About workshop of Institute of Theatre

The final workshop in the 4th course of the Advanced School of Dramatic Arts is chiefly intended as a practical class in theatre on a professional level, directed by a director working in the Catalan or international theatre. It is an opportunity to experience the processes of creation (in some cases), direction and staging of a play in conditions similar, or as similar as possible, to those existing on the market and to help future graduates to familiarise themselves with the dynamics of the profession. Along with students specialising in acting, students specialising in direction, dramaturgy and set design also take part.
In December, 2003, we asked Albert Boadella to run a workshop of this type. He himself suggested the possibility of staging the historic work of the Els Joglars company, La Torna.
The Romea Theatre expressed an interest in the production and proposed that the Institute of the Theatre schedule the play for the Romea Theatre and also arrange for a subsequent tour.
This project, formally launched with the signing of a co-production agreement, represents the first step towards cooperation between the Institute of the Theatre and producers throughout the nation, which will make it possible to facilitate postgraduates from the Institute of the Theatre getting the profession.
Rehearsals of La Torna were held from 14 February to 8 June, 2005, at El Llorà-Pruït and at the Barcelona Institute of the Theatre. Presentation as a workshop of the 4th course of the Advanced School of Dramatic Arts will be from 9 to 12 June, 2005 at the Institute of the Theatre’s Studio Theatre.

Raimon Àvila
Head of the ESAD of the Institute of the Theatre in Barcelona

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About La torna

"Torna": The quantity which you hand over to a person who has acquired something from you at a price greater than its worth. When a product sold doesn't exactly match up to its indicated weight, the 'torna' is what is added to complete the said weight.

On the 3rd May 1973 Puig Antich and the Pole, Heinz Chez were executed in Barcelona and Tarragona, respectively. Of the first much has been said and continues to be said, given that he was a political prisoner. Heinz Txez, however, died shamefully, branded with the stigma of being a common criminal. In any case, the paradoxical part was that his execution had political ends, constituting the torna of the execution of Puig Antich with the result of disorientating public opinion predisposed, at that moment, to confusing the terms 'political activist' and 'common criminal'.

The pathetic life of Heinz Chez is practically unknown, even to those who dealt intimately with him. According to his trial, Heinz was an enigmatic man of whom we know very little. His own account of his life tells of the death of his parents during the war when he was five, his internment in a children's concentration camp, his profession as a street comedian to earn a living, his solitary wanderings across diverse countries until the day he shot a civil guard dead in a camp in Tarragona.

Neither before nor after his execution was anyone found to have known him, not even a family member or friend. He was, without a doubt, an authentic loner who went to the vile garrotte without anyone knowing anything about his character or conduct (even his name could have been false).

This performance has been created as a free interpretation of the events, with two specific aims; a homage to the street comedian Heinz Chez and as a reminder of one of so many injustices committed in the name of the law, a law which trusts that time will bury the past.

We don't intend it to be a tragedy but a grand comedy of masks, just as Heinz, from both the events and people surrounding him, must have seen it in the end, given that he didn't know the language, customs, laws or legal rights of the Spanish state.

We wanted to present the performance with simplicity, in both visual and narrative elements, because some of the scenes depict real events.

(Text that appeared in the programme for the work in the year 1977, which was a fundamental element in defining the military court’s accusation.)

About La torna de la torna

Crime of State

P28 years after the premier of “La Torna” and the events that the play provoked, it is difficult today to imagine all that occurred without taking into account that at that time Spain was just beginning to come out of a period of obscurantism and found itself faced with powerful pressures from sectors of the far right. The fact that some of the major forces portrayed in the work, the army and the police, were still faithful to the principles of the Franco regime was a determining facture in the legal action taken against members of Els Joglars by the military court. The same military legal machinery that had condemned Heinz Chez, fell upon us with all the absurdly disproportionate hunger for vengeance that the imprisonment and prosecution by court martial of a group of actors implies.

It is clear that today neither political control nor the repression of citizens figure among the responsibilities of the army or the Guardia Civil. The reputation these institutions enjoy today has made them pillars of the democratic system. Nonetheless, toward the end of 1977 and in spite of the death of the dictator, the automatic submission of the military to the previous regime remained intact, since none of its internal structures had been changed by the new political leaders. In this sense, and in order to faithfully portray the spirit of that time, the present production of the work incorporates, without any significant changes, the principal dramatic situations. These scenes crudely satirised that sector of the military dishonoured by their contemptible subjection to a criminal regime that executed a man while concealing, in the process, dark political interests.

Thanks to the investigations of journalist Raúl M. Riebenbauer, we know today that the name Heinz Chez was false and that the victim was not a Polish vagabond either. His name was Georg Welzel, and he was a citizen of East Germany, where he had a mother, two brothers, a wife and three children. Facts that were covered up by the military court that condemned him to death, who in that alone betrayed their contempt for honour and justice.

If the play had a significance three years after Georg’s execution, it now takes on a new meaning in the light of discoveries that point with even greater clarity at what was nothing less than a crime of the state.

Albert Boadella

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1974
2 March In the prison of Tarragona, the Pole Heinz Chez is executed by garrotte. The execution is not instantaneous but lasts some ten minutes. Chez had no friends or family. No one claimed his body.

1977
September ElsJoglars stage La Torna.
November After 40 productions the military prohibit the work.
December Albert Boadella is imprisoned by military order and accused of insults to the armed forces.

1978
January A strike by professionals in the world of the theatre all over the country is called in support of Els Joglars. The other members of the company are also prosecuted and released on bail. Intensive campaign of demonstrations and other events in support of the right to freedom of speech.
February The campaign of solidarity with Els Joglars becomes international in scope.
The day before the court martial, Boadella escapes from prison and flees the country with two other members of the company.
April The rest of the actors appear before the court martial and are sentenced to 2 years in prison.

1995
Raúl M. Riebenbauer begins an investigation which will eventually uncover the real identity of Heinz Chez. He was in fact Georg Welzel, a German citizen who had a wife and three children. The military court had done everything in its power to keep these facts secret.

2000
July Oriol Malló, author of a book on the “La Torna”, case was sentenced to pay a fine and damages for slander to critic Joan de Sagarra, witness called by the prosecution in the court martial of Els Joglars.

 

CAST AND PRODUCTION LIST

ELIES BARBERÀ
MARTA LÓPEZ
MARTA FERNÁNDEZ
JOSUÈ GUASH
GUILLEM MOTOS
LLUÍS OLIVÉ
PAU SASTRE
JAUME BERNET
JAVIER VILLENA

Joint production:

TEATRE ROMEA