On stage, only two actors, Miki Esparbé and Maria Rodríguez, who play the roles of He and She. “They come from two different worlds. She has studied fine arts, painted graffiti and has ended up working in a bank, and he dreams of being an actor and works as a delivery man”. It is told by Marc Artigau, author and director of L'illa deserta, who tries to say something about the plot of this filigree comedy without revealing too much. "They meet in an elevator and we explore the what if..., and it's a lifetime explained to the public."
This what if... is that reflection that everyone, at some point in their life, has ended up doing: what if instead of studying that, they had studied the other?; What if instead of falling in love with this person, I had fallen in love with that other person?... Throughout the play, we learn what the lives of these two characters could have been like depending on the options they had chosen.
It should be noted that Miki Esparbé and Maria Rodríguez radiate an empathy that connects with the public, who is often questioned, “because it is a text that is very explained to the viewer”, Artigau points out. Rodríguez acknowledges that it is “an interpretatively demanding text”, and Artigau hastens to add: “But it is not for the viewer”.
Regarding this chemistry that the performers exude, Artigau declares: “They are two very generous actors and the theater demands a lot of generosity. They have wanted to play from the beginning and I think it is one of the keys to the story”. But Esparbé and Martínez had never worked together. “I knew both of them and had the intuition that there would be a connection”, affirms the author and director, and it can be said, in view of the essays, that he has been absolutely right.
The idea began to cook in 2018, but the pandemic and having to balance the schedules of the entire team have not made it possible until now for it to be released at La Villarroel. Artigau confesses where the idea came from: “In 2018 I wrote the first stream. I fell in love a lot and I wanted to write a play to contradict myself with that transitory illness, closely linked to adolescence. I wanted to write about how you can fall in love with one person, but you can also fall in love with another and life will be different, but it can also be okay.
L'illa deserta is about “the crushes that happen and those that don't happen; it talks about coincidences, chance, you meet a person who is at one moment and you are at another", continues Artigau, and Esparbé adds: "The work speaks of the paths you take in life and of coinciding, as we have agreed with Maria. We are talking about something that happens to us at the age of 15, or at 40 or at 60, so that any person of any age can feel identified”.
Marc Artigau (Barcelona, 1984) is the one-man band of Catalan letters. He is up for a sweep or a scrub and as a writer he has explored all genres. Playwriting is one of them, as well as translations and theatrical adaptations. He has written poetry and radio listeners know him for the stories that have been broadcast on the program El món a RAC1. He has also written a few novels and, four hands with Jordi Basté, the black stories of the investigator Albert Martínez.
L'illa deserta is a production by La Brutal, which "trusted it from the beginning," says David Selvas, who is the artistic director and production coordinator. It can be seen in La Villarroel until July 2 and next year it will tour.
Catalan version, here
