Catalan director Lluís Pasqual takes “Quitt”, by controversial author Peter Handke, to Barcelona's Lliure Theatre

Barcelona (ACN).- The Lliure Theatre in Montjuic, Barcelona, premiered at the end of January “Quitt, Irresponsible people are in danger of extinction”, a play written by controversial Austrian author Peter Handke, and directed by Lluís Pasqual. The play, featuring Andreu Benito, Jordi Bosch, Jordi Boixaderas, Miriam Iscla, Eduard Fernández, Lluís Marco, Marta Marco and Boris Ruiz, is a “poem which treats and mistreats the spectator”, according to Pasqual. The play, which runs through to February 20^th, tells the story of a businessman who wants to monopolise the world and ends up by taking other businesses to bankruptcy.

One fine day Herman Quitt, the owner of some top level businesses, goes through a crisis. In a meeting with other businessmen, he proposes the creation of a holding in order to control all the markets and get rid of the rivals, agreeing on join marketing strategies. After a while, the businessmen find out that Quitt does not respect any of the agreements and is ruining them.  Questioned by them, he remains impassive and boasts about how clever he is.

According to Lluís Pasqual, “The play is like the title. The text has turned the play into a poem about incorrectness, violence, treatment and mistreatment to the spectator. It is a fake play with fake characters, and the actors do not play characters but these words”. Pasqual is convinced that Peter Handke never wanted to be kind.

Pasqual has described the play as black and devious because “it includes not only the destruction of the drama, but the theatrical character and the madness of capitalism”. Besides, he added that “it is like an abstract painting, a broken mirror whose pieces of reality are hooked on to each other, and they produce echoes in the viewer”.

Considered as one of the most important writers in German language since Günter Grass, the text by Peter Handke was a premonition of the current economical and social crisis. The struggle for power and the importance of women in the business world are two of the main topics that the author emphasized when he wrote the play. “He describes women as puppets, they are like a shelter” explained actress Marta Marco.

Parallel activities

Taking advantage of “Quitt”, Lliure Theatre proposed two activities about the play’s topic and its author, Peter Handke, who occupies a place of honour in German-language literature.

On February 8^th at 7pm there was a round table with the philosopher, Miguel Morey, the German literature specialist and translator, Eustaquio Barjau and the literary critic, Cecilia Dreymüller, in order to discuss several subjects related to Handke’s political commitment expressed through his work and the writer’s role in our society.

The following week at the same time there was another round table about economics and capitalism from some visionary aspects of Handke’s play. There were also discussions about the current financial situation and the crisis of capitalism in the globalised world.