La Nena (La Criolla) is a subtle yet essential presence in La Criolla, a young orphan girl with dark skin who roams the streets of the Raval, the Paral·lel, and La Rambla selling newspapers. She acts as a witness of time, connecting the outside world with the closed universe of the cabaret, shouting out the headlines of the news shaking Barcelona. Her fragile figure, wrapped in humble and practical clothing, stands out by the distinctive sound she makes before each announcement with her small pan flute, as if marking the inexorable march of history.

Over time, La Nena evolves, reflecting the scars of the city and the characters who inhabit La Criolla. Her gaze, initially curious and naïve, becomes wiser and more nuanced. At the beginning and end of the play, she reads from the guestbook of the venue, closing the circle of collective memory. In her final appearance, her voice echoes on stage as she reads the farewell letter from Flor de Otoño, leaving in the air the echo of a world that dissolves but will never truly fade away.

Pepe from La Criolla was a tall and imposing man, with a sharp gaze and a firm demeanor—an authentic lord of the night in Barcelona’s Barrio Chino. Originally from Almería, he quickly earned a place among the city’s most roguish circles, gaining both the respect and fear of workers and clients alike. At first, he appeared as a friendly and protective figure, able to maintain order with witty remarks or, when necessary, with the stick he kept behind the bar. He turned La Criolla into the nerve center of transgression and pleasure, a cabaret that attracted artists, aristocrats, and criminals, making him a powerful and feared man.

But ambition consumed him. Over time, Pepe became ruthless, amassing wealth while exploiting those who worked for him. He deceived musicians and vedettes, withheld profits, and masked the venue’s opulence with tales of false hardship. He surrounded himself with powerful clients and delved into shady deals with mafias and corrupt police. His downfall was inevitable: abandoned by his own, and turned into a symbol of betrayal, his end came in the early morning—murdered in cold blood. A crime without culprits, a silence among the shadows of a neighborhood that never forgets.

Pere Riera is the musical soul of La Criolla, a brilliant and passionate violinist who leads the cabaret’s little orchestra with mastery and sensitivity. A man of firm principles and pacifist spirit, he fights to dignify the work of musicians and artists, resisting the corruption and decay that surrounds him. Creative and innovative, he not only sets the rhythm of the venue but also gives it a unique identity, blending jazz, tango, and Latin melodies with an elegance that captivates everyone who steps inside. His friendship with Flor de Otoño goes beyond music; together, they devise the idea of an Artists' Cooperative—a desperate attempt to save La Criolla from the greed of those who exploit it.

Though his friend Xavier Cugat urges him to move to New York and succeed in the Latin jazz scene, Pere chooses to stay in Barcelona, committed to his four children and his life between La Criolla, the Barcelona String Quartet, and the Pau Casals Orchestra. But when the city becomes unlivable and danger threatens those who have defied the system, he is the one who helps Flor de Otoño go into exile, opening the door to a new life in America. His music, like his fight, remains in the memory of those who danced under his baton, making Pere Riera a symbol of resistance amid the chaos.

Paco Madrid is a journalist in search of a truth that may not exist. At just 25 years old, he arrives at La Criolla eager to capture its essence and turn it into written words. He seeks to decipher the mystery of magic in art, of talent, of the "duende" — that unrepeatable moment, that instant of artistic sublimity which, according to him, must be dissected, rationalized, and explained. But as he delves into the oppressive and magnetic atmosphere of the cabaret, he encounters a reality that escapes his analytical gaze. There, nothing can be reduced to pure logic: rhythm, passion, attraction, and tragedy are lived, not explained.

It is Pere Riera who confronts him in this eternal debate between science and emotion, reason and instinct. While Paco insists that everything can be explained through hormones, brain impulses, and chemical reactions, Riera responds with his music, silencing him with a melody that needs no justification. In that moment, for the first time, Paco begins to doubt. Maybe not everything can be described in words. Maybe art is not a phenomenon to be studied, but an experience to be lived. And perhaps, no matter how much he writes, he will never truly belong to that world he so desperately wishes to understand.

Flor de Otoño is the rebellious soul of La Criolla, a fascinating character who moves between the seduction of the night and the tragedy of a life marked by uprootedness. Born Lluís Serracant, the child of a wealthy family, he renounced his origins to embrace the freedom of the margins, dressing in drag each night and becoming an icon of the cabaret. Charismatic and untamable, his fragility is matched only by his strength: a cocaine addict lost in fleeting pleasure, but also an anarchist gunman ready to challenge authority. Within the walls of La Criolla, he is a star who shines with his own light—an artist, a vigilante, and a dreamer fighting for his people.

