LA CASA DE LOS ESPÍRITUS

Isabel Allende wrote La casa de los espíritus in 1982. In it, the Chilean author tells the story of the Trueba family over four generations, a period spanning almost a century, in a country undergoing enormous socio-political changes culminating in a devastating dictatorship. It is a saga of women whose names have one thing in common: light. Nívea, Clara, Blanca, Alba… and Alba is the one in charge of reconstructing the family history.

The novel magnificently portrays the tensions between memory, contradictions, violence and how the sense of reconciliation with the things that happen in a country and in a family is recovered. Of course, there is forgiveness and, basically, love. The whole play is like a labyrinth full of magical realism in which we can see how politics hovers over people’s heads without us having anything to do with it.

Now, adapted to the stage by Anna Maria Ricart, with dramaturgy by Ricart herself and Carme Portaceli, and directed by Portaceli, this play transfers the magical universe of the original novel to the theatre in all its splendour.