Els Joglars: still sarcastic at 50

This fall sees the 50th anniversary of the creation of what is now Spain's longest-running independent theater company, Els Joglars. Since October 1961 the company has taken swipes at General Franco, incurred the wrath of the armed forces and the king, sniggered at the pretensions of Catalan nationalism, and generally made fun of just about every institution in Spain.

The only man left from the original company is Albert Boadella, who admits that the present crisis has dampened the celebrations. Aside from the publication of a coffee table book, the company will be staging El Nacional, a work first performed at the time of Spain's last major economic crisis, in 1993, following the excesses of the Barcelona Olympics and the Seville Expo (Madrid was tossed the bone of European Cultural Capital, but there was no money left by then) and at a time when another Socialist administration, that of Felipe González, was on its way out. The play opens today in Madrid's Nuevo Teatro Alcalá.

"We chose this piece because it brings together so many of the elements that have defined our work over the last 50 years: humor, tragedy, sarcasm, cruelty..." says Boadella.

He's just overseen a rehearsal in which he has barely issued a single instruction. Instead he spent some time cuddling with his assistant, Martina Cabanas, and exchanged a few words with the technicians and lighting team. In Catalan. Yes, in Catalan. Els Joglars left Catalonia in 2009 saying that they felt discriminated against for staging productions in Castilian. Yet Catalan remains Boadella's primary means of communication. A trilogy of controversial plays dealing with Catalan notables living and dead (Jordi Pujol, Dalí, and Josep Pla) proved offensive to both left and right in Catalonia, eventually leading to his decision to leave his home city in 2009 for his current post at the huge Teatros del Canal complex in Popular Party-controlled Madrid. But as a Barcelonan who has increasingly turned sour on Catalan nationalism, a bullfighting aficionado and anticlerical political activist, Boadella is nothing if not complex.

What is it to be Catalan? What is it to be Spanish? Is it a betrayal to move to Madrid where money and sex are to be had more easily than in Barcelona? What about the dilemma of a cultivated artist who needs to make his way in the world?

"Yes, I am Catalan," Boadella says through his characters, "but I am also Spanish. And that is more important."

Boadella insists that while he remains at the head of the troupe they will not be performing in Catalonia. Neither is he thinking of retirement any time soon: "An artist's retirement is something that is decided by the public, and for the moment, the public is still interested in what I have to say."

There are plays for boom times and there are plays for hard times. El Nacional is a play for hard times. "The parallels between then and now are tremendous, although the talk wasn't quite so apocalyptic then. The essence of the play is the same though, even if I have had to make some changes: I can't play the same me I did 18 years ago."

The play centers on Don José, who has worked all his life in an opera house that is about to be taken over by Deutsche Bank. A production of Rigoletto is being staged using beggars and street musicians. "There is no better sound box for a musician than an empty stomach," says Don José. Aside from putting Wagner in his place ("that isn't music"), the character provides a means to expose the sins of the past that have led us to today's crisis: realism without poetry; inflated monuments; and dependence on public money.

Don José is Boadella's mouthpiece. "Theater has now taken on many of the characteristics of a theme park - although it will adapt more easily to the current times, because you can still do a lot with little, unlike in opera," he says, adding: "Perhaps the innate resistance in our political structures and in people themselves has gone; we are no longer interested in creating problems, and this at a time when we are freer than ever to say what we want."

He says that his own decision to accept the offer of basing the company in Madrid left him open to charges of selling out. "But nothing happened. Nobody came along with an idea to satirize some politician. It's a symptom that theater is no longer interested in breaking the rules, which is serious."