If his own prediction comes true, he will retire after his last play, now represented in the romea of Barcelona, the island of air (written by Alejandro Palomasdirected by Mario Gas) will be the last of the many works of art that he has interpreted Nuria Espert on the Spanish and international scene.
This is how she explains the withdrawal that she has announced in Barcelona, her birthplace, her home: “I am very happy with this show. It lasts a long time because it involves a tour that starts from Barcelona, goes through Madrid and other places. And yes: I have said that after these performances there will be no more projects”. According to the forecasts of the company that hosts it, this will happen within a year and a half, since this work is planned on many stages, with the same actresses who accompany it (Vicky Peña , Teresa Vallicrosa, Miranda Gas, Candela Serrat), until dates that reach 2024, when the great Catalan actress, who has filled (and continues to fill) the performances in which she stars with the public, turns 88.
Its director is now Mario Gas, from Barcelona like her, who has already directed it in Salome, by Oscar Wilde, in 1985, Master class (about Maria Callas) in 1998, Fires (by Wajdi Mouawad), in 2016, and this one by Alejandro Palomas, who is still in force at Romea.
It is symbolic that it is the Romea Theatre, where he debuted as a teenager, when he was sixteenthe place where she has premiered what is already the play with which she will finally say goodbye to her home, and after the stage, the most important actress that Spanish theater has had in many years.
It was at that historic premiere for his life in Romea that the playwright Josep Maria de Sagarra said “this woman has more balls than a bull& rdquor ;, by the strength of her character as an actress. Then they had the opportunity to verify the power of her presence on stage by very diverse people, such as Víctor García, Lluis Pasqual or Adolfo Marsillach, and she demonstrated it by taking the stage works by Lorca, by Colette, by O`Oneill, by Shakespeare, by Fernando Arrabal, by Jean Genet. Mario Gas, who will be its last director, Its present cast includes the young actress candela serratwho has revived what Sagarra said about what would be her teacher: “If one day I had the balls of Núria Espert I would be happy& rdquor ;.
In the island of air There is also that Nuria that Sagarra saw and whom Candela wants to get closer to. After the performance, still dressed in the costumes of the scene, the leading actress spoke to this newspaper in the back room of the Romea. Her voice remains as in the play, her eyes, as in the scene, attentive to anything, now without the fury that can be seen above when she tries to bring order to a furious and sad family, the one with the doves work, Nùria Espert speaks, sometimes furiously, sometimes melancholy, about theater and life. Performer on stage, citizen before life.
Upstairs, at a certain moment, before putting the women of the fictional family to attention, she has a particularly imperious moment as an actress, in which she dedicates herself to listening, and that is a sublime moment about which we first asked her to I talked.
Q. How do you learn to listen in the theater?R. Listening. Listening is the main factor in theater and in life, don’t you think? But, in addition, you have to think about what material you have in your hands to then draw the character. For this work, the author has created a universe that I instantly believed in and that has helped me a lot to prepare the performance. The moment comes when the mother of the drowned girl wonders why we are so alone, but then you see that the mother’s arrival serves to reveal the things that have happened. It is true that the grandfather told everything before he died, but… this is a text that is a very pleasant surprise until the end. I think the ending is wonderful: “I have done for you what I have not done for anyone.”
Q. Your attitude in that ending, when you get angry with your daughters in the play, and redirect the lives of each one of them, reminded me of Carmen Balcells, that literary agent who revolutionized the life of literature and its authors… R. It’s that… what a woman! But here all the characters seem very authentic, very human, true. That is important so that you believe what they tell you.
Q. In the work there is sadness, but also humor.
R. Yes Yes. This drama allows me, and the audience, to laugh. I think that is also why the text is magnificent.
Q. Is each play unique?R. Yes, this work by Palomas is unique. I have always read everything that they have brought me and what I have searched for, but this work that we are doing seems to me a work that is very theatrical in every sense of the word. Because it is full of surprises. Only the greats make these kinds of characters. Chekhov, for example. Chekhov, by the way, also put humor in his works.
Q. What value does the memory of having done other works have for you? Does he force her to act in a precise way?R. Yes. Such a long career has everything. But this work has reached the end of my career, it is by a Spanish author, alive… Which he had always wanted.
