Love, marriage and other minor issues

The participants in this seminar are authors recommended by collaborating institutions.

Society has traditionally decided that a romantic pairing of two people is the best way to set up a home or a family. When so much else has changed, do we still think this is true?
With statistics showing that in 2021 (in the UK) 51% of people are single, perhaps long-term coupling is an outdated idea.
Does this statistic hide that we are living in a new utopian world of gender equal and consciously inclusive arrangements that don’t define themselves as ‘couples’?
Or, with loneliness at an all-time high, does the statistic reveal that have we become incapable of the tolerance required for long-term love?
Perhaps it was only ever God and/or social pressure that made it work.

What is the best way to arrange society?
In new arrangements, where does the responsibility for child-rearing or illness or vulnerability fall?
Should love have anything to do with it?
Or was the original financial contract of marriage the best way after all?

Ella Hickson

Description of the seminar

The guest playwrights of this edition are Liat (Allex) Fassberg (Germany), Pauline Haudepin (France), Jamie Hornsby (Australia), William Lippert (Denmark), Mufaro Makubika (United Kingdom), André Mangion (Malta), Elie Marchand (Quebec), Klaus Maunuksela (Finland), Bàrbara Mestanza (Catalonia), Erlend Rødal Vikhagen (Norway), Nalini Vidoolah Mootoosamy (Italy) and Mélanie Werder Avilés (Spain). All of them have been recommended by international theatres and centres. They will send in advance a short play on the subject. These plays will be translated into Catalan and presented in the form of a staged reading. The readings will be open to the general public.

Within the GREC 2022 Festival de Barcelona