Pepa Plana triumphs with ‘Amaluna’, a Cirque du Soleil show

Clown Pepa Plana officially debuts with Cirque du Soleil on April 19 in Montreal with the show “Amaluna”. Pepa welcomes the audience and then performs two performances: the first is about seduction and falling in love between two clowns, one playing the role of a man and the other of a woman, and the second is a consequence of the seduction that is in part, pregnancy and the clown with many, many children. Plana has signed a two-year contract and it seems that her period with Cirque du Soleil will end then. Although she has indicated that you never know and that she enjoys the company a lot, Pepa assured, in an interview with ACN, that she wants to return and have her own adventures.

Plana was very surprised when Cirque du Soleil representatives asked her to be part of a new show that still didn’t have a name. Members of the famous circus had followed Pepa and liked her work. Pepa went to Montreal last February and was “dazzled”. She didn’t accept at first, however, because, as she said with a laugh, “you’re not 20 years old either.”

However, he was clear that he really enjoyed the project: “It is the first time that Cirque du Soleil has done a show that is markedly feminine with 70% of the artists being women.” So he joined in January 2012 and the creation process was very long. In total, there are 53 artists on the stage. “I really enjoy doing a show like this every day with 2,400 people, it is a gift to make all this crowd laugh.”

‘Amaluna’ is inspired by ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare, this is its starting point. The plot is set on an island of women, where there is a celebration of Miranda, who becomes a woman. However, the storm arrives on the island and, with it, the men. “This is where all the trouble begins,” said Plana. Then there is a love story between Miranda and Romeo and different Shakespearean characters are mixed together.

A clown who speaks Catalan

Pepa speaks very little in the show and does so in Catalan. “At first it seemed very strange to them because they thought I was inventing a language and that I was mixing French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. They thought I was doing a mix of Latin languages,” said the smiling clown, who declared that “there has never been any problem, quite the opposite.”

In fact, she has highlighted that the words the clowns say have to be translated when they change countries, but since she has started saying the short sentences in Catalan, they will no longer change them. Speaking in Catalan also allows her to see if there are any Catalans in the audience. She notices if there are any off-key smiles in the audience when she says something in Catalan.

Pepa’s future, to be seen

Plana has signed a two-year contract with Cirque du Soleil and it seems to her that her period with the circus will end then. Although she has indicated that “you never know”, Pepa has assured that she has “the desire to go back and have her adventures and play”. The clown considers that the rehearsals are already a flash with their marathon 12 hours and with 150 people working. “It is a great production and a great ship and the means they have for everything are dreamlike. With less than half we would not enjoy anything to be able to do things at home”, she assured. But she does not let herself be dazzled because “sometimes the most beautiful things are the simplest and the audience enjoys when there is truth and subtlety”. Plana, likewise, believes that it is much easier to make a 150-person audience laugh.

He admitted that what cost him the most was unifying the language and learning that it was not his show but “a tool that had to adapt to the system.” Plana said initially, you create the number and in principle there is a lot of freedom to do what you want and propose and then “the cuts” come.

The play premiered in Montreal and received very good reviews, according to Pepa, and the theater is filled with people at every performance. Now it will begin a long journey of performances: Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Chicago… The tour is already planned until 2015. And in Europe? “The shows arrive in Europe when they have been filming for five or six years.”

Diari de Tarragona – Pere Francesc