Oriol Pla: “Theater is all that surrounds theater, fellowship and madness”

The family Pla-Solina He receives us at his house in Olesa de Montserrat. It’s a sunny winter morning and your dog joins the conversation. In this family of artists, formed by the capture Flat quimet and Núria Solinaand the children Oriol and Targeteverything breathes a homemade air. This same aroma gives off Trarythe acclaimed creation that, with humor, deals with theater, life and family. It premiered at the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona in 2018, has exhausted tickets in all its seasons and after its passage through Madrid this February, it settled in June in the Romea. The show and the family remain unchanged to the great acting hatching ofOriol Plawho lives a sweet moment after recognition and popularity thanks to his work in projects such as Yo, adicto (2024), Salvajes sunflower (2022), Creature (2023) or Salve María (2024).

Barcelona Theater: The family as a whole, again.

Núria: My first feeling was to think, “Let’s go back to the origins; again all four we do something together.”Trary It is a very beautiful and very sincere proposal.

Quimet: We are now the parents who collaborate with the children; Before it was the other way around. It is a way to close the circle.

Oriol: The idea has been around since we were little. I wrote scenes of family works, but when I was 12 years old or something, we worked together. We imagined doing a play in a theater, because we had always done street theater. The Teatre Lliure de Barcelona gave me a white letter to create, and the one that resonated me the most – and even hurt – was something related to the family. He felt the need to explain, share, understand and understand all this life journey we have had. From our point of view as children, it is quite curious.

It was difficult to convince them?

Oriol: Staying with my family cost about four months. To be for lunch we do not usually see ourselves … only if we have to rehearse. If not, we see each other. We forget about birthdays … In addition, we were at a time when our roads were separating. Each began with their things. Until then, the family company Off -road theater He had shows, but he was starting to dissipate.

Quimet Pla: “Not sufficiently important to the body”

Interpreting oneself has not derhest comfortable.

Quimet: We discovered on the march that we wanted to make a retrospective of our way of being, living and understanding theater from another point of view.

Núria: It was very comfortable because they accepted all the proposals. All the madness we proposed were assumed.

Quimet: Until the end we were not aware that it was a story about ourselves. It is the story of a theater group, but in short, it is a family. There is a temper, a way of expressing itself that is typical of ours, yes.

Target: When you start to create from what really happens to you, it is very difficult not to go to the metatheatre. We wanted to talk about our truth and this family taught us how to create from the humility of what you are, what you have and what you know.

Oriol: To tell the story of a family that does theater – ours – becomes a very processual creation, this term that popularized Pina Bausch. That is, we do a show and the same story of creation becomes the material. We have been brought between the narrative will and what arises in the rehearsal room.

To you characterizes a more body stage language, with the presence of the clown and the circus. How do you see these disciplines in Spain?

Quimet: Currently, Spanish theater is very based on the text and the author. The vast majority is authored. Apart from the theater is the theater of body expression, which is also more linked to the circus and inheritance of the comedy of art, with the use of the mask. As far as I know, it is not used much or is taught much in schools. If you want to learn art comedy, you must go to Italy. And if you want training in body expression, you have to go to Lecoq, in France, where this work is more updated. In Spain, the body is not given enough importance.

Quimet Pla in ‘Sol, Solet’ of the Comediants Company (1978)

Quimet was one of the founders of the legendary Comediants and Núria company of Picatrons, both pioneers to import street theater in our country. Then you founded your own company, off -road theater. Today, young people bet less on companies.

Núria: It is very difficult to create a company. Before it was easier because you came together and did. There were no permits, VAT, no electronic invoices. The creation was more homemade: “We join, do and create”. Now it costs a lot; It is super expensive and ruinous. This slows down creativity. Today you wait for you to call you, but it doesn’t work that way. You have to create yourself. This is what is needed most.

Oriol Pla: “The idea of ​​the company has been lost, this heavy part of the theater, but also the playful part”

Quimet: In the 70’s and 80’s there was a repository hippie And a way of understanding life and art … Bob Dylan … now you need a budget, production, money, a lot of money. And you have to ask, give you, that they subsidize you, and you are already debt. This debt can only be assumed by large companies. The others, so much to put money out of their pocket, end up exhausted and disappear.

Núria: We have always worked with our own creation, totally independent, without a budget. We started from the desire to create and nothing more. Now the craft has been lost. Although you pass the cantas, it doesn’t matter: you do, fail and turn, because it is what you like. In the end, maybe something comes out.

