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Features
5 February 2023 2.00 h

Georgina Oliva

Georgina Oliva PROGRAM AND CONTENT DIRECTOR OF THE teatre lliure

“We need a diverse cultural landscape”

We have to work together but also make sure our artistic line does not become blurred THERE ARE NO HARD AND FAST ANSWERS; PROGRAMMING IS REALLY A CASE OF JUGGLING
How much li­ai­son is there with other the­atres?
We talk a lot, es­pe­cially with the Na­tional The­atre of Cat­alo­nia (TNC) and Sala Beck­ett. We also take part in joint pro­jects at L’Au­di­tori, the Liceu, and Viu Mon­tjuïc. As cul­tural lead­ers we must make sure that there’s a di­verse cul­tural land­scape in the city.
Given the dif­fi­cul­ties of pro­duc­ing, why is there not more co­op­er­a­tion be­tween cul­tural in­sti­tu­tions?
We have to work to­gether but we must also make sure our artis­tic line does not be­come blurred. There has to be a bal­ance be­tween col­lab­o­ra­tions with other in­sti­tu­tions and keep­ing one’s own artis­tic line, oth­er­wise we will all end up sched­ul­ing the same type of thing. There are no hard-and-fast an­swers and pro­gram­ming is re­ally a case of jug­gling, which is the in­ter­est­ing part of this job.
The Lli­ure’s pro­gram­ming seems much closer to that of the TNC.
The Lli­ure has been doing more of its own pro­duc­tions. In terms of clas­si­cal the­atre, we have seen that the Fabià Puigserver room [the the­atre’s main stage] works well for epic sto­ries, and there we have re­cently put on Crime and Pun­ish­ment and Yerma.
Yet Lli­ure gives such clas­sics its own treat­ment.
The Lli­ure takes clas­sic works and re­vis­its them in a con­tem­po­rary way. That’s why con­tem­po­rary di­rec­tors carry so much weight in this the­atre.
Lli­ure was sup­posed to be the the­atre for res­i­den­cies and ed­u­ca­tion. Why the change?
The prob­lem we had was that the res­i­den­tial and ed­u­ca­tional pro­grammes did not have their own space, and this af­fected such things as sched­ules and bud­gets. Now the Espai Lli­ure stage is much more de­fined, and that’s where we can show work by res­i­dent and emerg­ing artists.
Be­fore the pan­demic, the the­atre said it wanted to strengthen its in­ter­na­tional pro­file.
Pro­jects like [the Eu­ro­pean net­work of pub­lic the­atres] Mytos were very use­ful dur­ing the pan­demic be­cause it was a di­rect way to stay con­nected with other the­atres in Eu­rope. It was key then and re­mains so now.
What about pos­si­ble in­ter­na­tional co-pro­duc­tions?
Co-pro­duc­ing on a Eu­ro­pean scale is play­ing in an­other league. Co-pro­duc­ing with some Eu­ro­pean the­atre ends up much more ex­pen­sive be­cause they have dif­fer­ent bud­gets. In Spain you know you’re in the right league. Hav­ing said that, we have an in­ter­na­tional co-pro­duc­tion com­ing up. One Song, pro­duced with Bel­gian artist Miet War­lop, will be on April 6 and 7.
The legacy of Fabià Puigserver [a founder of Teatre Lli­ure] is today largely un­known to the gen­eral pub­lic.
When our man­age­ment term began, we de­cided to have ex­hi­bi­tions based on his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments and teach peo­ple about the key fig­ures of the Teatre Lli­ure. An ex­am­ple is set­ting up the Sol­dev­ila schol­ar­ship [named after an­other founder, Car­lota Sol­dev­ila], and it’s true there were peo­ple who were awarded the schol­ar­ship with­out know­ing who she was. There were other im­por­tant fig­ures in the set­ting up of the Teatre Lli­ure that should be re­mem­bered and that is why we in­tend to digi­tise our archive.

In­ter­view The­atre

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