I have finally been able to visit the exhibition dedicated to Tricicle at the Palau Robert. How excited I was. The show reviews four decades of the Barcelona theater group and its silent humor. The truth is Tricycle Click It does not disappoint, thanks in large part to the skill of the architect Juli Capella, who has curated the exhibition, whose first impact on the visitor is the giant chair used in the show Sit, from 2002, with three mannequins with the masks that the actors used in Terrrific ten years before.
How could it be otherwise, the journey through the 40-year history of the group begins with the now immortal gag of the I’m a scoundrel, I’m a lord, in which the trio puts a hilarious mime to the Julio Iglesias song. I remember as if it were yesterday how one night in 1983 they hit him in a One, two, three, answer again, the mythical contest created by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador for Televisión Española. Since then, This gag is part of a collective imaginary of humor that has escaped the hands of its authors to become the patrimony of the public., like the empanadilla de Martes y Trece and the way to explain jokes about Eugenio and Chiquito de la Calzada.
On that historic night, some 22 million astonished spectators laughed. with what they saw on their televisions, and Tricicle’s career skyrocketed overnight. Until then, its audience was limited to that which could fit in rooms like El Llantiol. The audience only increased when they participated in the closing of the 1992 Olympic Games. Few, including the new generations who did not witness this phenomenon live, have been reluctant to imitate since then the gestures of the Tricicle when they listen I’m a scoundrel, I’m a lord.
The exhibition honors the golden chapter that Paco Mir, Joan Gràcia and Carles Sans have written for the Barcelona theater, inventing a new humorous language. Tricycle Click It delves into its 10 great shows, with videos and the exhibition of original objects and costumes, which Capella organizes in thematic stalls of each production. A) Yes, the public walks through the props from Manic, Exit, Slastic, Terrrific, Entretres, Tricycle 20, Sit, Garrick, Bits Y Hits. Among the collection of mythical objects from his career, the public can admire the ring and the boxing gloves of Slastic; the chainsaw and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre suit of Carles Sans in Terrrific, and the led suit of Bits, restored for the occasion and that lights up as visitors pass by.
Now that data information is in vogue, the sample exploits it too. Thus, after visiting the Palau Robert, We know that the Tricicle have made 6,196 performances of their shows, which have been distributed in 450 theaters in 20 countries and have seen 4,231,656 people. And an unprecedented fact: the group’s audience has laughed an average of every eight seconds, for which it adds up to 17.7 billion laughs in four decades. Good indicator.
Tricicle was born on November 1, 1979 when its members were still students at the Institut del Teatre. After performing in the street and alternative spaces, in 1982 they entered the professional circuit with the premiere in the Sala Villarroel of their show Manic. A year later, its explosion occurred in the One two Three and from then on his trajectory was almost dizzying. In 1984, they released Exit, with which they began to act outside the country. Slastic, in 1986, was its definitive consolidation. In 2020, they retired from the stage.
Although they do not act anymore, it will take a long time to stop doing it in the memory of the public. The exhibition includes the following words by Chico Ibáñez Serrador from when they performed in his contest with the Julio Iglesias gag: “I remember that, when I saw the test that Tricicle did on the set, I was certain that these three boys would go very far” . Of course, the mythical director was prophetic.
I recommend visiting the exhibition, a great and well deserved tribute from Barcelona to the Tricicle.
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