One of the recurring themes that emerges in my works is the appearance of violence when there is a manifest impossibility of being able to resolve the conflict with words and dialogue. I fear violence. We have been domesticated to avoid having to manage it. This apparent virtue of civilisation becomes an absolute weakness when violence appears in our lives. Because we might have erased it from our way of behaving, but it is still very much present in the world.
On many occasions, therefore, I understand the theatre play as a nightmare that transports us to see how we would resolve an extreme or terrorific situation for which we are not yet prepared. I understand theatre as those dreams from which you wake up feeling that you know a little more but you don’t know what that little more is. Maybe you learned to survive or overcome some pain but you don’t know exactly what. It’s unconscious. It enters through emotions.
For further information on this author, go to the Catalandrama webpage (www.catalandrama.cat)
Vilafranca del Penedès, 1978
Playwright and theatre director. Founding director of the company FlyHard, from 2005 to 2013. Founder and artistic director of the SALAFlyHard from the 2010/2011 season until 2013. Teacher of playwriting at the Institut del Teatre, Eolia and l’Escac.
He has written around thirty texts for theatre, prominently including Ruz-Bárcenas (Teatro del Barrio, 2014), Una història catalana (TNC, 2011 and 2013), Pàtria (Teatre Lliure, 2012), Un home amb ulleres de pasta (SALAFlyHard, 2010), Sopar amb batalla (Versus Teatre, 2010), La Revolució (La Villarroel, 2009), Lena Woyzeck (Temporada Alta, 2008), La Ruïna (La Villarroel, 2008), City/Simcity (Sala Beckett/Club Capitol, 2007) and Wolfenstein (AREAtangent/Versus Teatre, 2006).
He was awarded the Ciutat de València Prize for Estralls, the Ciutat d’Alcoi Prize 2005 for Beckenbauer, the Marqués de Bradomín Prize 2005 for Andorra and the Josep Robrenyo 2002 for Les millors ocasions. The trilogy made up of Wolfenstein, Tetris and City/Simcity was awarded the Barcelona Critics Prize for the best new talent of the 2006-07 season, the Serra d’Or Critics Prize for the best theatrical text of 2006 and nominations for the Butaca and the Max Prizes. Butaca Prize for the best theatrical text of 2009 for La Revolució. Time Out Prize for the best play of 2011 for Un home amb ulleres de pasta. Butaca Prize for the best theatre text of 2011 for Una història catalana. Ciutat de Barcelona Theatre Prize 2012 for Pàtria.
Idiota
A man presents himself for some paid psychological tests. What he thinks will be an easy and convenient way of making some money that he needs to resolve his financial problems will turn into an authentic trap. An attractive woman psychologist will ask him questions and puzzles that will make him nervous and force him to give his best if he wants to avoid a fatal ending. A game for the spectator too, who will have to mentally resolve each of the puzzles and obstacles presented to the protagonist.
Un home amb ulleres de pasta
At the age of thirty, Aina has just been ditched by her partner. Laia and Òscar want to encourage her to seize the opportunity and make the dream she had left parked come true: writing. To do this, they invite a poet, Marcos, who has a gift for enamouring anyone with just a few verses, to a dinner at Aina’s house. Marcos, however, will not be satisfied with a dinner filled with trivial chitchat and he demands spiritual nourishment. Aina, Laia and Òscar watch as their lives fall apart around them. They are fragile, they have lost themselves in contemporary apathy, they have drowned in their own doubt, and he takes advantage of this.
Les millors ocasions
In the toilets of a train station, two mysterious men are holding a well-known television talk-show pundit captive. It seems that the pundit said something out of line, but even he doesn’t know what. The mysterious men start to question their actions when they receive orders from their superiors that are very different to those they had been given previously. A cocktail of metaphysics and violence.
Edition 2015-2016
Journal: Roberto Rustioni about Jordi Casanovas
Below, you can read the journal, written by the director Roberto Rustioni, about the Spanish author Jordi Casanovas.
