Sagunt a Escena brings free puppet show 'Rob' to Puerto de Sagunto on Saturday
Teatre de l'Abast performs the puppet and physical-theatre show 'Rob' this Saturday at the Centro Cívico in Puerto de Sagunto, in Sagunt a Escena's free Off Romà programme, hours before Sandra Monfort's 'Terra de guapes' at the Roman Theatre.
The Centro Cívico (civic centre) in Puerto de Sagunto hosts a free performance of 'Rob' this Saturday, 15 August, at 20:00. The show is the latest work by the Valencian company Teatre de l'Abast, and it is part of Off Romà, the free side-programme of the Sagunt a Escena festival. Everyone is welcome, no ticket is needed. It is the first time this year the festival programme reaches the coastal district, while the Roman Theatre in the Old Town (Ciutat Vella, Sagunto's historic centre) hosts the day's other big show later, at 22:30: 'Terra de guapes', by singer Sandra Monfort.
'Rob' mixes physical theatre, puppet work and live music to tell the story of a shipwrecked man who turns his own imagination into a lifeboat. The piece is signed by Teatre de l'Abast, a company founded in 2016 by Lucía Aibar, Victoria Mínguez and Ramón Ródenas, which has since built its own stage language by exploring the body in dialogue with other art forms. The choreography is by Julieta Gascón together with José Puchades, known as Putxa, a member of Zero en Conducta, one of Spain's leading companies in object theatre (a style built around puppets and everyday objects).
'Rob' arrives in Puerto de Sagunto backed by the 2025 Premio Menkes for best dance-theatre show. Its lead performer, Ramón Ródenas, also won the 2020 best male performance award from the AAPV (the Valencian actors' association) and was shortlisted for best actor at the 23rd Premios Max, Spain's main performing-arts awards. The Premios Max were created in 1998 by SGAE (Spain's authors' and publishers' society) and take their name from Max Estrella, the main character of Valle-Inclán's play 'Luces de bohemia' ('Bohemian Lights').
From 22:30, the festival's spotlight shifts to the Roman Theatre, where Sandra Monfort presents the full staging of 'Terra de guapes', a tribute to Valencian folk music that this outlet already covered in depth earlier this week. In four acts, the show revisits pieces such as the malaguenyes, the cants de batre (threshing songs), La dansa de La Moma, the Muixeranga d'Algemesí, the Ball del Vetlatori and the Misteri d'Elx, drawing on recordings kept in the Generalitat's Fonoteca de Materials (a folk-music sound archive). The pieces come from very different parts of the Valencian region and reach the Roman Theatre stage reworked through Monfort's own creative lens, blending the sound archive with contemporary staging.
Two of the traditions Monfort brings back to the stage carry international recognition. The Misteri d'Elx, the sacred musical drama named in the show, was declared a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 18 May 2001. The Muixeranga d'Algemesí, another piece reinterpreted in 'Terra de guapes', received the same UNESCO recognition in 2011, after nearly disappearing in 1973 and being rescued by a group of barely thirty volunteers who refused to let it die out.
The venue that welcomes Monfort is no ordinary stage either. The Roman Theatre of Sagunto was, in 1896, the first building in Spain to be declared a National Monument, though it did not host modern performances again until 1959, when 'La caída de Numancia' ('The Fall of Numantia'), by Menéndez Pidal, premiered there. Sagunt a Escena, organised by the IVC (Valencian Institute of Culture) with the Valencia Provincial Council and Sagunto City Council, marks this year more than three decades of history on those same stones, with over thirty editions held so far.
Both 'Rob' and 'Terra de guapes' are free and form part of the Off Romà programme, staged entirely by Valencian companies and designed to bring the festival to audiences who do not always reach the Roman Theatre. For Puerto de Sagunto residents, 'Rob' offers a chance to enjoy one of this year's most awarded shows without travelling, right in their own neighbourhood and at no cost. Those who prefer the main show can round off the evening by heading up to the Old Town two and a half hours later, linking the town's two identities, coastal and historic, in a single night of theatre. Together, the two performances turn Saturday 15 August into one of the busiest evenings of the festival calendar for both halves of the municipality. The approach aims to shorten the distance — often more mental than physical — between the archaeological site and the rest of the municipality, and this Saturday that translates into an event staged, for the first time this festival edition, entirely in the port district.
According to Ajuntament de Sagunt (Sagunto City Council) and Valencia Plaza, with additional background from the IVC and Wikipedia on the Roman Theatre of Sagunto and the Premios Max.