The Brave Little Tailor

Musical storytelling with puppets, shadows and projections by the company Etcétera (National Theater Award for Children and Youth 2014), aimed at any audience from 3 years of age.

The company Etcétera, under the direction of Enrique Lanz, stages this work by Tibor Harsányi based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, with objects typical of a tailor's shop: patterns, mannequins, peepholes, needles, irons, scissors and rolls of cloth.

Puppets, objects, shadows, video projections and actresses are placed at the service of a musical work and offer a contemporary version of this classic tale.

It is a co-production of the Teatro Real, the company Etcétera, ABAO-OLBE and the International Festival of Music and Dance of Granada, with the collaboration of the Parque de las Ciencias de Granada.

The show premiered at the Teatro Real in Madrid (December 2013) and is recommended by the Red Española de Teatros.

Duration: 50 minutes.

Tickets: 14 and 10€.

THE SHOW

TheHungarian-French composer Tibor Harsányi (1898 - 1954) wrote this score for puppets in 1950 and he himself versioned the tale of the Brothers Grimm, a German folk tale collected in Tales of Childhood and the Home ( 1812), although its first literary versions date back to the sixteenth century. The Spanish translation of this musical tale is by Felicia Sastre.

It is a suite for eight instrumentalists and narrator, who together tell this epic, tender and funny story. The music is pleasant to the ear, suitable for children and adults. Composed to be performed with puppets, it is very descriptive and allows you to easily follow the actions, changes of scenery and characters, moods...

As in other creations of the company Etcétera there is a story within a story. In this case, the tailoring department of a theater tells its version of the story while introducing us to the world of stage tailoring, its terms, instruments and usual actions.

The space, the sets and the puppets harbor numerous tricks, simple but effective, so that nothing is what it seems and everything is magically transformed before the spectator. Trompe l'oeil, play of planes, changes of scales, multiplicity of play spaces, elements that appear, disappear or transmute, artifices and scenic craftsmanship characteristic of Etcétera's poetics, to provoke in the audience a state of sensory enchantment.

These elements aim to create a show that becomes an experience of aesthetic enjoyment, that the theatrical magic, humor and theme, together with the music, provoke moments of true happiness and reflection to be enjoyed with the family.

THE ARGUMENT

The play tells the story of a tailor who , in his workshop, kills seven flies that bother him with one blow. Surprised by the number, he decides to go out to tell his feat, for which he embroiders a belt with the words "seven at one stroke". He arrives near a palace, where the peasants and people of the court, upon reading his belt, believe that he is seven men. Because of his courage and strength, the king, aware of his presence, then entrusts him to save the kingdom from various dangers: two giants, a wild boar and a unicorn. As a reward, the tailor receives half the kingdom and the hand of the princess. The brave little tailor manages to overcome the obstacles thanks to multiple tricks and cunning, and ends up marrying the monarch's daughter.

El sastrecillo valiente satisfies the desire of many that the weak, the little ones, the smart ones win, since shrewdness is something that is acquired. The show addresses the theme that knowledge is worth more than strength, focusing on values such as gender equality or non-material wealth, that which work and knowledge bring.

ARTISTIC FILE

PUPPETS ETC.

The company, founded in 1981 in Granada by Enrique Lanz and Fabiola Garrido, has become a benchmark of quality in Spanish contemporary theater due to the excellence and versatility of its work. Its work is synonymous with rigor and vanguard.

Etcétera has premiered several shows, among which the following stand out: Sypnosis ( 1985), Trans ( 1990), Pedro y el lobo (1997), La serva padrona ( 1998), Historia de Babar el el elefantito (2001), Soñando el carnaval de los animales ( 2004), El retablo de maese Pedro ( 2009), La caja de los juguetes ( 2009), El alma del pueblo ( 2013) and El sastrecillo valiente ( 2013).

These creations have met with significant public and critical success, which has allowed them to perform in the most important international puppet and music festivals, traveling to some twenty countries and performing in the most renowned theaters on the Spanish stage.

Etcétera's work is identified by the staging of musical works with puppets for all audiences, the company is the leader in Spain in this genre. What distinguishes their work is the poetry of their shows, the conscientious aesthetic search to create the puppets and the continuous research as the engine and axis of all projects. This allows each show to be different in aesthetics and technique and that the renovation is permanent.

He has collaborated with the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona for twelve seasons and with the Teatro Real in Madrid, where he has presented five of his shows.

Among its missions is also the research, documentation and dissemination of traditional and contemporary puppet theater. Between June 2012 and August 2014 the exhibition Títeres. 30 years of Etcétera, at the Parque de las Ciencias in Granada, showed an anthology of its first three decades of work and was visited by nearly 800,000 people.

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport awarded it the National Award of Performing Arts for Children and Youth 2014 for "the quality and innovation of its creations throughout a long career in the field of traditional and contemporary puppetry". The jury also recognized the work of Títeres Etcétera "in its search for new scenic languages and the merit of having introduced puppetry in large-format theaters".