The first event, theater 2020 has already occurred: January 1, Alfredo Sanzol took office as the new director of the Centro Dramático Nacional (CDN). Thus began a year comes marked by the earthquake that struck the performing arts in 2019, during which changed the responsible of a good part of the large centres of production public of the country: some orderly way, as the employees of the Ministry of Culture (CDN, is the National Company of Classical Theatre, National Dance Company and National Ballet of Spain), the Abbey of Madrid, or the Lliure of Barcelona (after the resignation stormy Lluís Pasqual); other abruptly by political decisions, as the Teatros del Canal, the International Center for Living Arts of Slaughter (which has disappeared) or the Conde Duque of Madrid.
The dance-off charges are still reflected too much on the schedules, but for fall it is expected a change of direction in these spaces. The only certainties at the moment, are the shows that are going to be released until the summer.
Hunger for reality. If anything characterizes the theatre of the last few years is its exploration of the immediate reality. The documentary genre has developed as never before in Spain and has given hits such as the critically-acclaimed Pack, the work of Jordi Casanovas that reconstructs the trial of The Herd, which right now is put on the Peacock Kamikaze Madrid and then to resume its long tour of Spain. By the end of 2020, it is expected another bomb by the same author: a piece about the procés.
Carmen Machi, Nathalie Poza and Carolina Yuste, in a promotional image of ‘Prostitution’. VALENTÍN ÁLVAREZ
The last winner of the National Prize of Theatre, Andrés Lima, also bet on the documentary genre. If last year he led the Shock (The Condor and the Puma), which reconstructs the coup d’état of Pinochet, his new project is no less ambitious: Prostitution, which opens next week in the Spanish Theatre of Madrid, condenses dozens of interviews with prostitutes real that will be embodied on the stage by Carmen Machi, Nathalie Poza and Carolina Yuste.
Without being strictly a documentary but is clearly inspired by the current context, in mid-February, the National Theatre of Catalonia premiere of Justice is a work of Guillem Clua through the transformations of the Catalan society in the last decades through the character of a judge who has been at the center of public life, starring José María Pou and Vicky Peña.
Other titles in this same line that needs to be taken into account: Attack, Felix Estaire, that develops in the minutes following a terrorist attack perpetrated in a major european museum; Spain, Franco has died, reconstruction of the Transition from the point of view of the women, directed by Verónica Forqué; Curve Spain, company History, delves into the strange accident of an engineer than a century ago marked the arrival of the train to Galicia.
Sons of Beckett. The commemoration last month of the 30th anniversary of the death of Samuel Beckett, the father of contemporary playwriting, he has driven a few mounts. Apart from two Waiting for Godot, presented in November in Madrid and Barcelona, the CDN has scheduled for February a version of Paul Messiez of happy days. A direct son of Beckett is José Sanchis Sinisterra, who will premiere a new work in the CDN, Shipwrecks of Alvar Nunez. And in turn, the sons of Sanchis Sinisterra are many of the playwrights of spain, of the last generation that premiered in the next few months: Pablo Remón, Claudia Cedó, María Velasco, Lola Blasco, Carolina Africa or Antonio Rojano.
‘Falaise’, the company Baró d Evel.
Essential. Àlex Rigola makes doublet: in February, you will see in the sala Beckett in Barcelona his latest work, Aquest country not descobert that not makes make de les seves fronteres cap dels seus viatgers, and in march released in The Villarroel their particular version of The seagull by Chekhov.
The Abbey Theatre will celebrate its 25th anniversary from January 30 to February 23, with a special programme which will engage artists linked to the living room, plus a tribute to its founder, José Luis Gómez, and the premiere of the play Anthropocene, Thaddeus Phillips. The Lliure opens the year with a tribute to the group The Calòrica with the replacement of her first show, very ugly disease and a very sad death of queen Elizabeth I, ten years after its foundation. Other companies must-haves that will be very active are The Tristura, Baro d Evel, Matarile, The Young or The Pont Flotant.
The CRC has been scheduled in Madrid two shows that have triumphed in Barcelona: Jerusalem and Like a bitch in the wasteland. The Peacock Kamikaze will premiere the new work of Pascal Rambert, Joseph, in addition to one of Harold Pinter and other of Sarah Kane directed by Israel Elejalde and the adaptation of A little lumpen Bolaño. It is not the only novel that take you to the theatre: the Spanish will be little women and the house of The spirits.
International. Finished as the big international festivals of autumn and a lack of knowing what that will bring in the summer the Grec festival, there are still some interesting visits: Milo Rau, Frank Castorf, Katie Mitchell and Angelica Liddell, among others.
Dance . Thursday begins in the Fourth Wall the cycle to Move to Madrid, a commitment of this old room alternative madrid’s offer to dance the shelter stable that does not usually find in the big theaters. It is run by the choreographers Poliana Lima and Luke Condró and inaugurates the thriving company Phármaco, led Light Coffers. Are clusters like this that are pulling of the contemporary dance in Spain. In the next few months will be touring Spain groups consolidated as Kukai, La Veronal, Daniel Abreu, Manuel Liñán or Animal Religion. Among the major theaters include the schedules of the Teatros del Canal in Madrid, the Mercat de les Flors of Barcelona, the Center of Seville and the Arriaga of Bilbao.
