The theatre author who reinvented Sa Pobla
We remember Alexandre Ballester when the Principal Theatre of Palma stages 'A yellow trunk for Nofre Taylor', one of his most outstanding works
PalmaEven today, the festival that remembers Alexandre Ballester in sa Pobla, of which the sixth edition has just taken place, is called Albopàs, the name of the town backwards: a term he coined, as a kind of magical recreaction of sa Pobla, and a country where he set many of his works. We remember this stage creator precisely when the Principal Theatre of Palma is about to premiere a new version of Un baül groc per a Nofre Taylor, one of his most outstanding works.
Bartomeu Mestre used to say that, if Alexandre Ballester had been born in sa Cotxinxina, "he would still be from sa Pobla". The fact is that he was born in Gavà, in Catalonia, in 1933, although at just one year old he would move to live in the town of sa Pobla, on Mallorca. His godfather, Pere Ballester, had committed the temerity of marrying Francesca Cortès, a xueta, those considered by their lineage to be the only descendants of converted Jews and systematically discriminated against at the time. On his mother's side, they were Catalans who had emigrated to Argentina and returned, which was common at the time.
The young Ballester wanted to be a film director or screenwriter, but back then that was like trying to square the circle. And the closest thing to cinema was the theatre. However, not much theatre reached sa Pobla. Carles Cabrera calculates that, "at most," the future playwright would have seen half a dozen plays when he started writing theatre. What he did have at his disposal was the magazine Primer Acto, a benchmark at the time, and the Alfil collection of plays in Spanish. This is how he learned: by taking a play, probably by Enrique Jardiel Poncela, an author quite advanced for his time, and calculating the duration of a piece according to the number of pages. He didn't know much else about theatrical texts; that's why he was astonished when influences of authors he hadn't read were attributed to him.
The prophecy of Alejandro Casona
A possible outlet for a young person writing theatre in the mid-sixties were literary competitions, and at the Ciutat de Palma awards in 1963 there was one, a theatre category. However, Ballester did not arrive in time for the established deadline. So he handed in blank copies and promised the then head of the Culture Department, Román Piña, that he would send him the authentic text before the jury examined the received originals. Piña accepted and he fulfilled what had been agreed.
That play was Foc colgat, only then it was titled El tramvia del pobre Joan. Previously, another similar one had been discarded: Dins un gruix de vellut had to premiere in Barcelona, it was given a new title: Facem comèdia. Before that, another similar one had been discarded: Fotem comèdia.
Another characteristic of Ballester was his ability to write a play in no time. Of Les llàgrimes del Vienès he only had the title, because it was raining that day, and then he wrote it in ten days. To have the text of Maria Magdalena o la penedida gramatical Josep A. Codina, who was to direct it, had to travel to Mallorca in 1971, and at the airport bar, while having one coffee after another, he waited for Ballester to finish the play.
El tramvia del pobre Joan, however, did not win the Ciutat de Palma de Teatre award. The jury preferred to give it to Gabriel Cortès because he was an old man. Ballester was young and would have time to win it. He did win it the following year with another text: Jo i l’absent. The jury included a renowned author, Alejandro Casona, to whom another member, Joan Bonet, translated the play into Spanish as he read it. Casona liked it so much that he made a prophecy to the young man from Pobla: “You will write theatre!”
In the Ciutat de Palma awards of 1966, he participated in the novel specialty, which was then in Spanish, with Los condenados. Cabrera recounts that Camilo José Cela, president of the jury, wanted someone from outside Mallorca to win it, to give the award external projection. Due to the language used, that text seemed to be. So the surprise was immense when the envelope was opened and it was discovered that the winner was that “cabroncete from sa Pobla,” as Cela described him.
Ballester treated Cela in the late fifties. He also attended the legendary gatherings of Llorenç Villalonga at the now-defunct Riskal café in Palma. La Bodega Sant Antoni in Ciutat was a meeting place for artists, including the painter Josep Bover, who recited Shakespeare, the sculptor Pere Martínez Pavia, and the musician Guillem d’Efak. He had a good friendship with Jaume Vidal Alcover, Antoni Serra, and Jaume Adrover: Adrover, upon learning that Serra had been arrested, went to can Ballester and took all the compromising material – like the diary of 'Che' Guevara – to hide it in a safe place.
