No doubt Albert Boadella and Carlota Soldevila had in mind the idea of medieval minstrals when they decided that Els Joglars (The Minstrels) would be the mime-based theatre company they founded in 1962 and there is no doubt that the company's professional career has remained loyal to their name up to the present day. Besides the company's aritistic role in theatre history, Els Joglars have participated both tacitly and directly, in the political and social evolution of our society, playing, as benefits them, the jester's role; with no attempt at flattery, the jester pokes a finger in the wound and places the audience (and by extension society) before a revealing mirror, reflecting a conscience that many would prefer to hide breaking taboos and providing a kind of shock treatment, always using the same medium as that employed by the minstrels of the Middle Ages or the playwrights of Classical Greece: theatre.

The history of Els Joglars is the history of a search for and the construction of a theatre language based on classical mime techniques. The first plays belong to the school of mime, but after a few years, as a consequence of a conscious and demanding learning process using techniques of self- expression through movement, there arose a need to discover new forms of expression.. It would be during the Zurich Festival, in 1967, where the company performed alongside the best names in international mime, that Els Joglars became fully conscious of the change they had instigated in an art form that had been going nowhere for many years. This discovery led to the company's decision to form a professional co-operative which would become synonymous with sacrifice and austerity, exclusive dedication and many hours of work

It is impossible to separate the company's activities during their first years from the historical context of the sixties and the seventies in Catalonia: a moment of social, political and cultural revitalisation in which Els Joglars actively participated and in which they became totally immersed, both on the positive side through the dynamic changes Catalan society was experiencing and on the negative side through problems caused by a part of that same society and the state apparatus.

Breaking away from classical mime was a gradual process. In the company's first professional plays:, El diari (1968), El joc (1970) o Cruel Ubris (1971), the search for new forms of expression is evident. Self-expression through movement is still the base but gestures that are a far cry from the harmony and undulations typical of classical mime are introduced, voice is incorporated (onomatopoeias and cries) as a gesture. The costumes of classical mime disappear and, particularly, the concept of the performance as a whole changes in the conviction that theatre must serve only theatre itself, in an attempt to develop a new relationship with the audience, looking for a new audience (or new attitudes), for a new theatre; an uncontaminated audience, willing to receive simply what theatre offers.

The system of working also evolves, heading for what from now on will be one of the characteristics of Els Joglars: the collective creative process. The theatre created by Els Joglars continues to be a theatre of ideas: critical, iconoclastic, subversive, cruel, but always festive and with a keen sense of humour (bearing in mind that the political and social situation was difficult). This was the way towards the establishment of the company's reputation in Europe.

Cruel Ubris represents a more radical change. It is a kind of explosion. The technical expertise of the group culminates in a totally free show with no previous model or reference, apparent improvisation and craziness are the result of a disciplined and planned structure, an intelligent dramatic composition and direction developed through the collective creative process. The play contains elements of parody (a parody on the classical theatre), political denunciation, a play on elements of sacrosanct Catalan iconography - a frivolous look at that which is considered sacred- and surprising changes of register, from comedy to drama, from subtlety to vulgarity. This is concept of theatre distant from any official or established forms. The " Joglars" style is defining itself. Mary d'Ous is the next production in 1972, this is the first show created in Pruit (Osona), in a Catalan country house where the actors lived during the entire working process - a system of work which continues up to the present day. The play is a "tour de force", demonstrating what the company can achieve; it is planned as a concert, with various themes (the relationships between men and women and the interrelations of power) and movements and their variations (fugue, canon...). An aesthetic piece, a study of theatre and its forms of language and at the same time an invention of new theatre idioms, but always maintaining the characteristics of the company's discourse.

In Àlias Serrallonga (1974) (1974) Els Joglars build a conventional narrative for the first time: the story of the bandit Serrallonga. The incorporation of speech, the simultaneous use of different stage areas and the setting of the action among the audience are some of the characteristics of this play which employs a realistic and at the same time sarcastic tone. It discusses the relationship between the city and the country, the relationships of power and those between the Court of Madrid and Catalonia. The political implications and the criticism of the country are very direct. Throughout an international tour the play is acclaimed by both critics and public as an extraordinary production.

La Torna (1977) represents an important breakthrough in the company's career. Els Joglars are now financially more stable and are building the "dome" at Pruit (the company's rehearsal space), where the shows will be created from then on. La Torna is a play about the execution of Heinz Chez, an unknown Pole executed by the government together with Salvador Puig Antich in order to reduce the impact of the politically motivated assassination of the catalan; he is "la torna" (the balance) of the execution. A play with text, rough, direct and caustic, constructed with a lot of humour this is theatre of the grotesque, created with references taken from "La Comedia de l'Art". After 40 performances, the military authorities first tries Boadella and sends him to prison, and later the rest of the company. As a result of Boadella's imprisonment a wide popular movement in defence of freedom of expression develops; it is one of the most critical moments of the so-called government of the "transition". One day before his court-martial, Boadella escapes from the hospital where he is being treated after claiming to be ill. The company is divided: some members in prison and others in exile. The struggle between the military authorities and the government and democratic political forces, including Els Joglars and the different movements at street level and throughout Europe continue until 1981.

In exile, Boadella decides to continue the work of Els Joglars in order to keep the group in the public mind both within Spain and outside so that those who are still imprisoned and who have unresolved court cases pending are not forgotten. The Perpignan town council cedes the municipal Theatre and there, with new actors, M-7 Catalonia is constructed and first shown in 1978. Set in a new future civilisation, the play offers conference on the cultural forms of the past, taking as an example four old men, surviving specimens, who are the object of investigation and experiment. The play represents a formal creative breakthrough: the members of the audience don't attend a performance, but a conference; there are no distances, the audience becomes part of the action as public present at the conference, not as a member of a theatre audience.

