The Malaga Theater Classics Festival arrives with 12 productions

The Provincial Council of Málaga has presented this Thursday the second edition of the Málaga Theatre Classics Festival, in which 12 productions will be staged in seven locations across the province. The event, designed to bring new audiences closer to our theatrical roots, will take place from May 1 to June 7 at the Teatro Cervantes, the Teatro Echegaray, the María Victoria Atencia Provincial Cultural Center (MVA) and various theaters, cultural centers, auditoriums, or municipal gardens in the Málaga towns of Alhaurín el Grande, Almáchar, Benagalbón, Fuengirola, Nerja, and Vélez-Málaga.

Performers such as Pepe Viyuela, Ana Ruiz, Roberto Enríquez, Antonio Campos, and Celia Freijeiro; companies like the Portuguese Do Chapitô and the Málaga-based Pata Teatro and TyT Creaciones; the chamber opera Lazarillo, and the collaboration between Marina Devesa and the Banda Morisca share the bill with a brand-new production by Jóvenes Clásicos, who will stage a very unique version of Amar después de la muerte. The 12 productions of Málaga Theatre Classics are joined by a session at the Teatro Echegaray featuring seven dramatized readings of texts developed in the Workshop of Possible Worlds and two educational activities that will take place at the MVA.

This was reported by the councilor for Culture and Historical Heritage of the City Council, Mariana Pineda; the deputy vice president of Culture, Education, and Youth of the Provincial Council of Málaga, Manuel López; and the manager of Málaga Procultura, Juan Antonio Vigar.

This is the second edition of this Festival, the "most ambitious both in the number of productions and locations." In fact, the 2024 edition of this meeting with our theatrical tradition featured 15 performances of 9 works in 5 municipalities of the province, while next May there will be 16 performances of 12 works plus an evening of dramatized readings in 6 localities of Málaga. Accompanying the councilor, the deputy, and the manager in the Rossini hall of the Cervantes were various officials from the participating localities and from the artistic or production teams of the works.

Málaga Theatre Classics aims to disseminate, through local and national productions, the theatrical heritage prior to the 20th century, with special attention to the Golden Age, in the capital and its province. The event combines theatrical exhibition and training, is characterized by a cross-cutting commitment to recognizing the role of women in the performing arts, and fosters engagement with professionals in the sector to enhance the value and understanding of classical theater.

In this edition, there is a special focus on the 'one-armed man of Lepanto' ('Quixote', 'Marcela' and 'Sancho'), which will share space and time with Shakespearean ('Coriolanus'), Calderonian ('Amar después de la muerte'), picaresque (the opera 'Lazarillo y Guitón Onofre') and 19th-century literature rescue ('La Regenta') productions. The second edition of Málaga Theatre Classics will also traverse the Greco-Roman tradition with 'Ulysses' and 'Julius Caesar', the 16th century with 'The Crazy History of the Golden Age' and the Middle Ages fused with contemporary poetry with 'The Necklace of Azahara. A Thousand Years from Ibn Hazm to Antonio Gala'.

Program

'Lazarillo, chamber opera', a production by Euroscena and Teatro Xtremo, opens the Málaga Theatre Classics on May 1. The Teatro Cervantes hosts the latest opera by National Music Award winner David del Puerto, a small-format lyrical work starring soprano Ruth González and featuring four singers and a six-musician ensemble to recreate the famous picaresque novel.

The theme of tricksters continues that same evening at the Echegaray, there with Pepe Viyuela and the music of Sara Águeda in 'Guitón Onofre (the lost rogue)', a theatrical version of the picaresque novel written by Gregorio González in 1604.

On Friday, May 2, there are two proposals. At the Teatro Cervantes, Ana Ruiz will play the role of Ana Ozores, in the first-ever staging of 'La Regenta' in the country that faithfully follows the novel by Clarín. The hands of Helena Pimenta handle this version by Eduardo Galán in a production by Secuencia 3 and the Teatro Fernán Gómez.

At the Teatro del Carmen in Vélez-Málaga, Josemi Rodríguez, David Mena, and Macarena Pérez Bravo star in 'Quixote', a play by Pata Teatro. Besides that day 2, 'Quixote' will travel on May 9 to the Villa de Nerja Cultural Center.

Vania Produccions and the Mérida Theatre Festival produce 'Coriolanus', scheduled for Monday, May 5 at the Teatro Cervantes. Roberto Enríquez and Carmen Conesa are in the cast of this politically charged and emotionally intense play by William Shakespeare.

The next stop is at the María Victoria Atencia Provincial Cultural Center. On Friday, May 9, our Golden Age shines again with 'Marcela. (A Song of Cervantes)', a production by the Cervantes Society directed by Leticia Dolera and starring Celia Freijeiro.

'The Crazy History of the Golden Age', on the bill at the Teatro Echegaray on Sunday, May 11, portrays a Spain full of light and shadow through a clown theater proposal aimed at adult and youth audiences.

The next proposal is 'Amar después de la muerte. Musical Sound Fiction'. 'The Necklace of Azahara. A Thousand Years from Ibn Hazm to Antonio Gala' brings together actress Marina Devesa with the Banda Morisca. The music-monologue will travel from Almáchar (Cultural House, Friday, May 16) to Alhaurín el Grande (Gardens of Baltasara, Sunday, May 18). That week on Friday, the Companhia do Chapitô performs 'Julius Caesar' at the MVA.

The eleventh production, 'Ulysses', by the Antonio Campos Company, directed by Ángel Calvente and starring Campos himself, will be performed on Thursday, May 22 at the Palacio de la Paz in Fuengirola, Friday, May 23 at the MVA, and Saturday, May 24 at the Center for Folklore Studies in Benagalbón.

The last proper theatrical production of this second edition features another Málaga-based company, TyT Creations, about the figure of Don Quixote's squire. Their 'Sancho', authored by Sergio Rubio, directed by Javi Parra, performed by Joaquín Núñez and lighted by Pedro Hofhuis, will be staged at the Echegaray on Saturday, May 24, and Sunday, May 25.

Classics of Theatre will close, also on the same stage of Málaga's second municipal theater, but in the format of dramatized readings, with seven of the authors who have shaped their texts in the Workshop of Possible Worlds.

Under the title of 'Passages for a Classical Labyrinth', the creations 'Europe or Oblivion', by Alicia Alarcón; 'Lost Among the Dunes', by Laura López; 'The Wedding', by Juan Diego Gil; 'The Dream Factory', by José Suardíaz; 'Hanging On', by Irene Bujalance; 'Sweet Bitterness', by Víctor Alfonso, and 'Process', by Yose Pardo will be tested on Saturday, June 7.

The educational aspect is specified in two actions. Juan Manuel Lara and Miguel A. Almanza teach the Acting for Camera Course: Shakespeare and the Spanish Golden Age through Mental Health. Angélica Gómez coordinates, in turn, Classical and Contemporary: the Dramaturgy of Light from the Golden Age.