The stories of Pere Calders de Antaviana supposed the great discovery of Dagoll Dagom. The musical Mar i cel, based on the work of Àngel Guimerà, which next year will be his final goodbye with the last reposición, was the consecration.
And now, the company wants to say goodbye with one last creative musical that represents a return to the origins: an adaptation of L'alegria que passa, by Santiago Rusiñol. Three Catalan authors will have marked the almost half century of success story of the company created by Joan Lluís Bozzo, Anna Rosa Cisquella and Miquel Periel.
The joy that passes, which premieres on Monday at the Poliorama, is a short piece that the playwright Marc Rosich has turned into a musical, completing it with other texts by the modernist writer; Andreu Gallén composed the score and Ariadna Peya signed the choreography.
“It is an innovative musical in many of the languages we use, but very Dagoll Dagom, always keeping in mind that we work for select majorities”, declares Cisquella, executive producer and only one of the three partners still active. “It is a risk project to finish our career, doing teamwork, like in the origins of Dagoll Dagom”.
L'alegria que passa tells the story of a town with a single factory, where a company arrives to act. "An industrialist hires some artists to bring a bit of joy to the gray town," says Rosich, who is also the stage director. "The play explores how art and theater can change our lives."
The nine performers, “virtuosos as musicians and dancers”, says Gallén, are both the gray people and the artists. And in front, the mayor and the director of the company, who is the same actress, Àngels Gonyalons, who returns to Dagoll Dagom in this farewell: "It has been more of an abduction than rehearsals, with learning that makes us grow."
The cast is completed with Mariona Castillo, Jordi Coll, Júlia Genís, Eloi Gómez, Pol Guimerà, Basem Nahnouh, Pau Oliver and David Pérez-Bayona.
L'alegria que passa plans to spend a couple of months at the Poliorama, with no end date. “We are not playing at making a traditional musical, but at creating a language that perhaps we have seen little in the theater, but that reaches the whole world”, concludes Gallén.
Catalan version, here