Some 'squatters' in 1968
Alexandre Ballester found a good reception in Barcelona. As early as 1968, at L'Aliança del Poble Nou, they premiered Foc colgat. In 1970, Un baül groc per a Nofre Taylor would be directed by an adolescent in Gràcia, a certain Joan Lluís Bozzo, who would later become the reference name for Dagoll Dagom.
In 1968, the French May, was a crucial year in Ballester's career. That January, the Artis company, the most renowned in Mallorca, premiered Siau benvingutsMary Magdalene or the repentant grammaticalThat same year, Ballester starred in a bold initiative: to bring the history of sa Pobla to the public square, under the title Assaig d’espectacle per a una nit d’estiu, by a group of young people from the town and directed by himself. He had already started working at the Town Hall and had the confidence of the mayor, theoretically a Francoist, Pere Ventayol. They committed themselves body and soul to making it a success, which it was. As an actress, who was supposed to let out a terrifying scream in one of the scenes, did not seem capable of doing it, the author-director used a desperate measure: pricking her hip with a needle. “The one who let out a beastly scream is fantastic,” Jaume Adrover commented to him. “It gave me goosebumps.”
That was a great event. So much so that a similar experience was made, Kings and not kings, this time with the story of the birth of Christ. Ballester had a third show in mind, one inspired by Holy Week. But it was never staged. Too daring for those times.
Alexandre Ballester was also the creator of a mythical Sa Pobla by conceiving a magical territory: Albopàs, the name of the town backwards. It was Josep Maria Llompart who suggested it to him, when considering the publication of his texts at the Moll publishing house, of which he was a literary advisor, by using the town as a setting to mislead censorship: what happened in an imaginary place could have nothing to do with the real world.
One of Ballester's most famous pieces,
Dins un gruix de vellut
Alexandre Ballester, by profession playwright of Carles Cabrera Maria Magdalena or the grammatical penitent, when announcing the performance of "the great Paco. The most sensational tightrope walker of all time! He always holds on!". As he held on for almost forty years.
The Tears of the Viennese, a commission from the company Miramar in 1995, and A Nothingness of Eternity, where he fantasized about a visit from the Menorcan-born Albert Camus to the island of his ancestors which he never set foot on, were the last notable titles of his career. He died on June 30, 2011, leaving a pivotal contribution to Catalan theatre and sa Pobla transformed – or was it already? – into a magical place.
As “a cocktail with Joan March and Donald Trump” actor Miquel Àngel Torrens defines the character he himself plays, whose name gives its title to Un baül groc per a Nofre Taylor, one of Alexandre Ballester's most outstanding works. The Teatre Principal de Palma is producing a new staging of it, which will be performed between Thursday, May 28 and Saturday, May 30, in homage to the author, on the fifteenth anniversary of his passing.Marga López, director of the show, considers this farce by Ballester “absolutely current,” almost six decades after it was written. It is about “mocking these rich and powerful characters” that Nofre Taylor represents. A gem, because it has it 'all': “Sexist, racist, classist...”. It embodies “all the evils of capitalism.”The protagonist's lineage is no accident: 'Taylorism' was a system applied to industrial production that aimed to reduce costs at any price. The consequence was the dehumanization of workers, turned into mere cogs in the assembly line, as Charles Chaplin brilliantly depicted in his film Modern Times, a film that, López believes, Ballester would certainly have liked.The present version has aimed to “turn up the volume on the farce,” making the course of the story more agile and thrilling and giving it more dynamism. Taylorist mechanization is clearly evident in a stopwatch that is present in this new adaptation.Some of the playwright's most outstanding works have been staged at the Teatre Principal de Palma, including Foc colgat, in 1991, directed by Pep Tosar; Dins un gruix de vellut, in 1997, directed by Joan Arrom and Mateu Grau; and Siau benvingut, in 2007, directed by Luca Bonadei and in 2021 by Galeria d’Artefactes. The same venue has just carried out a dramatized reading of another of his plays, Al caire de les campanes, by Joan M. Albinyana.
Information elaborated from the book by Carles Cabrera Alexandre Ballester, profession playwright by Carles Cabrera (Lleonard Muntaner Editor) and texts by Joan Arrom Nadal, Feliu Formosa, Antoni Nadal, Joan-Anton Benach, Josep A. Codina, Tomeu Mestre, Gabriel Janer Manila, Damià Pons and Alexandre Ballester himself.