Feixuga adaptation of the popular novel by Carmen Laforet

Nothing is the most famous and popular novel by the Barcelona writer Carmen Laforet, winner of the first Nadal prize in 1944, when the author was 23 years old. It is a novel about post-war Barcelona society and, in particular, about the ruined bourgeoisie. The story of Andrea, the protagonist, is described in an impressionistic style taken from exquisite descriptions through the eyes of the girl, who at the age of 18 returns to her grandmother’s house on Carrer Aribau in Barcelona to enter the university The most valued aspect of the novel is the harshness with which the author describes the characters and the vital anguish they exude in an oppressive family stronghold inhabited by hopelessness, religious fundamentalism and violence; confronted all this with the sensual story of a female friendship between Andrea and her university friend Ena.

Theatrical adaptation of literary works can be done from a strict fidelity to the original in form and letter or from the freedom of a scenic narrative that captures the important and dispenses with the accessory. Joan Yago’s dramaturgy has opted for the first option, dressing each and every one of the characters in words and without correctly solving the problem of descriptions or that of Uncle Roman’s final suicide. Therefore, there is a redundant reiteration of situations with actions that illustrate what the narrator has already explained or is explaining. These are actions that, in addition, the director conforms from a realism that makes up for the lack of poetics with exaggeration. For example, the degenerate masculinity of Uncle Juan, who abuses his wife. Do we need so many punches and shouts? The director, Beatriz Jaén, enhances the melodramatic elements to the point of ridiculousness, with an exaggeration that undermines the credibility of the story. The proposal thus becomes a tabletop soap opera melodrama in which the form eats the background as in a period painting by an amateur painter.

However, we must highlight the work of the protagonist, Júlia Roch, who carries the role on her shoulders and who illustrates very well the bewilderment and strangeness of an Andrea who is looking for her place in a world that slips through your fingers.