CARAMEL

This is a one-off collaboration by the sisters Ariadna Peya and Clara Peya (Les Impuxibles) and Pablo Messiez: a creative show that opens the doors to ponder why we consume.

Caramel springs from the desire to try to understand the different ways of interacting with the consumption of substances and their effects.
After two years of research, meetings and talks with people and institutions connected to the topic, it has become clear that it is impossible for a single play to address the host of questions that arises as we observe the complex world of consumption.
On one extreme is the moralistic, stigmatising view marked by the arbitrariness of what is or is not legal today, while on the other is the romanticisation of consumption as a choice in reaction to the hegemonic judgement.

But what is actually happening? What is the question? How can the same thing be both liberating and imprisoning? A tool to control the system and an act of anti-system rebellion?

In cases of problematic consumption, the question is clearly not in the substances but the relationship with them, and the fact that this relationship is determined by a combination of different factors like class, gender and the wounds left by trauma.

However, if we talk about drugs, stigma often appears immediately. It’s easy to blame what is forbidden. But when we glance at the list of allowed drugs, the stigma miraculously disappears. We’re on the side of good, and the law of business is marking its territory, like an animal.

But what happens if instead of focusing on the substance we look at the true danger zone: compulsion. All these actions we perform without thinking fully whether they appeal to us, or even knowing that they don’t at all.
Where does this docility come from? What causes it?
Might it not be the very capitalist system that nurtures, promotes and facilitates the confusion between compulsion and desire?
Of what you have, what do you need? Of what you want? Do you want more?

When desire turns into compulsion, consumption becomes problematic. In that case, should the goal not be to seek how to identify the origin of the compulsive practice in order to deactivate it instead of banning consumption or stigmatising those who consume to seek some form of relief or fun?
Our aim is for the play to ask the question, not to be silent, nor to judge, but to try to understand so that we can care for ourselves and be right.
— Pablo Messiez and Les Impuxibles


On the critic's...
"The fusion of the different languages that Caramel integrates make it a true mirror, as delicate as full of sensitivity, of what we call -rightly or not- hybrid theatre. (···) A real "candy" to unwrap without making much noise, little by little, to take it to the mouth delicately and taste the sensations that it gives off." (Andreu Sotorra, Clip de teatre)

"Les Impuxibles do not judge, they show many prisms of this mirror in the dreamlike collage in which music and song constitutes a veritable backbone. (···) A poem with multiple flavors. A candy that both captures and seduces." (Jordi Bordes, Recomana.cat)

Salsa Romesco, podcast with Ariadna Peya and Pablo Messiez

COMPLEMENTARY INFO ↓

Energy Control, substances guide
What is Chemsex?
Chemsafe: the Harm and Risk Reduction programme, which provides information, analysis and advice on gender issues, and is oriented towards land management.
Virtual Library of drugs and gender (Espai Ariadna)

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