Anna Serrano: ‘The author’ at the Free Theatre: The system always wins theater

British playwright Ella Hickson premiered The Writer at the Almeida in London in 2018. We live in such accelerated times that now, when the (translation by Carlota Subirós) has just been released, the text already seems outdated. Anna Serrano directs with a firm hand a production that follows the author’s limitations: it is about questioning and putting into crisis the theatrical language itself, its conventions and its commonplaces. Both in form and in content. Hickson builds such archetypal characters that they seem like a joke: the young author who wants to change the world, the pragmatic and conservative director (who at times looks like a producer), the pusillanimous boyfriend with shoes… the author it’s an interesting theatrical device that ends up falling into its own traps: the first part of the piece is stimulating, while in the second the thing deflates dramatically.

A scene of dialectical battle between a young author (a very convincing Ravina Raventós) and a director of theestablishment (a fine-tuned Javier Beltrán) ends up becoming a collection of clichés about generational and gender conflicts: we all agree that capitalism and heteropatriarchy are the evils of this world, but the innocence of the young woman who aims to make the revolution thanks to the theater is embarrassing. After this prologue, we realize that we have seen an open rehearsal of a piece in the process of creation, and a colloquium begins that is, without a doubt, the best part of the performance. Here David Selvas enters the scene, real author and director of what we have just witnessed. The power tensions between the members of the artistic team are shown through their cautious interventions and responses to a couple of spectators in the audience, in a meta-theatrical exercise that works for its clarity and fine humour. Mansplaining from the director to the author and general discomfort with a question about race: nothing new under the sun.

We then move to the home of the author and her boyfriend, with a stage set by Judit Colomer showing the tricks of the theater, including the machinists working in full view of the audience. Javier Beltrán portrays with craft and love a boyfriend so simple that he is happy going to the supermarket. Special mention to the characterization of Paula Barjau: this bun defines a whole typology of apparently deconstructed men. At home, the author has the poster of her previous show, Young and busy womanand this is the definitive proof that the system always ends up winning. Whether in the Almeida in London or in the purplewashing (and the youngwashing) that claim our times. Defending the revolutionary power of the theater and criticizing its bourgeois character in front of an audience like that of Lliure (with this critic included) is a resounding innocence. You, too, have been caught by the system, Ella Hickson, and the system allows you to scream and rant until you’re comfortable: you win, the theater wins, we all win. The bank always wins.

The second half of the author it’s an outlandish attempt to look for other theatricalities: Nausicaa Bonnín defines very well a rather unbearable monologue with references to Sèmele and Dionís, and Anna Gatell fulfills what should look like a post-dramatic theater scene (illumination by the always effective Marc Salicrú). If this part is disconcerting, what follows already makes us laugh: we understand without problems what Hickson wants to tell us with this ridiculous dialogue between the author and her almost teenage girlfriend (a Raventós who perfectly portrays a young woman imagined by a male director), but dramatically the scene does not give much of itself. The reference to Guernica de Picasso is the icing on a cake that, eight years after its London premiere, feels like a reheated dinner. Rosalía stated, not long ago, that she might have been a friend of the Málaga painter: there is no debate about whether or not to separate the author’s work, because if we don’t separate them we would have to burden ourselves with a large part of the history of art, literature or music.

In short and to conclude, the author it is a willful montage that has reached us too late, demonstrating that its character as a public rebecca is completely fruitless. it will change the author the theater? no Will the spectators leave the Free transformed? neither Despite everything, the effort of the director and all the performers is commendable. But it is sad to see, once again, that we continue to live in the world of “the author of the moment” or “the fashion director”. The really young and busy creators don’t premiere in the Free, because the system already takes care that they can never access it.