Who wrote the text of the Verges Procession? The question cannot be answered with a single name. The words that actors have learned and spoken over the years come from an old theatrical tradition, literary adaptations, passages selected from other works and successive contributions. Participants’ memories have also played a part in preserving them.
The edition of La processó de Verges. Text de l’obra, published by the Diputació de Girona in April 2011, offers a way into this history. Jordi Roca’s introductory study explains the origins and transformation of several passages. The book presents a version rooted in its own time: it is a source for studying the Procession, but without comparison with the current script it cannot establish that every verse and stage direction remains the same today.
A textual tradition preceding the twentieth-century reforms
A substantial part of the text comes from the Passion tradition associated with Friar Antoni de Sant Jeroni and two of his works, Representació de la Sagrada Passió and La gran tragèdia de la Passió i Mort de Jesucrist. Roca traces passages from these works that were preserved, transformed or combined in the Verges performance.
This starting point helps avoid a misunderstanding: the old text was not a work in Castilian that Maria Perpinyà translated in its entirety into Catalan. Roca describes an archaic Catalan language containing forms and constructions influenced by Castilian. The later renewal worked with that tradition and with the needs of the stage.
Nor was the local performance an unchanging reproduction of a book. The selection of scenes, omissions and passages of uncertain origin are part of its history. Attributing a passage to an author requires comparing texts and documenting the path by which it reached the Procession.
Maria Perpinyà: adaptation and literary creation
The work of Maria Perpinyà i Sais belongs to the renewal of the 1950s. Her contribution combined revision of the language with literary and dramatic decisions. She adapted old verses, brought actions together, selected passages and wrote new ones to meet the needs of the performance.
Roca’s study identifies her interventions in scenes such as the Ram, the Sanhedrin and the Garden of Gethsemane. It also attributes to her the Virgin Mary’s lament at the end of the performance. Comparing versions reveals her attention to meaning, metre and rhyme: the verses needed to work both as literature and as words spoken before an audience.
In the Pilate scene, Maria selected and adapted passages by Damas Calvet. This example distinguishes three different tasks: writing, adapting and incorporating another author’s work. Saying that the entire text was hers would conceal this variety; reducing her contribution to linguistic correction would also give an incomplete picture.
Carles Perpinyà and the relationship between text and stage
Maria’s contribution developed alongside the work of Carles Perpinyà. The reorganisation that brought scenes together in the Square changed the way the action unfolded. The text needed to suit a different space and a different theatrical continuity from the performances previously spread around the village.
Màriam Serrà dates Carles’s appointment as director to 1950 and the Patronat’s approval of the reorganisation to 1955. The 2011 edition places the adaptations by Maria and Carles Perpinyà between 1950 and 1955. These dates describe a process of work, rather than the complete replacement of the text in a single year.
The interview documents also recall this relationship between words and performance. Mercè Rovira i Bofill remembers instructions about breathing, vocal intensity and gesture. Josep Maria Llach i Grande distinguishes Carles’s contribution to staging from Maria’s contribution to poetry. These memories explain how participants experienced the renewal; they do not replace the comparison of written texts needed to attribute each verse.
Jordi Roca and the recovery of the Crucifixion
Oral transmission was particularly important in recovering passages of the Crucifixion. Roca explains that he consulted Carles and actors who still remembered verses in order to reconstruct some of the material. This recovery therefore combined documentary research with memories of people who had taken part in the performance.
The note in the 2011 edition dates the remodelling of the Crucifixion to 1980. This agrees with reports in the Girona press from that April, preserved in the project’s documentary dossier. Serrà’s book gives another date, 1981; in discussing this renewal, comparison with contemporary press reports supports 1980.
It was not, however, the first Crucifixion in the whole history of Verges. Roca’s study includes earlier accounts of its disappearance from the repertoire. It should be described as a recovery and remodelling, distinguished from the older forms of the scene.
Lluís Llach and the revision published in 2011
The artistic renewal directed by Lluís Llach between 2009 and 2011 also involved work on the texts. The edition’s note dates his modifications to 2008–2011: the years of textual preparation and those of public artistic direction do not refer to exactly the same period.
The study identifies changes in passages of the Samaritan Woman, the Soldier’s Repentance and the Daughters of Jerusalem. The revision criteria included making the language understandable, working on the rhythm of the verses and giving expression to the characters while maintaining their connection with the inherited tradition.
The book also acknowledges a collective effort. Lluís Muntada contributed to coordination; Dani Vivern to linguistic revision; Maria Roca i Llauró to research into the origins of the verses; and Jordi Roca brought his knowledge of the Procession’s history. Explaining this edition solely through its director would leave out contributions essential to understanding how it was prepared.
Learning by heart is also a form of transmission
The Procession is passed on through books and scripts, but also through rehearsals, listening and repetition. The learned text becomes part of the actors’ voices and movements. Through this process, verses may survive that are no longer easy to find in a written copy, as Roca’s account of the Crucifixion shows.
Oral memory is a valuable source for explaining this experience. It needs to be heard with its attribution and context: who remembers, which period they are discussing and whether they describe their own experience or a story passed down to them. Two similar memories do not, on their own, establish an author or a date.
Reading the 2011 book alongside Verges i la processó que no es veu, published in 1998 from Serrà’s work, reveals different versions and moments in time. A description of staging from one period should not automatically be applied to every edition of the Procession.
The history of the texts is therefore part of the history of the people who have made possible the performance in the Square and the Procession through the streets: authors, adapters, directors, actors and those who have preserved its memory.
Sources
La processó de Verges. Text de l’obra (Diputació de Girona, Josep Pla collection, 2011): introductory study by Jordi Roca, pp. 8–31; note on adaptations; edition credits. Màriam Serrà, Verges i la processó que no es veu (El Mèdol, 1998), pp. 46–47. Documents from interviews with Mercè Rovira i Bofill, Maria Ruart i Ribas and Josep Maria Llach i Grande, preserved in the project’s oral memory collection. Reports in Los Sitios dated 3 and 6 April 1980, included in the documentary dossier.
