Authors

• Jordi Marrugat

Abstract

This article studies the considerable transformation experienced by Catalan musical theatre from 1988 to 1992 through the productions of Mar i cel and Flor de Nit by the company Dagoll Dagom. The former marked the introduction into Catalan theatre of the megamusical format recently established in the West End by Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera. Mar i cel has many clear parallelisms with these two plays, especially with the former: continuous music, spectacular stage design, the adaptation of a literary classic of romanticism, the condemnation of social injustice, the use of melodramatic archetypes, the interpretation of musical themes and the use of recurring motifs, among others. In turn, Flor de Nit consolidated the use of this formula, but it took more characteristic musicals of Broadway as references, particularly the musicals Follies and Cabaret. The points in common with these two works are narrative (like Follies, Flor de Nit is based on the demolition of a variety theatre to explain the story, which, like that of Kit Kat Klub in Cabaret, takes place during the rise of fascism in the 1930s), musical (all three plays become a pastiche of musical styles from the mass theatre of the 1930s), scenic (all three works have a variety theatre as their main setting) and character typology (with female, homosexual and transvestite protagonists). With these two plays, Dagoll Dagom transformed the Catalan theatre scene forever by integrating it into the musical forms of both the West End and Broadway.

Recommended Citation

Marrugat, Jordi (2026) "Building Catalonia's West End and Broadway with Dagoll Dagom's Mar i cel and Flor de nit," Comparative Drama: Vol. 60: Iss. 1, Article 5.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol60/iss1/5