Alicante's Teatro Principal Hosts Theatrical Play for Cancer Fight
LaJoven company presents "A Monster Calls" with a single performance and a morning session for young audiences.
By Mireia Blasco i Vidal
••4 min read
IA
Generic image of a theatrical stage with a microphone and velvet curtains, warm lighting.
The Teatro Principal de Alicante will host a performance of the play A Monster Calls, by the LaJoven company, as part of the Todos contra el cáncer initiative, featuring a general performance and a morning session for young audiences.
The LaJoven company, awarded the El Ojo Crítico de Teatro Prize and the Talía Award for Best Company Work, arrives at the Teatro Principal de Alicante next Thursday, May 14. They will present a single performance at 8 PM of A Monster Calls, an emotional story about the transition from childhood to maturity, based on the novel by Patrick Ness and inspired by an original idea by Siobhan Dowd.
This theatrical proposal takes as reference the adaptation premiered in 2018 at the Old Vic Theatre in London and the successful film version directed by Juan Antonio Bayona in 2016, which won critical and public acclaim and nine Goya Awards. Now, LaJoven, in collaboration with the Spanish Association Against Cancer and within the Todos contra el cáncer initiative, presents the Spanish adaptation of this renowned work.
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"It is an opportunity to see a great production in a space like the Teatro Principal de Alicante and demonstrate that there is a future in a company formed by young people, specifically twenty-somethings, both artists and technicians. It is a work that vindicates the importance of fantasy and imagination to face life's setbacks, and that gains a lot thanks to its story structure."
The staging, according to the company's management, stands out for its poetic and suggestive character, as well as for the emotional interpretation of its actors. This production won the Talía Award from the Academy of Performing Arts for Best Original Music and received three nominations at the Max Awards, including Best Theatrical Show and Best Scenic Space.
In addition to the general performance, tickets for which are already available on the Teatro Principal de Alicante website from 12 euros, more than 400 young Alicantinos will see the performance in a morning session on the same day and participate in a subsequent discussion with the artistic team and professionals from the field of psycho-oncology from the Spanish Association Against Cancer to address the themes of the play and their opinions.
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"In the subsequent discussions, many children want to know why they found out later than others about their mother's cancer. Furthermore, we are finding that, wherever we perform the play, a local network is generated between child and adolescent psychologists and students, something that gives us enormous satisfaction and contributes to reinforcing content related to the pedagogy of death, especially after this type of training disappeared from classrooms along with the subject of Philosophy."
A Monster Calls tells the story of Conor, a 13-year-old boy who lives with his sick mother. Every night, at twelve minutes past seven, he has the same nightmare. One night, he hears a voice calling him from the garden and watches as a tree transforms into a monster that will tell him three ancient stories. In return, Conor will tell him a fourth. Guided by this creature, the boy embarks on various adventures at night to escape his fears, until he faces his truth.
The production, directed by José Luis Arellano, stars Raúl Martín as Conor. David Blanco plays the Monster, and Antonia Paso, Cristina Bertol, and Roger Berruezo are Conor's grandmother, mother, and father, respectively. The cast is completed by Fernando Sainz de la Maza, Leyre Morlán, Nadal Bin, and Aitana Quiñoy, who play Conor's friends, teachers, and schoolmates.
The story was originally an idea by British writer Siobhan Dowd, who began writing the tale of a boy facing his mother's illness but could not finish it. Her publisher later contacted novelist Patrick Ness to complete the story, shaping a narrative that speaks of the difficulty of accepting adversity, loss, and the fragile bonds that connect people to life.
The theatrical version of A Monster Calls arises from a collaboration that seeks to raise awareness through theater about a major health cause. The project combines the capabilities of artists, educators, healthcare professionals, and entrepreneurs around a large action program against cancer. The entity aims to contribute to raising societal awareness and increasing available resources for cancer prevention, research, and early detection.
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"The stated goal is to achieve 70% survival by 2030. It must be taken into account that half of men and a third of women will end up suffering from cancer, and our intention is to raise funds to invest in research."
