The fun and silver apples with a mask that Joan Brossa designed for the Max awards, the great awards of the performing arts in Spain, already have an owner in their 2023 edition. And there are many because at the gala held last night at the Gran Teatro Falla in Cádiz were more distributed than ever: no work has more than two. On a night in which Tricicle stood up and made the audience laugh out loud when he picked up his Max de honour, the main award from the SGAE Foundation awards, for best theater show of the year, went to a piece premiered in Las Naves Matadero in Madrid: The will to believe, by Pablo Messiez. A work by the Argentine author and director who has been in Spain for two decades and which investigates the possibility of faith based on the mythical film by Dreyer Ordet, with a final miracle included. In Messiez's proposal, the youngest of a family of Basque brothers believes to be Jesus of Nazareth. His sisters think he has gone mad from reading too much Kierkegaard.
In an elegant gala with personality, with palmas and compás in which there was humor –including that of the puppets of Tía Norica, who interacted in a fun way with the president of the SGAE, Antonio Onetti, substituting the usual official speech– and There were also singers, dancers, and in which Judeline sang La leyenda del tiempo to bid farewell to the deceased of the year, such as Carlos Saura or Agustí Villaronga, Tricicle swept away when collecting his award, which, they assured, was not on the run but rather, Paco Mir stated, “we took it as a prize for the half race, we are at a half marathon. Although we have been traveling the roads for 40 years and have seen the change from the Middle Ages to the 21st century, we still have the illusion of those who are just starting out”.
Carles Sans assured that "humor is marvelous" and that he would like "every country to have a ministry of humour, which would guarantee its citizens a real laugh every day, life would be much better". And Mir, who assured that it is "an award of honor for humor, the poor brother of art, despite the fact that it is so difficult to do and it has so little recognition at award ceremonies" said goodbye, venturing that "we are summoned for 2080 at the Max, where they will give us the award for the entire career, this time posthumous”.
In the category of best musical or lyrical show, La gata perduda, a production of the Gran Teatre del Liceu with the residents of Raval, won. A montage that explains the struggle of a neighborhood that rebels against the powers that be. The director of the Liceu, Valentí Oviedo, accepted the award, recalling that it is a "show that speaks of the Raval from optimism" and dedicated it to its diversity and to the more than a thousand people from the neighborhood who built the work. "Opera houses are capable of unstitching, reinventing ourselves and being useful to society," he said.
In the theatrical categories, the best director of the year went to Iñaki Rikarte for Supernormales, a play that breaks with humor the usual schemes on the sexual desire of people with functional diversity, a piece produced by the National Dramatic Center of Madrid. As for the best stage performers, the Maxes went to Pere Arquillué for L'adversari, an adaptation of Emmanuel Carrère's novel about the man who murdered his entire family when it was about to be discovered that his whole life was a big lie, and, ex aequo, in Marta Nieto and Marina Salas for giving life to La infamia, about the kidnapping of the Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho for denouncing an international network of pedophilia and sexual exploitation.
The best playwright was that of Jesús Muñoz and Pau Pons for Total Eclipse, from the Valencian company Pont Flotant, a text about the certainty of death and how it affects our lives. In the categories of best work and best revelation author, Cucaracha con paisaje de fondo won, a black comedy by Javier Ballesteros for the company Mujer en obras, which, through a spa for sterile women, addresses our concept of motherhood today and which will be seen in the Spanish Theater in May. Alessio Meloni won the Max for scenography for turning the María Guerrero theater in Madrid into a giant puppet stage for La cabeza del dragón, by Valle-Inclán.
The best production work went to Tanttaka Teatroa for Sexpiertos, about the sexual reality of a person with cerebral palsy, starring Telmo Irureta, who won the Goya for Most Promising Actor for The Rite of Spring.
In dance, the winning production was La reina del metal, by the bailaora Vanesa Aibar and the musician Enric Monfort, while the best choreographer and the best dance performer had the same name: Lali Ayguadé for Runa, which delves into the past of human relations with a cathartic spirit. The best male dance performer was Mario Bermúdez Gil, who defeated Israel Galván with El bosque. Laura Clos won the Max for best lighting for Rojos, from the Miquel Barcelona dance company. The music by Pascal Gaigne for Eta orain zer? And now that? , by Kukai Dantza.
The award for best family show went to Snow White in verse by the Salamanca company La Chana Teatro, and in the street theater category, Love, love, love, by Animasur, a journey on stilts for love, won. The audience's Max went to El petit príncep by Àngel Llàcer and Manu Guix and the social one went to the clowns of Payasospital.