The process of collective creation under the direction of Albert Boadella becomes more and more important as a work system. It may be true to say that Els Joglars is the only company which through this system obtains dramatically solid results with non of the usual inherent defects of a collective process. As for the actors' work, the construction of characters is of utmost importance and through these characters the plays are constructed. Hence the characters are form a realistic element within a style of theatre which has no desire to be realistic.

The plays progressively define the company's language, using all available expressive resources to create plays from situations which provide a story line. Situations which can be either direct and raw or more symbolic, moving from direct visual impact to the finest subtlety. All methods are valid in order to reach the objective set from the beginning and these methods almost always imply an escape from realism, with the exception of a few incursions used to negate or contrast reality.

A third essential element is the impact of the plays not only on the mind of the spectator but also on the social and political fabric of the audience. Laetius shows and accepts the inevitability of nuclear disaster; this may be shocking, but it is not what the audience expects.

Olympic man Movement is still more evident; a meeting of a neo-fascist group, with all its seductive power based on the aesthetics and ethics of sport; it is a political play, but it does not contain any moral message or any clues about the game that it proposes. In Teledeum the fight between different confessions in order to participate in a mass transmitted on television shows the destruction of religious rituals and the struggle between the individual and his/her faith; it is a polemic show, which if not banned, certainly povokes violent reactions in certain circles. And when the obsession with the European Community begins, Els Virtuosos de Fontainebleau shows how Europe (the French musicians) is in fact tired of Europe and is fascinated by the south which in turn wants to become "European". The same elements are common to all the plays: satire and criticism of power, of absolute faith, of the Church, of elements and symbols which are considered sacrosanct, and of the use of hackneyed subjects and social and cultural topics often considered taboos. Els Joglars, therefore, continue to be minstrels.

In 1979 a parallel company is created, Xalana, which creates L'Odissea, a view of Mediterranean culture told through the story of a modern day Ulysses. In 1981, Boadella directs Operació Ubú at El Teatre Lliure, a psychodrama based on Ubú Rei, by A.Jerry, in order to heal the defects of the "supremo" (alter-ego of the President of La Generalitat-the autonomous catalan government) The play is aimed at all that smacks of institution and power. He also directs, but not with the group, Gabinete Liberman (1984, with the Centro Nacional de Nuevas Tendencias) and Visanteta de Favara (1986, with the Teatre Estable del País Valencià).

25 years after the company was founded, Bye Bye Beethoven (1987) picks up the thread of Laetius, and becomes a synthesis of all previous shows. The play is constructed around a supposed soviet military report on social behaviour in the perfect technology-based society of the future. Laetius will be the man who will survive the holocaust. The production refocuses the subjects of previous plays and points towards the threat of social control in a technologically advanced society and towards the end of civilisation.

These plays present a strong criticism of power in all its many forms, criticism of real, political and economical power, of the power of the media and all that is affected by power and all this is combined with a pessimistic vision of civilisation. This viewpoint leads on to the company's last three productions:

Columbi Lapsus, 1989, examines the sombre affair of the death of Pope John Paul I (naivety and honesty) and the election of John Paul II (power and ambition with all its unconfessable secrets). Thus seen, the Church (a manifestation of power) also becomes part of the underhand dealings of abstract power. Satire, irony, but also a vivid portrait and an invitation to critical thought. Columbi Lapsus marks another step towards the total transformation of the actors into their characters, and yet another in the use of sets and music - opera is omnipresent and essential to the play.

Yo Tengo un tío en América (1991) develops as a result of a very personal interpretation of the commission given by the organisers of the Celebration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America. The psychiatric ward setting returns (power once again) in order to narrate the madness of the conquest of America. The patients are the native tribe and the doctors, the conquerors, flamenco dance and percussion provide the motor for the actions. The interns (the tribe) have to obey the conquerors (the doctors). They are their slaves and they have to accept their conventions and beliefs (including the religious ones). Finally, the defeat. The parable, fantastic and real at the same time, ends with a warning: any civilisation which oppresses another will in turn be oppressed.

El Nacional, 1993, is a satire of and a warning against "official" culture. In what remains of a theatre that is about to be demolished, the old usher with the help of a company of homeless tramps revives the spirit of true theatre. The play's first reading, related to the situation of theatre in Catalonia, does not hide it's true content: an aesthetic and ethic proposal for theatre and culture expressed through satire and coupled with an ironic look at the present and a profession of faith in the magic of the theatre.

In 1995 Ubú President is premiered, a revival and update of Operació Ubú, with the added baggage of fourteen years of experience - both theatrical and political. n the following production, La increíble historia del Dr.Floit & Mr.Pla, is based on the writer Josep Pla and his work using the story line of Stevenson's Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde as a starting point. The play is a Pirandellian game demonstrating the duality of human nature through the transformation of the business magnate Ramon Marull - after a generous dose of his own Dr. Floit aftershave - Marull becomes his own worst enemy - the writer Josep Pla.

This brief history of the company demonstrates that Els Joglars have from the beginning provided and defended a very efficient theatrical "vaccine", using the art of theatre as a collective therapy, a form of "social ecology" as Boadella might say, iconoclastic and destructive of all which is considered sacrosanct and idolised; a spirit cleansing ecology which works on our society providing a therapeutic catharsis and proving, besides, that such catharsis is not the end of the world and that all this is possible through theatre. Els Joglars have created a new and personal theatre language which has marked a change in European theatre and has been rewarded with an overwhelming audience reaction.