Full of little 'Bits'

I remember my first acting teacher mentioning the name “Tricicle” and her praise of the three-member comedy troupe that I would insist on misspelling. I finally understood her passion for the group last month on a visit to the Spanish capital when I had the chance to see their latest show “Bits”. Premiered in 2012, it was back at Teatro Compac for a two-month run.

The enthusiasm inside the full house, made up of local residents a large group of teenagers, was palpable. The fact that there were so many young people was exciting in itself as the three members of Tricicle, namely Joan Gracia, Paco Mir and Carles Sans, have been performing for almost 36 years and are now in their senior years.

LED screens hung from on high and a short video introduced the “bit” as the binary system’s smallest unit. When grouped together bits can travel far and free in the wide world of information – just like the comic skits Tricicle was about to show us perhaps. Still and video images, as well as different shades of colours, in subsequent scenes provided more background information, setting the tone, limiting the use of other props and allowing time for quick costume changes.

In one scene, one of them portrayed Jose Mourinho – it’s 2012 and the football manager was still at Bernabeu – and his world-famous physical and emotional outbursts at the sidelines of a match. In another scene, they mimicked English housewives at a supermarket.

And in another, they took us to Scotland where a tourist wanted to take a photo of every angle of the world-famous Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. In other words, their subject matter varied greatly and so did the length of each skit, most of which were performed without spoken words, making the 85-minute performance simply fly by. 

Although I wished there were a clearer line that linked all scenes together, I was impressed at how the three actors performed with one another in this tightly knit trio. After almost four decades, they obviously know the next moves and jokes by heart and yet they looked and acted as if it were their first time. Thanks to the wide variety of characters they portrayed and the fact that they prioritised teamwork over individuality, it would be difficult for me to recognise any of them if I were to run into them again. While comedy often ventures into improvisation, they chose to keep each performance strictly intact and flow from one skit to another the way it had been created.

The eighth production since they formed the company in their college years in 1979, “Bits” is being advertised as possibly the trio’s last work together before they focus fully on teaching their skills and developing a younger ensemble. The applause I heard that night at the curtain call showed that the audience wanted them to stay on longer, either with “Bits”, which is now travelling around Spain, or a new show. 

The experience also reminded me of the so-called “non-verbal” comedy, a globally popular genre that has been championed, in terms of artistic and marketing values, by Korean theatre makers and producers. You don’t have to look further than RCA here in Bangkok to see evidence – “Cookin’ Nanta”, which was once Off-Broadway, is staged nightly and many Chinese tourists pack in to watch Somtam replace Kimchi and Phad Thai substitute for Mandu. 

With that in mind, Tricicle could very well be another cultural ambassador for Spain, as their “Bits” has proved that comedy, when keenly written and deftly performed, can be both local and universal at the same time.

 

 

The writer wishes to thank Federico Gaez Palomera and Asa Gim Palomera for all assistance.

 

On the web:

www.Tricicle.com (in Spanish, Catalan and English).