Teatro Romea

Earlier this week, Ricky randomly bought us tickets to a theatre production we knew nothing about. On Friday night, he took me out to dinner and the play! We knew that the play was at 9 o'clock, so we left with plenty of time to eat dinner and head to the theatre.

We were feeling pretttty fancy after the waiter
poured the wine and lit candles.

For a variety of reasons, we ran around Murcia looking for a place to eat, eventually settling about forty minutes before the play would start. Of course.

Yummy wine!

We ate at a crepe-focused restaurant in the plaza where the Cathedral is located. I ordered us three crepes and Ricky ordered us a yummy bottle of vino blanco. When our crepes came, we were so surprised at how big and filling they were! Ricky got ham and cheese and I got a fancy one with ham, onions, cheese, and potatoes--ridiculously good!

We asked our waiter if it would be possible to cancel the dessert crepe because we were suddenly full and didn't have a whole lot of time to spare. He was super friendly and told us that was fine; we could come back after the play if we were hungry again! Ricky thanked him in Portuguese, cueing the waiter to ask if he spoke the language. The waiter revealed that his last name was also Pereira and joked that they were "primos", cousins! Ricky and I giggled about it on our way to Teatro Romea.

I lovvvve you :D

Somehow, we made it to the theatre just in time. It was so beautiful! It just opened up this week after renovations;  this was the first production since being closed for over a year! 

The theatre was filled with the iconic plush, red seats and gold embellishments. The ceiling was painted like the sky with various angel-creatures hanging out; according to the website: "It represents the coronation of Julián Romea by the muses and the offering of the coat of arms of the city to this actor and poet." Teatro Romea website



For the first forty minutes or so, la Orquesta Sinfónica de Jumilla played selections from "Amor Brujo" or "Enchanting Love"--they were so amazing! We really had no idea what to expect...except that there would be a symphony and potentially a puppet show. The music was beautiful and I felt even fancier than I did when drinking wine and dining on crepes! ;) 

When the music stopped, everyone clapped and started getting up, we thought it was over! Just intermission...haha. We ran downstairs because I saw that someone had a programa and I wanted one! We hung out in the fancy lounge areas until the bells started ringing for us to return to our seats.

Sneaking a picture while Ricky hugs me :)

Just as we were wondering if there would actually be a puppet show, a short film started playing on a screen behind the musicians. It looked like a mess of puppet strings being untangled behind a sheet; very artsy.
We started to see puppets move on the other side of the sheet, when suddenly the screen started lifting. Ricky and I looked at each other and our jaws literally dropped! Behind the screen there actually were gigantic puppets, like two stories tall! Those puppets started watching a puppet show....a puppet show within a puppet show! It was "El Retablo de Maese Pedro," a rendition of chapter XXVI of the second part of "El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha." You could see the people running across the stage to move the giant puppets. Needless to say, we were entertained!