Tots ocells [Birds of a Kind]

If you know Wajdi Mouawad, it’s probably because of the shows of his put on by La Perla 29, the company led by director Oriol Broggi that has staged plays at the Teatre La Biblioteca such as the acclaimed Incendis, Boscos, Cels and Assedegats. Now they’re back with Tots ocells, a more than three-hour show with weighty performances that turn the Teatre La Biblioteca’s auditorium into a library, taking up the entire space on different sides. You will see the story of Eitan, a young German-Jewish researcher living in the USA and studying DNA. He meets Wahida, a young Arab historian who has written her thesis on a fifteenth-century Muslim sage who was forced to convert to Christianity. They fall in love, forcing Eitan to confront his family and his fundamentalist religious beliefs. But when the two go on a trip to Israel and the West Bank, Eitan is the victim of a terrorist attack that leaves him in a coma. His family members travel from Germany to Israel to care for him, and there they discover the family’s past. Faith, DNA, religion and chance in a drama about prejudice, the way violence in the outside world can shatter someone’s private life and the weight of the past.

Wajdi Mouawad’s creations have been part of the Grec Festival de Barcelona since Soeurs was staged in 2015, followed by Les Larmes d’OEdipe (Des mourants) and Inflammation du verbe vivre in 2017, in which Mouawad himself interacted with cinematic imagery. In 2020, Broggi directed Assedegats at the Teatre La Biblioteca. The theatre director is also a regular at the Grec, where he has directed El poema de Guilgamesh, rei d’Uruk (opening show in 2018) and 28 i mig (Grec 2022), among others.

Produced by La Perla 29 and Grec 2024 Festival de Barcelona.