A fallera has died in a giant mascletan and her rotting body seeks revenge, only by cooking her a good paella can we calm her down. It is the plot of the board game devised by Enric Aguilar al 2014 which has revolutionized the Valencian scene selling more than 60.000 units. La Fallera Calavera combines Valencian folklore with local traditions and festivals, adding a lot of humor to the matter, players have to deal with rotting orange trees, Persistent shallots, mascletos and violent tomatines to get the ingredients of the paella that allow the fallera to be happy. By now, the board game accumulates two expansions, has been adapted to the novel format and, in February, arrives as a play by the company Floc Teatre at Sala Russafa. It was directed and written by Eduard Costa with the collaboration of Enric, who we spoke to to find out what this zombie swindler will do on stage.
Let's say you never for a moment imagined how successful the game would be when you brought it out with the help of micro-mechanization…
Yeah, I in no way made this game to dedicate myself professionally to board games or anything, I made it as a personal project, to have fun and to self-actualize, the surprise has been that it has changed my life. Thanks to this game, I don't work in audiovisual anymore and I have a board game company, i am my own boss, I am an employer and I have a dependent employee. I was very surprised, obviously, the success of the game, by no means did I expect it.
The book begins by talking about the dawn, that fallacious ritual "a sad hair". you are failing? If not you are, you like the world of Les Fallas? We sense that he woke her up not too much…
I'm not a failure and I've always experienced failures since Dénia, my village. Although they are not as important as they are in Valencia, yes, it is one of the cities where big and important mistakes are made, there are eleven commissions. I have always enjoyed them very much, the awakened ones too, yes i like them [laughs]. My room in Dénia overlooks an interior courtyard, therefore, I could hear them from afar, we woke up but we didn't break the eardrum either. I really like the atmosphere of faults, the rockets, the mascletadas… I really like the Faller monument, I enjoy it a lot. So I have experienced the failures externally, since I have not been part of a failing committee… but I've always enjoyed all the acts. Besides, I was a band musician, therefore I also participated in the offering and in many fallare activities as a musician and I like them very much. I have no criticism of the Fallas, at least, from Dénia, they live in a very pleasant way.
In the card game, players must gather five ingredients to cook a good paella for the zombie fallera and thus save the world from its apocalyptic wrath: the garrophons, the tomato, the rabbit, the artichoke, the bajoqueta, the chicken leg, the snail and the head of garlic. In the expansions, more controversial ingredients such as prawns or clods are added. In Ribera Alta and in your area, The Marina Alta, and reclamarian, puny in alt, the red pepper and the ball. What do you think of the pan purists?? We Valencians are a little heavy on the subject?
Little, in fact, in La Fallera Calavera 3 I included red pepper. The ball does not, but I noticed that the red pepper was in other areas, not only in La Ribera and La Marina Alta, therefore, I ended up including it. And well, Yeah, Valencians are very purists when it comes to paella, especially in the area of Valencia and its surroundings. I am from La Marina Alta and there we are a little more liberated in that aspect. But it is surprising that they are so purist and demanding when it comes to paella, which is the Valencian symbol par excellence, and on the other hand, they are not so much with other perhaps more important subjects, for me, such as the defense of the language or having fairer funding for our territory. These are things that should be more important and sometimes we stay in the anecdote. Both in the game and in the book I make a bit of fun criticism and satire about the excessive importance we give to some details of our folklore, and instead, in others, we are a little meninfots, we don't give them importance.
The novel is very sarcastic, sale to the political class, to the menphotism of the voters and to that obsession with always wanting to do more, noisier, bigger, more expensive… In fact, the plot begins with a "superhypermegamascletána". The caustic tone is maintained and thug in the play? And the Gothic aesthetic?
Yeah! The hooligan tone is maintained, it stays a lot. There is a lot of sarcasm, a lot of satire, because in the end, the world of faults is a satirical world. You can understand the play more in terms of the twists and turns of the characters, or you can go a little further and see all the criticism behind it. It is a self-criticism of us as a society, to things we have experienced in the past, to our own political class, which is part of us too. Yeah, there is a lot of self-criticism, always with humor, with a lot of humor, that is to say, it's a sarcastic but very funny play.
And then, in terms of aesthetics, has been completely maintained, in fact, elements appear such as the Moon of Valencia or paella ingredients that are copied from the illustrations. All the characters wear masks that give them a very particular aesthetic, they are masks that allow them to have their eyes and mouths visible to everyone and at the same time make them have very large heads that convey to us the aesthetics of the card game. Tried to be very respectful with that. We also play a lot with Chinese shadows to make Tim Burton-style landscapes, with the smoke, with dim lights… even, it is a work that has musical elements that are very reminiscent of Tim Burton's music, but fused with popular Valencian songs. A spectacular combination of Gothic and Valencian folklore.
