'Ensayo sobre la ceguera' gets a name in Barcelona's VI Premios de Teatre Universitario

From the 14th to the 18th of last week, the sixth edition of Barcelona's Premios de Teatro Universitario (University Theatre Awards) took place, commonly known as Premios Cascabel (Bell Awards). During these four days, Barcelona's best university theatre got gathered on different places around the city and its Metropolitan Area, delighting the assisting audiences. In La Coquera Teatro's case, we performed on Friday the 18th of May at 22h in Ateneu Adrianenc (Sant Adrià del Besòs) presenting our play 'Ensayo sobre la Ceguera' (once again, with the alias 'Blindness') in a performance with reduced seats from around 30 people.

Poster of the sixth edition of Premios Cascabel

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What is this play about?

An incomprehensible blindness plage blights the city, and the first patients are promptly isolated in an abandoned installation while the pertinent measures are taken in order to understand the disease and bring some response. Contention is needed, civilization must prevail at all means. But, what happens with all those first patients? Who will help a blinded person if the condition itself was contagious? Is it all permitted to protect the rest of humanity, even abandoning to their own fate? Live first hand the pandemic, feel the horror of seeing how human beings lose, minute after minute, all kinds of decency, of empathy. Such an opportunity to take part on the acclaimed novel by José Saramago in an immersive theatre approach by La Coquera.

Poster of the play

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The performance itself was quite good, though there were some mistakes or incidences we know how to carry it on as a result mostly of the play's path. In general terms, the audiences enjoyed this immersive theatre play with us, and they mostly valued positively the use of the space that we did and the way we suggested them in order to make them part of the action itself. Many of the received critiques were positive and constructive in order to improve the play for future representations, so it could be said that this play is going to have a long journey with compliments in the future.

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Thanks to all the ones who attended to Sant Adrià last Friday for sharing your time with us in Ateneu, especially to some relatives who came. When I shared opinions with them, there were only a few words to say, the play had moved them, and they were still processing what they had lived during that hour, but I noticed in their sights that they had enjoyed the experience. In general terms, that was the impression I noticed from most of the audience, many of them congratulated us explicitly, and they valued the fact of making them participate in our singular game during the play's hour of duration.

I also want to congratulate to the rest of cast members for knowing how to deal with the circumstances once again. For being able to sweat their shirts and have fun performing in the best way they could. Generally, the good vibes achieved in Toledo still latent and rapport was noticeable between us to make this play works as a Swiss clock, though we were also alert in order to know how to react to possible mistakes or unexpected situations. Let's keep it like this, guys!

I also want to acknowledge the help of Marc López and Nacho Martí who were our sound and lighting technicians respectively in addition to Joan Martí and the rest of Ateneu's staff for offering this chance and the help given, we hope to come back there sooner than later.

Promotional pictures of the play

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Last Wednesday, May 23rd, the award ceremony of Premios Cascabel took place at 19:30h in ETSEIB within a gala hosted by the troupe Utopía Teatro where the importance of Theatre inside the university spheres was once again claimed and also, as a way of protest, the actual situation of some university theatre groups or theatre workshops was mentioned inside nowadays overview.

Some pictures taken during the gala

La Coquera's members attended as guests to this Gala because we opted to 12 of the 15 candidatures available, so it could be said that the play's proposal has a good acceptance in the jury's members. Finally, 'Ensayo sobre la Ceguera' (Blindness) won five of the prizes it was nominated to:

- Best Handbill

- Best Misé en Scene

- Best Lighting

- Best Costume and Characterization

- Best Supporting Actress - Victoria Crespo (Nurse)

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Considering it calmly today, I can say that, with these, it's been seven prizes that this immersive theatre play has on its back, many of them regarding technical categories. So it could be said that the potential it has in the future is good, and we can be proud of the path we're taking to face our premiere in Teatre Tantarantana during the month of July. If the raw material is good, why should we stop?

From now on, there are two programmed performances of 'Ensayo sobre la Ceguera' (Blindness) with reduced audiences in June before arriving to Tantarantana the following moth. If you're interested on attending to any of them, you can write us an e-mail by clicking here, we promise to inform you the best way we can on there. It seems that there's a bright future for 'Ensayo sobre la Ceguera' far beyond of the shadows projected on the play itself. See you in the following post!