La guerra dels mons

La guerra dels mons
by H. G. Wells
adaptation and direction Atresbandes (Mònica Almirall, Albert Pérez y Miquel Segovia) y Guillem Llotje

##general.period##:: 03 and 04/03/23

Show completed

Timetable

Mon. 20.00 h

Running time

50' approx.

Place

Montjuïc. Espai Lliure

Language

In Catalan

Price

€10 - €15

Description

We return for 2 unique functions the sound experience of our current resident company, Atresbandes, formed by Mònica Almirall Batet, Albert Pérez Hidalgo and Miquel Segovia Garrell, about the classic science fiction La guerra dels mons, presented in Season 21/22.

The invasion of Earth by aliens recovers the 1898 novel by H. G. Welles: “Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all.”

WHAT THE PRESS SAID...

"Atresbandes offers a very personal interpretation of the novel, starting from what each chapter suggests in relation to aspects of the contemporary world: the war in Afghanistan, climate change, the pandemic... Rather than thinking of characters or a narrative, they have transformed them all into sound environments created from sounds taken from the media, recorded sounds, credo sounds with different instruments and machines and sound effects generated with the Foley technique used in cinema. In his words: 'we wanted to work with sound as the protagonist, as a generator of conflicts and as a narrator of the story (and not with the word, which normally plays this role). What we are proposing is a sound journey through the imaginary of the novel'."
Laia Badal Casas - Núvol

"The artists extracted dreadful sounds from the tables and by the most curious methods: it was fascinating to see them stepping on eggs, pencils, or a cushion filled with stones; breaking branches to produce the crackling of fire, or rubbing rubble to simulate the crash of a collapsing wall. A lot of virtuosity: the fluttering of birds created with an umbrella, a knife sticking into a cabbage (difficult to say what it corresponded to, but it sounded horrific, evil Martian butt), drops on a can. And again the pulsating sound that we all identified with the Martians coming insidiously, studying us, stalking us to capture and feed on our blood. More than a moment you swallowed saliva. [...] It was possible to recognize passages of the novel as when the protagonist is trapped with the vicar in a basement under the ruins of a house and see the Martians up close. Such was the strength of the sound environment. [...] The restlessness sowed did not prevent the public from awarding long applause to the artists, happy and somewhat amazed at the success of their work. "It’s another world," said Grec director Cesc Casadesús."
Jacinto Antón – El País

In July 2021, the Teatre Lliure management suggested that we make an adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds for radio theatre. The radio drama seems to be experiencing a second wind as a result of the lockdowns we have been forced to endure because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet we also think that it’s because of the advent of all kinds of devices designed to offer contents on a massive scale, yet always based on individual experience. The act of putting on headphones and isolating oneself has multiplied around the world, perhaps just like the advent of the printing press multiplied the act of opening a book and isolating oneself as well. In the case of the H. G. Wells novel, this isolation comes with an exercise of exuberant imagination in which its words lead the reader to events that are far from their everyday life, in fact, events that are far from any life on the planet Earth: an alien invasion. The evocative power of the word becomes clear in this novel, which has become engraved in our collective imaginary, an imaginary exploited to the utmost by cinema and literature. We want our proposal, just like the original novel, to be an exercise in imagination. An exercise in imagination by the listener based on the different stimuli we offer them. Wells offers us words, and we will offer a ‘sound translation’ of them.

(Our) War of the Worlds is a sound piece loosely inspired by the novel penned in 1898. Based on this text, which is regarded as one of the forerunners of science fiction novels, we have created a sound journey that spans the 27 chapters comprising the two books into which the novel is divided. Our intention has been to focus on the main character’s emotional journey. It is a subjective version updated for the twenty-first century which uses sounds drawn from the media, recorded sounds, sounds created with different instruments and machines (synthesisers, guitar pedalboards, pedals, etc.) and sound effects generated with the Foley technique used in the cinema.
_ATRESBANDES (Mònica Almirall, Albert Pérez and Miquel Segovia)