Pack ★★★★✩
Author: Jordi Casanovas. Address: Miguel del Arco. Performers: Ángela Cervantes, Artur Busquets, Francesc Cuéllar, Quim Ávila, David Menéndez, Carlos Cuevas. Place and date: Romea (6/IV/2024)
It has taken Jordi Casanovas' Jauría five years to find theater in Barcelona. Enough time for a new cast to assume the documentary voices of the victim and the aggressors of the group rape of La Manada, the media case that awakened collective consciences. The expectation has not subsided since its premiere in Madrid in 2019. More than an assumption, an ocular fact: a long line extends from Plaza Sant Agustí to the door of the Romea theater. Casanovas has become a master at extracting excellent fiction from the black chronicle of 20th and 21st century Spain, plus some international excursions (Port Arthur). The drama constructed thanks to the machinery of interrogation, in a court, television set or police station. Almost always reflecting the banality of the most dysfunctional behaviors in our society.
In Jauría one perceives extreme care not to dwell on the suffering of the attacked woman. That error is already exposed in the harassment of the lawyers for the truth. Miguel del Arco thus contrasts the precision of the word (recovered from the judicial records) with a choreographic game of the bodies that provides distance so as not to succumb to the pornography of primary emotions. A meticulous dance to mark the loneliness of the individual in the face of the merciless force of the group, with or without a toga. They also avoid any gesture that victimizes the protagonist again. This is the most interesting feature of Ángela Cervantes's interpretation. Even in the moments when she seems to break, her voice and attitude is that of someone who claims her right to be as she wants to be. She also survives the horror.
Artur Busquets, Francesc Cuéllar, Quim Àvila, David Menéndez and Carlos Cuevas – once the initial clash of southern accents has been overcome – perfectly assume the metaphorical character of their characters, the quality that emerges from the sum of their statements. Without ignoring the absolute baseness of the specific act of rape, these subjects are shocked by the genuine unconsciousness of their misogyny. A moral vacuum in everything concerning women. There can be no genuine recognition of guilt when sexist behavior only generates rejection when it is manifested with extreme violence. Any degree below criminal is naturalized, it is consented to in complicit silence. And it is with this painful revelation without circumlocutions that Jauría stirs the public, draws applause and fills theaters.
