yet discovered Guillem Balart, this phenomenon who is weaving a major theatrical career with roles like Broggi's Hamlet.
But let's return to the protagonist, Enric Auquer, that teacher who promised the sea, that actor who in every project he undertakes ends up with the adjectives in the dictionary. Here he plays Fernando Atienza, a poor immigrant who lives in the barracks ("the little houses") of Montjuïc in the sixties and seventies and who, raised by a mother who sees him as a professor, will undertake his own search for tomorrow.
But the day of Watusi, August 15, 1971, the first day that Fernando saw a dead person or, rather, two, will forever mark that day of tomorrow that will never come... or perhaps it will, through reading . But first, leaving "the little houses" will not be of much use to poor Fernando, who will not stop moving through the darkest part of society, which does not change much whether one is at the service of a poor person or a rich person.
Corruption, the manipulative politics of the transition, the ravages of drugs, the very rich and the very poor will populate the world of Fernando, that Enric Auquer who is also magnificently accompanied by, in addition to those mentioned, Vicenta Ndongo, David Climent , Bruna Cusí and Xavi Sáez, multiplying in all types of characters.
But who is the Watusi? To do this you will have to read the book or see this tremendous show, which Iván Morales has created with mastery, an excellent pulse and a dazzling cast.
