Gentrification, the process by which the original inhabitants of a neighbourhood end up being expelled from it due to the revaluation of the area, is explained using a series of real testimonies reproduced on stage with maximum fidelity. Just a few years ago, few people knew what the term, an English neologism, actually meant. Today, however, a fair amount of local residents of big cities have experienced the consequences of a trend that, by bringing certain areas of the city into fashion, ends up expelling locals and replacing them with people from wealthier social strata.
Mos Maiorum, a theatre group formed in 2015 by Alba Valldaura, Mariona Naudin and Ireneu Tranis, uses a technique previously shown in an earlier piece on the themes of immigration and the situation at Spain’s southern border. The technique, known as Verbatim, takes authentic testimonies and reproduces them, with the errors, doubts and hesitations of real life, on stage. They return to the technique for this piece, but on a set that can also accommodate the audience, which, with its movements and disposition, acquires a symbolic sense that evokes poetic images of waves, crowds and streets, thus becoming part of the dramaturgy of the show.
