“The collaborative world of networks and friendship of the workers at the Majorica pearl factory fascinated me,” explains Francesca Vadell Cubells, who knew it first-hand thanks to her grandmother, who worked there. That led her to interview more testimonies and from this investigation Perla was born, the play that now comes to El Maldà, where it can be seen from January 24 to February 18.
“I wanted to get away from myself and my grandmother and with the actresses from the company Les Pinyes we built the stories of many of the grandmothers who worked at the beginning,” says Vadell, who to explain this story has Marta Asamar García, Cèlia Castellano Algaba and Noèlia Fajardo Franch.
“The factory was born in Barcelona – continues the playwright – but the Catalans complained a lot and so they moved it to Manacor. As a result of the factory, the appearance of the town changed. With tourism and the Drac caves, Mallorca began to be exploited.”
The dramaturgy of the text is by Vadell, but the visuals are signed by Les Pinyes, in a work done between the four artists. Perla is “a tribute to the working women who do not appear in the history books,” says the company that, in the documentary research, they have gathered objects that the workers have left them for use in the show.
They are women who, at the age of 14, began working at the “Spanish pearls” factory, as Majorica pearls were known in the mid-20th century, and who “as adults were proud of having been able to give their daughters and children an education.” her granddaughters.”
“They worked to build their homes and ended up building a network of mutual support, of friendship, that we have not inherited, now we are more individualistic, and on the other hand we have inherited a destroyed Mallorca,” declares Vadell, who recognizes that, among all of them, They have paid “tribute to their grandmothers, to the pearl artists, some of whom went to Mallorca to see the performance and were moved,” he concludes.
Catalan version, here
