The Teatro del Barrio presents tomorrow and on 10, 17 and 23 September the play ¡Ay, Carmela!, the tragicomedy by José Sanchis Sinisterra, which is already a classic of Spanish-language theatre.
Last May, Paula Iwasaki and Guillermo Serrano, founders of Caramba Teatro, celebrated ten years of conquering stages with the performance of this play by reviving their version of this production at the Teatro del Barrio. It was a box-office smash.
Because a decade has passed since then and they have not stopped touring with this text that Sinisterra wrote on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish War, and which, despite this geographical and temporal concreteness, has been translated into multiple languages and has been performed countless times, with a film version (by Carlos Saura) included.
Ay, Carmela! tells the story of Carmela and Paulino. She is pure grit. He is more conformist and restrained. They form a comic cast that travels around the villages with the slogan ‘Variedades a lo fino’, and will be forced to improvise a theatrical evening for the National Army. How to maintain dignity, how to endure horror and everyday life in the midst of conflict. Art, politics, theatre people who endure adversity. Decisions and consequences, battles that are lost before they begin. This is what Ay, Carmela! is all about, which, with humour and emotion, deals with loneliness, fear and injustice. Tickets can be purchased at this link.
