The field of Catalan theater has shown this Tuesday its shock at the death of director and theater actor Joan Ollé, who died suddenly at the age of 66 due to a heart attack.
Through social networks, there have been numerous institutions that have shown their sorrow for the death of Ollé, while his friend and writer Jordi Coca, very affected, has told Efe that on a day like today he could only say that: "Nothing that has happened should have happened."
The Dagoll Dagom company has recalled that he was one of the founders and director between 1974 and 1977 until the show "I will not speak in class", where Anna Rosa Cisquella and Miquel Periel were already part of the group.
Teatre Lliure has "deeply regretted" his death and highlighted that he was the founder of Dagoll Dagom, director of the Sitges Teatre Internacional festival and was part of the artistic direction team of Lliure during the direction of Àlex Rigola.
The TNC, after lamenting the death of Ollé, an actor and theater director with "an extensive career", has indicated that he had collaborated with this institution on several occasions.
For the Peralada Festival, the memory of the show "Cròniques" will remain, which he did together with Jordi Savall and which opened the 17th edition, while the SGAE has expressed its shock at the death of one of its partners, "one of the playwrights and referent lyricists in our country".
Speaking to Efe, the director of the Temporada Alta Festival, Salvador Sunyer, stated that Joan Ollé has been "one of the great directors of Catalan theatre", with "a very own way of directing and putting on shows".
In his opinion, it must be emphasized that "despite the fact that he made theatrical works for use, he knew very well how to make great shows based on non-theatrical texts, such as 'La plaça del diamant', by Mercè Rodoreda; 'Coral romput', by Vicent Andrés Estellés; 'El quadern gris', by Josep Pla, or 'Soldados de Salamina', by Javier Cercas, which has been very important in a country that did not have as much theatrical authorship as it does now".
On a personal level, he likes to recall, the "Fedra" that he presented in Perpignan (France) with Rosa Novell, Lluís Homar and Pere Arquillué, among others, in 2002, "with the entire audience standing applauding a play in Catalan and in verse, as had never happened before, for a brutal spectacle".
The producer and film director Isona Passola has asserted that the Catalan theater "loses one of the greats" and the writer Josep Maria Fonalleras has opined that he was a man, at the same time "contained and exaggerated, dispersed and precise, friendly and excessive. The Catalan theater cannot be understood without his mastery, his ambition, the light and dark. And the radio and television: sagacious, unexpected, intelligent, playful. I will always remember that visit to Mas Pla", referring to the home of the writer Josep Pla .
The actress Silvia Marsó has described him as a "theater man" and the journalist, filmmaker and teacher Albert Solé has recalled the "nights of exciting conversations. Thank you for all your art".
The record producer Joan-Carles Doval also wanted to share his feelings on the death of Joan Ollé, "with whom we have shared so much. Intelligent, cultured, bon vivant, lover of French songs and good distillates".
The Deputy Mayor for Culture of the Barcelona City Council, Jordi Martí, has defined him as a man "intense, acute, controversial, controversial, a real man of theater! Rest in peace".
For its part, Junts per la Cultura, through its Twitter account, has shown its sadness at the "precipitate loss" of the theater director, someone who "leaves too soon. We will miss him."
