Hacia la alegría

An inner marathon. Built like a god of foundries, Pedro Casablanc turns out to be a long-distance runner, taking on the introspective and yet dazzling test of endurance to which Olivier Py challenges him. A race towards oblivion, which begins inside an apartment and ends among the rubbish that litters the periphery of the city. The man thus running, an architect at the height of his career, wanders the streets, questions his own professional success, lets go of what both makes and impedes him. If his trajectory is that of an exile or of a fall, his journey ends up being more of a recovery, an ascent. The political questioning about the social segregation of the city, the various forms recognition takes, and the place of art in the public space lead to a mystical and existential experience, the discovery of a primitive and rough energy. Olivier Py has found in Pedro Casablanc the manly and earthly strength necessary to anchor the first chapter of his novel Excelsior in the materiality of the stage. This opening chapter was translated for the stage into Spanish, a language whose percussion offers a concrete rhythm, accompanied by a string quartet, for the poetic race of a man towards joy.

The project Villes en Scène/Cities on Stage, sponsored by the European Commission, mobilises seven dramatic institutions and twelve directors around the question of how to live together in big European cities. Within this framework, the Festival d'Avignon presented in 2014 Antônio Araújo's Say what you don't mean, in a language you don't speak, Emma Dante's Le sorelle Macaluso, and Gianina Cărbunariu's Solitaritate. Hacia la alegría was created at the Teatro de La Abadía in Madrid in November 2014.

Text and direction Olivier Py
Translation Fernando Gómez Grande
Music Fernando Velázquez
Scenography and costumes Pierre-André Weitz
Lights Bertrand Killy
Assistant director Luis Blat and Andrea Delicado

With Pedro Casablanc et les musiciens Preslav Ganev, Desislava Karamfilova, Petya Kavalova, Stamen Nikolov

Production Teatro de La Abadía
Coproduction Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre National Bruxelles
With the support of programme Culture de l'Union européenne dans le cadre de Villes en Scène/Cities on Stage, Comunidad de Madrid, Ministerio español de Educación, Cultura y Deportes, Ayuntamiento de Madrid.
In collaboration with Teatrul National Radu Stanca (Sibiu)
Résidence at la FabricA