Rewards and punishments

dramaturgy and direction by: Ciro Zorzoli

An acting group trains on a daily basis to reach acting virtuosity

Synopsis

Always on the lookout for new playwriters and directors with whom they could share their professional complicity, T de Teatre realized they had found their new partner in crime one spring of 2010 at the Teatro de la Abadía in Madrid. The theater was showing Estado de ira (State of anger), by the Argentinean Ciro Zorzoli. This was a strong and unusual production that dealt, with a good dose of humor, with the dark corners of the human being. Some years later, they traveled to Buenos Aires to offer a collaboration which came into reality in 2014 in the shape of working sessions with Zorzoli and the actresses and actors of T de Teatre.

From those sessions Premis i càstigs (Rewards and punishments) was born, a theater investigation process which was in itself a performance, or even better said, a meeting point for actors and actresses and their audience. Premis i càstigs was not a conventional production as much as it was a delicate game on stage that at some points maybe puzzled the audience. From the start it seemed a pure theater exercise without a plot that the spectators could comfortably follow, but once the play kept going it painted, one by one, a list of characters who would undoubtably captivate the audience. That audience was not simply viewing the daily routines of the actors and actresses who were trying to master their characters, they were witnessing an exercise on the pursuit of the perfect acting technique.

The 8 characters seem to be from a theater company in the start of the last century devoted to acting exercises that seek ultimate virtuosity. Indeed, while rehearsing in front of the audience the actors and actresses unleashed their miseries and differences while unconditionally supporting one another once one of them reached an instant of true acting.

Why is it actually possible to act? Can representation in a world where reality is shown live every single moment through television and internet exist? To which degree is acting a part of our daily lives? The answers to these questions lay at the core of the play, which despite its experimental take on the stage has many moments for humor and expression of feelings.

Ivan Benet, Mamen Duch, Carolina Morro, Marta Pérez, Carme Pla, Albert Ribalta, Jordi Rico, Àgata Roca and Marc Rodríguez explored guided by Ciro Zorzoli the lines between actor and character, the limits of dramaturgy and the great difficulties of being in the shoes of someone else and understanding their feelings.

All together an exercise of great complexity despite being presented before the audience under a formal appearance of fantastic simplicity.

B as in Biography

Premis i càstigs premiered withing the frame of the 2015 edition of Grec Festival in Barcelona. Later on it was shown at Teatre Lliure in Barcelona and Teatro de La Abadía in Madrid.

N as in Numbers

44 performances and was seen by a total of 9.000 people.

Credits

Cast: Mamen Duch, Marta Pérez, Carme Pla, Carolina Morro Albert Ribalta, Jordi Rico, Àgata Roca and Marc Rodríguez

Cast stand-in: Jordi Oriol

Scenography and wardrobe: Alejandro Andújar
Lighting: Carlos Lucena
Sound: Roger Ábalos
Characterization: Eva Fernández
Executive producer: Daniel López-Orós
Artistic assistant and training: Juan Manuel Branca

Administration and production manager: Josep Maria Ibern
Production manager: Carmen Álvarez
Technical manager: Rubèn Taltavull
Assistant director: Carolina Morro
Manufacturing of scenography: May, Roman Ogg and Sol Curiel
Manufacturing wardrobe: Luis Espinosa and Ángel Domingo
Stage props: Jordi Fuster Tallers Teatre-Auditori Sant Cugat