When Luz, trapped in a hell of violence, kills her pimp, it is he who saves her from prison, proving that his loyalty surpasses any danger. But he knows his time is running out. He signs the last page of the guestbook with a phrase that sounds like an epitaph: "Life is a tango and death a pasodoble, and one must learn to dance them both." Before going into exile, he writes a farewell letter that becomes the last heartbeat of La Criolla—the manifesto of a life consumed by passion and rebellion. Flor de Otoño does not disappear; he becomes a legend, a memory of a Barcelona that will never forget his name.

La Asturianita is a vibrant and excessive figure, a character who swings between charm and tragedy, between exaggerated laughter and hysterical sobbing. Flamboyant and theatrical, she lives for drama, amplifying every emotion until it becomes her own personal performance. Obsessed with her image, she dresses and paints herself as if every night were a grand opening, hiding beneath the surface a deeply wounded person, scarred by a past of violence and rejection. In Flor de Otoño, she finds a friend and protector—someone to guide her and hold her up when the weight of her own instability threatens to crush her.

But behind this mask of fragility and tears lies a betrayal. La Asturianita is not only a vedette of La Criolla; she is an informant, a confidante of the police and of Pepe, selling information about her companions in exchange for money and safety. As the cabaret becomes a nest of conspiracies and resistance, her role grows darker. When the truth finally emerges, it’s too late for redemption. Hers is the story of someone caught between two worlds: the family she had found at La Criolla, and the fear that drove her to betray them.

Sarah, “la Cubanita”, is one of the last great ladies of the Barrio Chino—a vedette with a husky voice and tired eyes who has seen time and nightlife devour many before her. With her sweet, melodic accent, she brings Caribbean sensuality to the cabaret, effortlessly adapting to the new wave of Latin rhythms conquering the dance floor. Despite her magnetic presence and strong-woman aura, she is a survivor in a world where beauty and youth come at a high cost. She knows Pepe from La Criolla better than anyone—she knows his cruelty and abuse of power—but keeps silent out of fear of losing her place, because in her world, secrets are a currency.

But time and illness do not forgive. Tobacco and alcohol, once companions in celebration, become her curse, leading her to a premature death from tuberculosis and liver cirrhosis. Before she goes, however, she returns to warn Luz and her former colleagues about Pepe’s true nature, finally breaking the silence that protected her for so long. Her absence leaves an irreplaceable void in La Criolla: an empty spot on stage and an untouched glass at the bar. When her voice fades, it is not only Sarah who dies, but a piece of the cabaret’s soul.

Luz is the light fighting not to go out in the darkness of La Criolla. Young, beautiful, and with a spirit not yet fully broken, she is a vedette and escort surviving in a world where innocence fades far too quickly. Her sweet voice and captivating presence conceal a life marked by violence and submission, trapped in a toxic relationship with Mariano—her man and her executioner—a ruthless pimp who abuses her physically and psychologically, reminding her daily that she belongs to him, that there is no escape.

But Luz refuses to die in silence. In an act of desperation and self-defense, she kills Mariano, breaking the cycle of terror that was consuming her. In a world where justice often sides with the powerful, it is Flor de Otoño who helps her reclaim her freedom, ensuring she is declared innocent. Her acquittal is celebrated not only at La Criolla but throughout the Barrio Chino, because her story is that of many women who could not defend themselves. From that moment on, Luz is no longer just a vedette; she is a woman who has taken control of her destiny—a voice that will echo in the night of Barcelona, finally free of her shadow.

Jean Genet arrives at La Criolla like a wandering ghost—a young thief, violent and provocative, marked by his own marginalization. Cross-dressed, criminal, and a poet without a homeland, he moves through the cabaret with the insolence of someone who has nothing to lose, yet with a clarity of mind that unsettles. His androgynous beauty and defiant demeanor make him an unsettling presence—an outsider who watches the world with indifferent disdain while secretly yearning to be part of it. He replaces Sarah when she falls ill, but he doesn’t just take her place on stage: he also inherits her secrets, her alliances, and her dangers.

