A medieval legend
Legend has it that in the 13th century a Benedictine monk from the Czech monastery of Podlazice was sentenced to death by hanging when he was discovered committing the sin of lust. To save himself, the religious made a pact with the abbot: his sentence would be commuted if in just one night he managed to write a book containing all universal knowledge.
The pact with the Devil
The task was titanic, so the monk, overwhelmed, invoked Satan to help him. El Maligne accepted the feat with a single condition: that his image had to appear on one of the pages of the great work.
The Gigas Codex
The fable is the fable, but the codex exists. It measures 90 centimeters high, 50.5 wide and 22 thick, has 624 pages and weighs 75 kilograms, and after passing through hundreds of hands over the centuries, it now rests in Stockholm, in a perfect state of preservation . In its day it was considered the eighth wonder of the world. They say that if the Gospels were guided by the hand of God, the Codex Gigas was guided by the hand of the Devil. Hence the volume carries a certain curse associated with it.
A fascinating staging
Today, a staging of this fascinating legend arrives at Sala Dau al Sec: joven llama, by Albert Tola from Girona, who also signs the direction. A work in free verse without punctuation. It is one of those little treasures that, from time to time, appear on the Barcelona billboard.
An intimate work
joven llama is a work designed for a maximum of thirty people. A pearl to be tasted in privacy… and little by little. Everyone is waiting in the lobby of the theater. Tola brings each spectator into the room, one by one. With a flashlight, he accompanies you to a chair. He decides where you sit.
A masterful interpretation
García Olza plays the monk condemned to death, in a monologue that does not reach sixty minutes. The actor recites, in a serene litany, his punishment and his challenge. A text that Tola also wrote in the morning, for a whole month. Thirty days with the sleep turned upside down, like the fox. A nocturnal and poetic piece composed to be understood live.
A unique experience
The piece has two very subtle parts. In the first, the actor hardly moves. He takes advantage of the resources he has within reach (a radiator or the plugs that protrude from the wall) to deposit the few objects he will work with. He exudes dignity, despite the condemnation. He suffers more for his friend’s life than for his own.
An unstructured aesthetic
joven llama plays with contemporaneity thanks to its deliberate anachronism between a medieval story with an ad hoc text, and 21st century clothing and props. After all, the story of the monk and his impossible love is universal, and almost everyone has begged for affection at some point in their life.
A post-function colloquium
Tomorrow, Thursday, by the way, there will be a post-function colloquium by Dr. Victoria Cirlot, professor of Romance Philology and expert in chivalric and mystical culture of the Middle Ages. With the title “From Códex Gigas to gesto escénico”, it will be moderated by the artistic director of the Room, Mercè Managuerra.