The New York marathon returns to the Barcelona theater after ten years | Catalonia

The theatrical show The New York Marathon, in which the two actors who play the main characters spend the entire play (for an hour) running, returns to the Barcelona billboard. The production directed by Juan Carlos Martel (current director of the Teatre Lliure) celebrates the ten years of its first season in the Catalan capital with the return to the city and will be able to be seen from January 23 to February 14 at the Aquitània theater.

The New York Marathon, a work by the Italian playwright Edoardo Erba interpreted by Joan Negrié and Albert Triola and produced by the Sala Trono, was installed in the Sala Villarroel in 2010 and was a complete success. Now, the two actors have had not only to rehearse the piece but to get in shape to face the artistic and physical challenge that the show represents.

Erba’s original work was released 15 years ago and in that time it has been translated into 17 languages ​​(including Catalan) and has been seen in many parts of the world. Martel’s montage was re-premiered in the Tarragona Throne Room of the debut of the Catalan version last September. The piece is a dramatic comedy in which two friends sign up to run the famous New York City Marathon. At first one of them resists, arguing that he is not made for such tough sports, but his comrade insists and convinces him. The play features the two of them running (actually jumping on site nonstop) for the entire hour of the performance. The two characters run and talk to each other about life as they do so. They sweat, they gasp, they curse … The work is also presented as a metaphor for life.

“This piece by Edoardo makes you laugh and cry,” explains Juan Carlos Martel, “because it explains humanly and without any theatrical mechanism, only with two actors who literally leave their skin on how our lives are full and empty.” Martel, who thanks Filípides, the legendary running soldier who crossed the 42 kilometers from Marathon to Athens to bring the news of the victory over the Persians, “for all his effort”, highlights that the show attests to a “human theater and real, direct and without concessions, honest, without stone or cardboard ”.

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