The game has revived, especially in the younger generations, characters and party information, Valencian history and mythology. Many of them already know who she is Delicious of Gandia or the Moro Mussa for your game. It was one of the goals?
Little, as i said before, my goal was to make a game that I liked and a very personal project. really, I did not have a divulgative goal in itself, as a purpose. It was more, that I found some characters that I found super attractive and that didn't have copyright, that is to say, we had popular characters who could be commercially and visually very magnetic and attractive and I decided to exploit them. I don't have to pay anyone for the rights to speak or illustrate the delicate de Gandia or el Moro Mussa. And it has turned out that it has been used a lot in schools, in the ethnological museum, et cetera, for its informative content. But it was a consequence, I never intended to do something strictly informative, but I wanted to do something attractive and fun, and in doing this, i have succeeded, the band, to disclose. Which is great and something I'm very proud of.
Let's say that in the theatrical adaptation you had to choose between all these characters, which ones will appear? What can you tell us about the plot??
the game, if we count La Fallera Calavera 1, 2 i 3, has an incredible catalog of objects and characters. Yes, I can say that there are elements and characters from La fallera calavera 1, 2 i 3, and that some characters are the same as those in the book but others are not. The biggest difference is that, just like in the book, a journey is made in the plot of the play, but in this case through Valencia, Castellón and Alicante. In the book for example, the area of Castelló was not touched. It has been a great addition by the Floc Teatre company and by the director and playwright Eduard Costa, who are great connoisseurs of the whole area of Castelló and have incorporated the character of the Queen of the Festivals of Castelló. It appears in the game but wasn't in the book, and he is a very funny character who also uses sarcasm and humor from Castellon clichés, and the truth that gives the work an incredible balance.
About the plot, I can tell you that a mysterious personage wakes up the skull fool in the future, when she was already dead, a l’any 2070, and the fallera must face a hidden power that is in Benidorm and that is trying to end everything that represents the Valencian identity. even, the paella itself, because he wants to turn the pan into rice with stuff and put sausage on it. then, the Fallera Calavera will have to go and find the Queen of the Festivals of Castelló and the Beauty of Fire, in this case, the Bellea del Moc d'Alacant, to face all three, the three heroines, to that hidden power that tries to destroy Valencian identity and paella.
Which new characters from Valencian current affairs would you incorporate into the project today?? How would you characterize them??
I'm not a big fan of including current characters in the game, among other things, because I'm afraid they will expire. I incorporated the Perpetual Mayoress because she was an already iconic character, which brought many, very many, many years as mayoress of Valencia, then I thought that even if it disappeared, what happened next, it would always be an icon and would not expire. I also included Dj Ximo, in reference to Ximo Bayo, for the same, because it was an icon and it was consolidated. But I'm not a big fan of taking current characters because they can be out of date. Most of the characters in the game are from popular folklore and not so much current affairs. However, lately he looks with some sympathy at the character of María Abradelo, who was an icon for many of us in childhood because of the programs he did on Canal 9. He is a person from Madrid that at the beginning, may be, we laughed a lot at her because she didn't pronounce Valencian well, but in the end, she made the effort to learn the language and improved a lot, and now he speaks it perfectly. This is very grateful. Maybe it deserves a tribute in our game, many players have asked me. But there are so many, so many characters we could include that, little, you should think carefully and maybe, even, a choice could be made among the players to see which characters we would include.
First was the board game La Fallera Calavera, then the version online, the literary adaptation, the tournaments, a fault in Benicarló, the adaptation to the theater… What would come next in a logical sequence? The video game maybe? Cartoons?
Little, I have always said that La Fallera Calavera is a project that has proven itself transmedia, that is to say, which can be adapted very well to different formats, and really, both the literary work, that I wrote it, like the play, they were external proposals to me. The book was a proposal from Sembra Llibres, who came to find me and commissioned me to write a short novel, the story of La Fallera Calavera. And in the case of the theater adaptation, it was a proposal from the Floc Teatre company, that she was interested in carrying it out. I will listen to any offer that comes to me from another area, if I see that it respects the format and the original tone of the game, I will definitely take her into account. The Benicarló Falla you mention was also a proposal by the artist and the commission, and it was also done very tastefully and with a very good result. In the end, if a video game company that has a good resume and makes good video games comes to me, obviously, I will listen to your proposal, if a television production company comes to me with a proposal for a program or animation series, I will listen to it. It has also been discussed, although it has not materialized, to make one escape room of La Fallera Calavera, could also be an interesting topic. In the end, what i say, anything that fits well with the original tone of the game could be done and, really, I believe that La Fallera Calavera gives for many areas. We'll see what comes up in the future.
