Once upon a time there was a group of students from the Institut del Teatre who had to do an end-of-year performance, and a teacher told them that they were comedians, and that this work would, ironically, be the non plus ultra. It was 1972 and, of course, those students baptized their group with the name of Comediants, and what would end up being their first show, with a twist, Non plus plis. They premiered it on June 6 at the theater of the same institute – where the Francesca Bonnemaison Women's Culture Center is today. It is a story that is not, but that has already lasted fifty years, half a century of celebration, which is not little.
Instead of celebrating it with a show, as they did in Anthologia 25 years ago, they have chosen to collect their lives in a book, Comedians 50 years. Histoires d'una vida (Editions de l'Eixample), in which, as the company's co-director Joan Font explained during his presentation, they have tried to "order the memory".
A theatrical memory with an idea behind it: the creation of its own style, which begins with the breaking of the fourth wall between actors and audience and continues with the elements of the popular festival, such as masks, big heads, giants, live music, fireworks... And that has also evolved and diversified. Because they have done everything: gestural plays, yes, but also textbooks, and very street, and operas, and inaugurations of large -and small- events, and movies and television and books like this last one, which beyond The texts and photographs include inserted details such as flyers for his first show, an obituary on Franco's death –which is also an invitation to a celebration party–, a “Diari d'un comediant”, a letter to the Kings or a surprise envelope “to read in the dark”.
In addition, of course, to the chronologies of the shows and the explanations about their route. It is an analysis and an exhibition of each stage they have gone through, which also includes the move from Barcelona to Canet de Mar, where they settled to live and work together – “the goal of a commune is to live together, while ours is it was doing theater, that is, we were not a commune”, explains cartoonist and set designer Jordi Bulbena, who was part of the initial nucleus of Comediants en Canet–, as well as the creation of its creation center La Vinya, international expansion – up to two trips around the world, they have done–. Community life, which for a time they also shared with the Companyia Elèctrica Dharma, made them understand that they wanted to “live from and through the theater”.
Everything remains in the memory, yes, and in the books, and also the heirs who have taken elements of his style, such as La Fura dels Baus, which the other co-director, Jaume Bernadet, recalls in a conversation that they are his nephews – the fureros Carlus Padrissa and Àlex Ollé were at the presentation.
Bernadet explains, however, that 25 people going on tour is over, although they still do courses and projects “especially linked to commissions”. But will they put on a celebratory show? Bernadet says that he does not know, because they are "returning to red numbers and the economic issue will show what needs to be done." In fact, the book itself "signals the end of the cycle," he says, before assuming: "In a few years I think we will close."
And remember that of the seven current partners of the Comediants society – Joan Font, Jaume Bernadet, Paca Sola, Àngels Julián, Rita Kuan, Sara Tibau and Joan Segura – four are already retired.
Paca Sola, who has led the production and communication of the company, is of a similar opinion: “We have made a complete trip, and with the book I do say goodbye. I've had enough, but I don't deny it in any way”, she says, proud of a legacy in the form of an aesthetic legacy that includes great milestones, such as the creation of the Tàrrega Festival (1981), the closing of the Barcelona'92 Games, a daily parade during the Expo de Sevilla'92, the play El llibre de les besties (1995) –based on the text by Ramon Llull, marked his entry into the theater as a text–, the Maravillas de Cervantes (2000), the premiere in Beijing of Bi, co-produced by the Chinese Government and the Peralada Festival... and dozens of opening events around the world.
An agenda so full that it turned them into a small multinational, but it did not prevent them from entering bankruptcy several times, from which they came out with the help of the world of culture and working more and more.
Catalan version, here