‘ABSENTA’, created by Quimet Pla and Núria Solina with the company All Terrain

Target: It’s much harder now than when our parents started. When I was little I dreamed of a life that I realize now, it cannot be. At the age of six, he dreamed of the van he would have, the shows we would do, the company we would create, how we would travel around the world. Easy. This was what we had seen in Circ Cric, the Galindos and other companies. But it doesn’t work like that anymore. It is not easy.

Oriol: It is the fault of an economic, bureaucratic, administrative and cultural system. Before there were premises in neighborhoods that are now impossible to pay. There was an ease of occupying public spaces. Today, if you are young and want to be an actor or actress, where do you start? Opening an Instagram? What a fuck. The idea of ​​the company has been lost, this heavy part of the theater, but also the playful part.

Target: The bitch is that the theater is being confused with fame.

Oriol: It seems that if you do not have a terrible success, you do not exist. Few people connect with a small show.

Oriol Pla: “The poet’s job is to put doubt on the table, not capitalize and less point to it”

This is how their own voices are also lost. The speech on stage is heated.

Oriol: The theater is a very political space, but it is mistaken for a place to dissent together, observe life and reflect on it. The poet’s job is to doubt on the table, not capitalize and less point to it.

What did you discover about your family in this creative experience?

Núria: That we are chaos. We have a very crazy way to work, a lot of walking at home. We do not have many rules. Each one does what you like.

Oriol: We do not support it.

Target: I think one of the things I learned the most is that parents will not change them. This is what I learned. And this happens to many people, actually. There is always a moment in life when, when you grow up, you create your own life. There are shocks with parents, mothers and brothers. And it is difficult to accept that each one is what he is, regardless of what you have lived with this person and all the things that have happened. It is very difficult to accept changes in others. And let people and family evolve.

Oriol: Accept, value many things and understand who we are in essence. But this is very intimate. We are very fantasy people. We plan to do something, and on the first day of essay we realize that we are not Peeping Tom or the Cirque du Soleil. When we thought we would do a perfect choreography? We are a chaos! Accepting this and seeing how beautiful it is well.

Quimet: We are very much to adapt. We have always done everything, depending on what we were asked: a children, a little street … Street theater is a great school.

Spontaneity and improvisation are part of your DNA.

Oriol: It is a game that we carry inside, right? We follow the score, but inside us there is a game that always keeps it alive.

Target: What comes to you from Trary is that he is honest and not pretentious.

Oriol: The audience will take a smile and a hot heart.

Working as a family is not always easy.

Target: The best thing about working with the family is that you are with the family.

Oriol: And the worst part is that you are with the family.

Núria: Creating family, you love more. Yes … you love a lot. And you respect you too. You find boundaries and you say, “Don’t go here.” But it is fine; It is normal in every relationship. Now we know each other and we are holding more.

Quimet: A story like this is unusual. Sharing space, scene, ideas and proposals with the whole family and two generations is not common. This means that when they were little, we did well. We create a relationship between us that has been maintained over time. And this shows that. When they were little, we guià, and now it is the other way around: they, when old, guide us. And this is very good, it is worth it.

Núria Solina: “At home we played to improvise … it was allowed to break a dish if it was to laugh. We laughed and that’s it”

How important is the family artistic legacy for you?

Núria: Transfering a trade is a great wealth. To be able to teach your children the trade you have … There are few who can do it. The theater is universal and is not old. At home we played improvising when they were little. We did not play the Lego. It was allowed to break a plate if it was to laugh. We laughed and that’s it.

Quimet: We are craftsmen and the artisan’s inheritance passes to their children. Children learn from artisan parents and overcome them.

Oriol: For me, the artistic legacy is important, because the material … Debt and junk (laughs).

Target: It is the whole life. We have learned a way of living and understanding life. To take our lives with humor. And practical things, such as loading a van, which is an incredible life lesson. Attitude when you go bowling, how do you treat people …

Oriol: And what about the theatrical event? Everything that apparently does not have to do with the show. If the show is only an economical way to trade theatrically … What is the theater? It is many other things for us: a way of understanding, of living, of relating. Theater is all that surrounds the theater. It is companionship and madness. And the madness of each one.

Quimet: We want when they remind us, they will laugh. Say, “We laughed a lot. Oh, how good they were called? I don’t know, I don’t remember. But we laughed.”

Núria: And to contribute in some way that people go to the theater with their minds open. We need to be brave when creating, but also on receiving.

Oriol: I have connected a lot to this vital and professional lesson of my parents, which is not directed, but is there to be heard: “Don’t rush so much, do not suffer so much, do not squeeze so much, have a good time.” This is the only thing you can control and the only thing really important.

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