Now that I am trying to explain...

Now that I am trying to explain the season to myself and to you, because my memory of it is very vivid, a few words of Eduardo Galeano that are very closely related to our life and the theatre come to mind: “If only we had the courage to be alone, and the bravery to risk being together”.
The 2015/16 season is on the one hand the result of many artistic collaborations that have taken place in the previous four, and on the other - and how could it be otherwise - it contains many of the concerns and the questions that must be the seed that will nourish many of the themes of our future programming. It is a season with 31 shows, 20 of which are by contemporary authors. A season that contains a family politically correct view of society, and in many cases one which is beneficially incorrect.
As the first of the complicities is defined by our audience, we are once again scheduling El rei Lear, [King Lear] El curiós incident del gos a mitjanit [The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time] and Rhum  because the tickets sold out very quickly in all three cases, as only usually happens with some acts in the world of rock music. And so we must return the favour and stage them again, in the knowledge that - mysteries of the theatre - sometimes it's more complex difficult to restage a show than to stage it the first time around!
The dialogue with the artists who joined us on the imaginary journey from Barcelona to Buenos Aires in the season that is finishing has a return leg in the show we have co-produced with the company T de Teatre which will open the Sala Fabià Puigserver, Premis i càstigs , directed by Argentina's Ciro Zorzoli, an artist who seems to have the strength and energy of the theatre and his native city as baggage. We were also visited by Neapolitans: we never got to see Toni Servilla tread the boards at the Lliure and so he will do so with La parola canta, and we revived our desire to spend a few months with the words and poetry of Eduardo de Filippo: we will do so with two of his texts, one from his youth -Home i senyor  and a work from his mature period -La gran il·lusió
This is in addition to others which have been travelling companions on several occasions in recent years, such as Jordi Casanovas with his latest show Vilafranca; Alberto San Juan, who will be bringing us one of the projects by the Teatro del Barrio that he leads, in this case El rey [The King] and Marc Montserrat will be premièring the first version of Relato de un náufrago  by Gabriel García Márquez. Mario Gas touches down with a disturbing version by Eduardo Mendoza of Pinter's Invernadero, and the season also includes Pau Carrió and Sergi Belbel, who have decided to bring a great tragedy  - Hamlet and  Maria Estuard [Mary Stuart] respectively — to the intimate and friendly space of the Lliure in Gràcia for us to provide a link between two works of such immense stature. And Helena Pimenta brings one of the most revolutionary texts of the entire European drama of the seventeenth century: El alcalde de Zalamea. And José Antonio Portillo, who will once again be displaying his poetry for our younger audiences with viewers with Biblioteca de cuerdas y nudos , as well as a new installation, the Biblioteca de ruidos y sonidos. And for younger audiences, Joan Arqué will be telling the stories created by Italo Calvino in El baró dels arbres [The Baron in the Trees], and also Con la bambola in tasca, by the Teatro delle Briciole, one of Europe's best theatre companies for children.
Josep Maria Flotats returns to the Lliure de Gràcia, which still retains the waves of magnificent energy from his Edward II of 1978 in its walls, with a text by Jean-Claude Grumberg, Ser-ho o no (To end the Jewish question). And we are honoured that Robert Lepage has come to Europe with his latest show 887 and that his first port of call in Spain is the Sala Fabià Puigserver. And we are very happy to provide a space for two actresses like Laia Marull and Clara Segura so that each one, with her own monologue and directed by Allegra Fulton and Marc Martinez, can show us women who are as different as they are passionate with the words of two of the contemporary authors we are fortunate to include in our repertoire (Jennifer Tremblay and Marta Galán). And other familiar faces include Llàtzer Garcia and the company Arcadia with their new offering after La pols [Dust], Sota la ciutat. This collaboration with new companies has been one of the constants over the past four years (the Lliure has hosted eighteen of them) and has led to a new generational perspective and a new dialogue with our audiences.
The Teatro de la ciudad is a splendid theatrical and civic adventure project by a group of magnificent artists, each of whom brings their own perspective to a joint initiative bringing together friends of the calibre of Miguel del Arco, Alfredo Sanzol, Carmen Machi, Andres Lima, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón... and giving us three shows in a single project: Antígona , Medea and Edipo rey, , with a treatment by contemporary artists who consider an issue that we would like to look at in more depth: the myths with which the theatre has contributed to the History of Literature.
Another theme that we will use in order to create a theatrical reflection in the future is much more poignant: the phenomena that we categorize with the generic name of violence and power. With this theme we begin our season with two texts by Stefano Massini: CrecEnUnSolDéu brought to us by Rosa Maria Sardà, and Dona no reeducable, embodied by Míriam Iscla. And we end the season in a similar vein, this time with an Irish text, En veu baixa  by Owen McCafferty, another author who is new to us, which will be directed by Ferran Madico, with Francesc Garrido and Oscar Rabadán in the cast.
Another theme that we will be developing in 2016, the year of our fortieth anniversary, is the observation of changes in social and artistic behaviour as a result of the new parallel realities we are creating and which are beginning to have a profound effect on our lives. Jennifer Haley, with L’inframón  [The underworld] will be providing the words and situations that Juan Carlos Martel will direct in the Gràcia theatre in a co-production with the Festival Grec 2016.
We are also preparing three evenings dedicated to the beauty of the Catalan language, through some of our history's most evocative poems.
Thirty-one performances: 9 new productions of our own, 5 new co-productions, 3 revivals and 14 guest performances.
We have a full schedule of theatre once again. And the number of projects that we have had to set aside due to a lack of space or resources saddens us… And yet, as in recent seasons, we still expect to create a space that currently seems impossible and to be able to host those unexpected seedlings that unexpectedly emerge in a theatre during the season, and which need somewhere to burst out or somewhere to expand, necessary in a long schedule. We have made it this far. Now it's time for us to produce some theatre. Hopefully your curiosity has been aroused and you decide to leave home behind and take a risk and join others to share a few moments that aim to touch your heart, because they have been conceived from the heart.
Lluís Pasqual