Double bill on Joan March at Palma's Teatre Principal

Reis del món (Kings of the World) and La Fundació (The Foundation), on the figure of Joan March, onstage this Sunday the 19th at Palma’s Teatre Principal

Palma’s Teatre Principal is staging two plays on the figure of the financier and businessman Joan March. They offer a complementary vision of one of the leading figures in 20th-century Mallorca and Europe. They are Reis del món (Kings of the World), a play based on the novel of the same name by Sebastià Alzamora, and La Fundació, a text by Salvador Oliva, by the theatre company La Impaciència.

Reis del món is a production of the Teatre Principal directed by José Martret, and is performed by Toni Gomila, Blai Llopis, Jordi Figueras and Carme Conesa. It also features music and sound space by Jaume Manresa, set design by Rafel Lladó and costumes by Maria Miró.

Reis del món

It is a play that talks about Joan March and the relationship he had with another character, also born in Santa Margalida, Joan Mascaró, an intellectual who died in 1987. March and Mascaró, two real, antagonistic characters, meet in the early 1950s. Money and power versus the search for beauty and goodness. The financier and smuggler Joan March worked compulsively in his business, and became one of the richest and most powerful men of his time. Meanwhile, Joan Mascaró was the main translator and disseminator of Hindu mystical thought in Western culture, a reference point (among others) for The Beatles, who dedicated the song The Inner Light to him. He dedicated up to 20 years of his life to translating the Hindu poem: Bhagavad Gita.

The play can be seen this Sunday 19 March at 6 pm.

La Fundació

This play focuses on the figure of Joan March and the entire financial and business empire created around him. The play is directed by Luis Venegas and features performances by Carme Serna, Rodo Gener, Xavi Núñez and the author himself, Salvador Oliva. Oliva based the play on studies by historian Miquel Cruz. In fact, La Fundació tells the story of how the March Foundation hires a historian, with a clearly left-wing ideology, to write its history. “From this point on, the play begins, where ethics, truth and fears are mixed together”, explained Salvador Oliva.