Barcelona: Children and Art

So the desk clerk at the Hotel Ambassador gives me a copy of Guide Out: Barcelona, and what do I find on page 111? I don’t expect you to believe this. I may carry the pamphlet with me for months to come to prove it, but I swear it’s true. The sentence in question: “It was one of the most charming cities long before Sondheim put its name on the lips of every musical theater queen.”

Well, with a line like that, I do expect to find a vibrant theater scene in Barcelona, and I’m not disappointed. There’s Rob Becker’s Defendiendo al Cavernicola, Luigi Pirandello’s Sis Personatges en Busca d’autor, and Margaret Edson’s Wit, the title of which goes untranslated. The sexes are equally represented, with the male anatomy prominently displayed in Maronetas del pene and the female anatomy not shown but discussed in Eve Ensler’s Los Monologos de la Vagina (“Mas de 700 representaciones,” brags the poster, which shows a naked woman’s body from below the breasts to above the knees with her pubic hair represented by the word “blah” replicated dozens of times, one “blah” over the other). And just as crackerjack press agent Jim Byk of Boneau/Bryan-Brown had told me in advance, there’s Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Les Amargues Llagrimes de Petra Von Kant. He represented the show when it was The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant at Henry Miller’s Theater and he’s still paying attention to its subsequent engagements. See? Byk isn’t just in it for the money; it’s what he does for love.

And then there’s Peter Pan: El Musical, though nowhere do I see authors’ credits to tell me whether it’s the Bernstein, or the Comden-Green-Styne-Charlap-Leigh, or even the one written by the Honk! authors in 2001. Whatever it is, I have the hotel concierge grab me a ticket for tomorrow night when it resumes performances.

By the way, those of you who read these titles and know Spanish may well be scratching your heads for they may seem a letter or two off to you. But as my faithful readers Don Gibbs and “Snazzy” Sasanow alerted me through e-mails once they discovered that I was Barcelona-bound, Spanish in not spoken here; Catalan is. Hey, Spanish or Catalan, it’s all Greek to me!

After sleeping off my jet lag, I find that the Ambassador is just a stone’s throw from the street where Willy Russell’s long-running London musical Hermanos de Sangre is playing directly across from Yasmina Reza’s Art — which, like Wit, keeps its English-language title. (I’m glad I’ll be getting a dose of Reza, given that I’m not going to get a chance to see my buddy Thom Sesma’s production of Life x 3 at the Rep in St. Louis. I first discovered Thom playing Ta in Flower Drum Song in Las Vegas in 1981 and have followed what he’s done since. He’s got three musical theater stalwarts — Mark Jacoby as Henry, Michael Rupert as Hubert, and Mary Gordon Murray as Inez — in his cast.)

But I’m in Barcelona, just in time for the 6:30 performance of Hermanos at Teatre Novedades, which has a glassy exterior much like our Gershwin. In fact, above the doors, letters proclaim: “Cine Teatro Novedades.” If I have any doubts that this was once a movie theater, they’re dispelled as soon I enter the auditorium and see blank, loge-less walls on each side, no curtain, and a perfunctory stage. Oh well, at least movie theaters have comfortable seats. Unfortunately, there aren’t many patrons in them: A half-full orchestra, a third-full mezzanine, and not one human being in the balcony. Once the house lights dim, a scrim near the back wall lifts to display five musicians playing. Then the scrim comes down and we don’t see the musicians again until the curtain calls. (Guess the management wants us to know in advance that it has hired real-live people and that taped music won’t be coming out of those speakers.)

Then out comes Eva Diago as Sra. Johnstone, older than Marissa Jaret Winokur but cut from the same bolt of cloth. She sings into the wire-thin mike nuzzling her right cheek about how she was once “sexy de Marilyn Monroe.” Interesting how, more than four decades after that sex goddess’s death that she’s still being sung about — and in a Spanish city to boot. Indeed, on my way back to the hotel, I’ll see a dress in a shop window and, later, a
Barbie-sized dress in another, both of which replicate the actress’s famous white outfit in The Seven-Year Itch.

Though the set design for Hermanos is the same as Blood Brothers‘ 1988 London revival and the 1993 Broadway production, the quality is a bit more national touring company. The audience doesn’t applaud the set, which is fine, but I am surprised that no one claps after each number. I guess the Spanish, like the Japanese, save their applause for the end. But wait! They do clap after the fifth song — “Kids Game” (I’d give you the Catalan translation but the songs aren’t listed in the program, which consists of one piece of glossy paper folded over).

Seems the Spanish only respond when they’re really, truly impressed. But I think the Narrador (David Ordinas, who looks like George Chakiris in his Shark days) deserves some applause for his “Shoes upon the Table,” as do Roger Pera (as Mickey) and Aure Sanchez (as Eddie) when they finish “My Friend.” The audience will only again respond wildly at the end of Act I when Diago raises her — and their — emotions to a fever pitch with “Bright New Day.”

During intermission, I see soda and snacks on sale at a movie-theater-like concessions stand but I spy no T-shirts, mugs, CDs or tchtochkes such as, say, a Hermanos de Sangre souvenir knife. What most everyone is doing is smoking; I guess they’re not scared.

Back for Act II, which I enjoy even though I’m again reminded that Russell has written a facile score, if not bad for a playwright who wanted to take a crack at a musical. (I’d say he did better than Mel Brooks did in filling staves with notes.) I’m also amused that, in the scene where Mickey brings Eddie home, Mrs. Johnstone has the radio on and what’s coming out of it is “Downtown” by Petula Clark — who, I remember, has a history with Blood Brothers. I never saw Clark do it but I doubt that she put as much heart and soul into “Tell Me It’s Not True” as Diago does. The audience applauds enormously and gives a standing ovation. That gives me the opportunity to stand up, too, put on my coat, and hightail it across the street. It’s 9:16, and Art starts at 9:30.

Here, we have a set identical to the one seen on Broadway; those white walls aren’t so hard or expensive to replicate. German Palcios portrays Sergio, who’s bought that totally “blanco” painting for “dos ciento mille” to the great amusement of Marco (Oscar Martinez), who drags in Ivan (Ricardo Darin) for his opinion. Of course, those four words are the only ones I understand, but I still have a wonderful time. For one thing, Teatre Tivoli is no converted movie theater but, rather, a beautiful house of cream, gold, and, red. Here’s rococo nirvana, a genuine opera house with gilded cherubs holding equally gilded cornucopiae on the front of the loges and horseshoe-wraps around the dress circle and balcony.

There’s not a soul in the balcony here, either; I guess the Spanish are just like us in preferring to spend the money to have good seats rather than to save a few bucks and sit miles away. But the main floor’s 28 rows are close to full, as are the dress circle’s. This means that at least twice as many people will see Art here as ever saw it at our Royale in any given performance. I love hearing louder and longer laughs from the appreciative crowd; it’s as universal a language as the music I heard in
Hermanos.

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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@aol.com]