Tricicle kills itself in a finale of comic excellence and nods to its history

They have come down from the stage, they have left through the corridor of the audience and they have gone through the door. Tricycle is over. ite missa est, the party is over, bye guys. The trio has offered this Sunday night the last of its five farewell performances with Hits, after which the group is terminated, self-liquidated after 43 years of existence. The audience that filled the Gran Teatre del Liceo in Barcelona remained on their feet applauding them, giving them an ovation and with the shocking sensation of living an unrepeatable historical moment: the end of a company that has been everything, has enjoyed worldwide fame and has become He has built his own imagery and style, becoming a true icon.

There was a certain stupefaction tinged with melancholy in the air, everything and the party, last night at the Lyceum: had we really last seen Tricicle in a theater? The most veteran spectators who have followed the group from its youthful beginnings in Llantiol to this high school chimpún with its greatest hits felt a vertigo as —they expressed it later— Joan Gràcia, Paco Mir and Carles Sans themselves did. It’s 43 years that seem to have passed like a breath. And that’s it. The curtain has fallen. Something from all of us pedals away with Tricicle: memories, emotions, a lifetime and many, many laughs.

The dissolution of Tricicle, after bringing together 4.2 million spectators throughout its existence in 6,200 performances in 450 theaters in 20 countries, is part of what seems to be the decline of the great historical Catalan companies: although Comediants, Joglars, Dagoll Dagom (which already has an expiration date, 2024) or La Fura del Baus are still active, the trio seems to have fired the starting shot for the end of a way (or ways) of doing theater and of living the theater profession. Or maybe it’s just the impression, the shock, that Tricicle’s goodbye has produced.

Ideas and feelings accumulated while on stage the trio has continued, one last night, with their thing. And it has been an evening to think about many things: about how extraordinary Gràcia, Mir and Sans have become, in their poise, their acting excellence, their experience, their humor, their gesture. To wonder why they retire as a group since they are about to leave. It has also been a night to reflect on whether, despite all their success and popularity (or perhaps because of that), they haven’t been ignored a bit. Since they began to enjoy general recognition, a part of the stage profession and the cultural world began to wrinkle their noses, spare their lives and look at them with condescension and even contempt. Perhaps they have also been taken too much for granted (and the expression is worth the creators of sit); we have gotten used to having them, theirs may have seemed normal and banal, but it has actually been monumental, and the result of much effort, trial and error, including major failures. We probably haven’t been as fair to them as Tricicle deserved. And they see that they have been (and continue to be: the three of them will continue separately with their individual careers) good.

In an atmosphere of playing at home, with an audience overflowing with friends and fans and friendly fans (among those present were Joan Manuel Serrat, Joan Laporta, Carlos Latre, Eduardo Mendoza, José Corbacho, Martina Klein, Boris Izaguirre, Àlex Corretja, Ona Carbolell , Jordi Cruz,…), Tricicle have started their greatest hits, their “best of the best of the best” with the famous number of sit of the cavemen. “In the beginning there was nothing,” said the voice-over, “and then they appeared.” with the music of Thus Spoke Zarathustra-2001 and dressed in furs (by God, how fun they are!, oh, they were) have aroused the first laughter and applause, which have not ceased during the hour and forty-five minutes of performance. He has followed the type of screeching noises that make one’s teeth (Joan Gràcia), an airport scene with the three of them playing passengers on the Air Shuttle waiting for the flight, transformed into mountaineers, skiers, playing with the metal detector, dancing in a disco . They have made the number of Garrick of the fakir reaching into the toaster with his sadistic assistant; that of the mentalist… They have become spectators at the cinema, theater, boxing, tennis, ping pong, attending mass… And at all times they have shown a brilliant command of the art of mime, at the level of the great masters humor, the use of onomatopoeia, disguise, the sense of gag and rhythm.

The trio has visited the dentist, they have demonstrated the possibilities of a toilet seat, Joan Gràcia has played the role of a dog, they have undergone a ruthless casting… In an anthology finale they have offered a review of their best gags at breakneck speed: they have descended to the audience to distribute the press as cabin crew exit throwing the newspapers in the faces of the spectators (they have been especially merciless with Serrat), Carles Sans has come out as the madman with the chainsaw of Terrific shouting “rombobombobombobombom! and he has spoiled that he decapitated Laporta; Joan Gràcia has walked the stage in diapers (one of the most applauded moments) remembering Slástic. They have become “two slices of bacon and a blood sausage” stretched out on the floor as if it were a bar iron. And to finish, they have put on clown noses and have done their famous pampering number to the song by Julio Iglesias I am a knave, I am a lord. To leave then, as has been said, through the aisle of the stalls with the entire Lyceum standing.

Los Tricicle have returned moments later for an interview on the same stage with Andreu Buenafuente for a television program that has been recorded throughout the last day of the group. The epilogue, in which the trio has broken down their emotions and said that in another life they could return or start over, has had a point of anticlimax. At the end they have left again and now yes, the Tricicle has finished.

Thanks for everything Joan, Carles and Paco. And if you ever decide to come back, we’ll be here.

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