Els cicles mítics del teatre d'Albert Mestres

Albert Mestres (Barcelona, 1960) is one of the most solid and original contributors to modern-day Catalan drama. His work engages eclectically and uninhibitedly with both cultured and popular models, and remarkably heterogeneous literary, artistic and hilosophical traditions. A large number of his texts are inspired by the rich tradition of Graeco-Roman mythology, out of which he produces free adaptations from a contemporary perspective. They can be grouped into three mythological cycles: (a) Homeric, focusing mostly on Homer's 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' ('La bufa', '1714. Homenatge a Sarajevo' and 'Aquiŀles o l'estupor'); (b) tragedy, which starts from the three great Greek writers of tragedies, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides ('Dramàtic', 'Temps real', 'Farsa', 'Odola', 'Dos de dos', 'Un altre Wittgenstein, si us plau o L'holocaust', 'Una història de Catalunya' i 'Confinament'), and (c) orphic, with Hesiod's 'Teogonia' and Ovid's 'The metamorphoses' as the principal models ('Contes estigis o el cabaret dels morts' and 'Orfeu i Eurídice').