When it rains and makes sun: Valencian theater is reborn

The Poliorama Theater will be filled with Valencian accent in the beginning of summer. Three historical companies –Albena, The orchard and The ul– They close the season with a cycle of the Greek festival born of solidarity and complicity, a gesture of support for the formations affected by the DANA and, at the same time, a celebration of the links between two sister theater communities, although it does not always materialize with the constant exchange of companies.

October 29, 2024, forever recorded in the Valencian memory

That afternoon, the rain fell with a fury and left a trace of destruction aggravated by institutional inoperability. Once more than six months have passed the disaster, the most serious part is given by the 228 deaths, most of them avoidable. The industrial and cultural areas of the Horta Sud were especially affected, a region where numerous theater companies had been installed that sought affordable spaces outside the center of Valencia. Dozens of artists and groups lost everything: set designs, changing rooms, technical teams, archives, memories. The employer of the stage sector, Avetid, encrypted losses worth six million euros, as well as a drop of 25% in the attendance of the public and 45% in the hiring, as some auditoriums like Paiporta will have to be rebuilt. Another wound in a stage ecosystem that lives in a permanent alert due to errant cultural policies.

Would Raimon that in his Valencian Country “the rain does not know how to rain”, and this season has shown it more than any other. Indeed, by 2024 it had to be a year of balance and party for some of the leading companies. The Horta Theater It celebrated the half -century of the company and the thirty years of its room located in the southern villages, a reference theater that was submerged in the mud, literally. For its part, Albena Productionsone of the most emblematic companies of the Valencian theater, also commemorated thirty years of existence, a anniversary stained by the overflow of the Magre river that flooded its headquarters in Alcúdia.

“Despite the disaster, we had a little luck,” I told me a few days ago Toni Benaventproducer of Albena, in reference to his offices, saved because they were located above the three meters that the water rose. Everything else, three decades of company history, were unusable, transformed into waste. Luckily, there was some exception: the material of the shows on tour was in another warehouse.

One of these saved productions is Waterloo (June 25-29), a stage solo that directly appeals to our collective memory. Carles Alberolaonly interpreter and co -author of the work with Pasqual Alapontunfold a sweet humor and a nostalgic look at childhood landscapes: the Sunday paella, the games in the laundry, the dear cousin, the secrets of the adults and that exact instant – April 7, 1974 – captured by a family photo that will no longer return.

‘Waterloo’

It will not be the only piece that will write and star in Carles Alberola. A few days later, from 7 to 11 July, we will meet again on stage next toAlfred Picó into The last danceproduction that, despite the catastrophe, wants to celebrate the birthday of The Horta Theater. The show takes the form of tribute to a very specific generation of actors, professionals dedicated to the public from discretion and persistence. The work claims the pleasure of acting as a way of life, an optimistic comedy that also tells us about the failure and the need to reinvent itself. The theater as the place to always do a last dance.

‘The Last Ball’

Poliorama’s Valencian Theater Cycle is completed with Hoy don’t premiere,,,,,, The ul (From June 30 to July 4), a new song in the theatrical office filled with overflowing energy and agile humor, a work that is committed to stage play and the ability to transform the actors. Also with a long history rooted in Picassent since 1983, the Imprebís Om proposes reflections full of humor and love in the theater, vitalism of any adversity.

‘Hoy don’t premiere’

Theater without excuses

The Poliorama curtain is a commendable gesture of support and recognition of the Valencian companies after the Dana’s tragedy, a tribute to a scene that resists natural, but also administrative catastrophes, with a framework of underworld cultural policies that raises sudden turns in each change of government.

But beyond a timely cycle during the Greek festival, it would be necessary to wait for such important formations as Albena – which was frequent in Barcelona for some years – to find more stable spaces to show their work, both in private theaters and, especially, to the public. The Catalan and Valencian scene share a language and culture, and the theater, as a traveling art, should circulate so that it is not closed in rigid channels or in a logic of solidarity exceptions. May the doors remain open always.

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