His intellectual nature makes him a dissonant element within La Criolla. He does not merely seek to survive, but to challenge the rules, to push the boundaries of morality and hypocrisy. He is a mirror of social exclusion, forbidden love, and double standards—a character as disturbing as he is fascinating. His relationship with Pepe de La Criolla is one of convenience and ambition: when Pepe leaves to found Barcelona de Noche, Genet follows him, knowing that survival depends on staying close to power—until the day he can overthrow it.

Trotski is a young anarchist with a restless gaze and a rebellious spirit—a gunman of the Free Union who lives on the edge between revolution and ruin. With the look of a seminary student, he seems more intellectual than man of action, but behind his alert eyes lies a past filled with violence and escape. His nickname, given ironically by his comrades, becomes his curse: when the Secret Police and the Criminal Investigation Brigade mistake him for the Russian revolutionary, La Criolla becomes the scene of a brutal raid.

Despite his connections to the underground world of the Barrio Chino, Trotski is not a man of power, but one of many seeking a future amid chaos. At La Criolla, he shares laughter and conspiracies with Flor de Otoño, crosses paths with Luz, and moves among artists, criminals, and politicians trying to survive a crumbling world. But he knows his freedom is fleeting. The city is burning, the sides are drawn, and he must choose between shooting or being shot. Trotski is a reflection of the turbulent Barcelona of the 1930s: too young to die, too dangerous to survive.

Leopoldo Fregoli, the master of transformism, bursts into La Criolla as a living legend—a stage magician capable of reinventing himself in mere seconds. Known worldwide for his incredible skill in changing character, costume, and makeup with dizzying speed, his presence at the cabaret becomes a historic event. Although he retired in 1920 due to health issues, at the age of 58 he accepts one final performance to inaugurate La Criolla, turning it into the epicenter of transformism and theatrical illusion.

His participation in the musical is not just a performance, but a rite of passage—the moment when a legend of the past passes the torch to a new generation of transformists and night artists. In front of a select and mesmerized audience, his act becomes a metaphor for change, for theatre as refuge, and for the cabaret as a temple of freedom. When Fregoli steps off the stage, he is not only bidding farewell to a glorious career, but he is consecrating La Criolla as the new heart of transformism and theatrical subversion in Barcelona.

Josephine Baker arrives at La Criolla like a hurricane of rhythm, sensuality, and defiance. The great African-American diva, who had already conquered Paris with her groundbreaking art and her iconic “danse sauvage,” becomes the star attraction of a night forever etched into the history of Barcelona’s cabaret scene. With her boundless energy and exotic style, Baker melts into La Criolla’s haze as if she had always belonged to that world—where excess, scandal, and beauty blend into a single experience.

In the musical, her performance is the highlight of an evening of magic and transgression—a moment when La Criolla becomes the epicenter of European avant-garde. With her shining skin under the lights and her hypnotic movement, Baker not only seduces the audience but breaks all conventions, transforming the stage into a space of freedom, diversity, and racial empowerment. Her appearance at the cabaret is brief but unforgettable—an instant of glory that lifts La Criolla to the level of the great venues of the era. When her voice and body merge with the music, the city stops for a moment, and the night becomes immortal.

Salvador Dalí bursts into La Criolla like a surrealist epiphany, a theatrical mirage that defies logic and opens the doors of consciousness to a universe where dream and reality merge. With his impossible mustache and hypnotic voice laced with delirious metaphors, Dalí appears amidst the emotional chaos of the scene, a preacher of the subconscious, carrying with him the ultimate "mandanga": a substance that turns pain into poetry and lucidity into madness.

His entrance is not anecdotal, but ritualistic: he acts as a visionary shaman, offering the characters a pill that transports them into an operatic absurdity, where diacritical marks tap dance and melting clocks weep vinegar. Through a monologue wrapped in ambiguities and paradoxes, Dalí exposes the falsehoods of political discourse, the deceit of promises, and the fabrication of power, offering a sharp critique of his —and our— society.

In the musical, Dalí is not merely a character: he is an aesthetic force, an idea, a storm of visual and sonic symbolism that erupts to transform everything. His stage presence, balanced between cabaret and the oneiric underworld, turns La Criolla into a shrine of pure surrealism, right before its final collapse.

When Dalí vanishes, he doesn’t fade away —he leaves a trail, a shimmering wake of wonder and unrest. He has planted doubt, exposed deception, and with one final cry —“Don’t come to me with mandangas!”— he closes his number as if sealing a parallel dimension. His appearance marks a turning point in the story, a playful delirium that opens the door to criticism, freedom, and unfiltered art. With him, La Criolla becomes not only a refuge, but a revolt.