Q. What do you learn when you do a play like this?R. This work gives me great joy and I think of good luck. Because we were going to do another project, but it fell apart and this one suddenly appeared and we liked it. It was like a gift, really.
Q. It is a work about loneliness, each woman is a loneliness. What kind of loneliness are we living today?R. Disoriented solitudes, right? I believe. Before you had friends and they confessed to you that they were disoriented, because they were from the world of culture, where there is disorientation, you are never completely happy, there is always discomfort… But now it seems that this happens to everyone and that it is a worldwide thing. There is such obvious confusion… The thinking heads of the country are not accepted and I don’t think we have a space like a card-caster, a place where you can see a bit of your future. Today everything is diffuse. Every time the great characters of our current world meet, disorientation is seen. Because we are confused.
Q. How do you feel now, living in your city, as a citizen of this country and of Catalonia?R. In all sincerity, I think that life has given me a wonderful gift with this show. We have 18 representations [el pasado sábado 15 de abril] and every day I enjoy it more. Every day I believe more that I have something valuable in my hands and that I have a great director supporting an exceptional cast. But now I’ll come home, watch the news on TV, and that joy is likely to be diluted by everything that’s happening in this country and in the world.
Q. But I would like to know what your relationship is now with Spain and Catalonia.
R. For me there is only one country. A valuable country, with a great history, in which we have all collaborated to build it. But I painfully live the Spanish communities and if my word had any value, I would say: what a pity to see what is going to happen in 20 or 50 years.
Q. You have made a constant commitment to poetry, which has marked your life along with theater. What value does poetry have for you now? R. I remember talking to Armando [Moreno, su esposo, productor de toda su obra mientras estuvo vivo, hasta1994], telling him that this was the moment of poetry. It is time to give voice to poets. Later life has allowed me to do it with many of our poets. Because I felt that those who know how to count things had to be removed.
P. The theater has always served to tell what happens to people.
R. Yes Yes. The theater lives hooked on life. When life slips or makes a mistake and causes great pain, or when it tries to get up and puts all the meat on the spit, there is poetry and drama and books and authors. But I don’t know if we are in a good moment now.
Q. How do you see the future of Spanish theater?R. There are a lot of new people trying to find their chair or place to express themselves. But here in Barcelona they have already closed a theater due to lack of public. That’s pretty bad, isn’t it? The theater needs affection, it needs an audience that loves it. The theater is fragile and when there are five extraordinary titles in each season, the theater flourishes and the people flourish.
Q. Have we not taken seriously the importance of theater for democracy? R. I have friends in various theaters and they are a little I don’t know, disappointed? There could be a link between what happens in different parts of the world: in Rome or London there is not a great exaltation for the theater. And I think the same thing happens here. That’s how it is.
Q. What do you think is the reason for this lack of exaltation?R. Well, I saw the possibility of change when Franco died. But in the political sense. They hardly took care of culture. And today that opportunity for great change has not presented itself. After the pain of the dictatorship many things woke up in us and instead now… The big theater groups are no longer there, for example.
Q. When people applaud you at the end of this play, they obviously applaud you, the actresses, the editing, the author, but what are they really applauding too?R. The emotion. An emotion that, unfortunately, is no longer so common in the theater. Like today’s theater is colder, more cerebral. There is no longer the satisfaction that Shakespeare or Buero Vallejo give you, for example.
Q. One day you told me that you wondered if you had behaved well with people. Do you keep wondering?R. Yes Yes. Because it’s something that matters to me. But… in response I say to myself: I have behaved acceptably well.
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Q. And how do you feel in the role of grandmother, in the work and in life?R. I feel good. I think the author has been very careful not to make a charming lady who brings peace to the house, but rather someone who knows that death is close to her and knows that this must be made palatable to her loved ones.
Q. One day you also told me that you had to let things flow. How do things flow between the cast up there on stage?R. With an ease, a sincerity, a desire to grow… From the second day we started working, all this arose. That’s why I think we now present a mature show.
“Today’s theater is colder, more cerebral. There is no longer the satisfaction that Shakespeare or Buero Vallejo give you, for example”
“Here in Barcelona they have already closed a theater due to a lack of audiences. That’s bad enough, right? The theater needs love, it needs an audience that loves it”
There is such obvious confusion… The thinking heads of the country are not accepted and we do not have a space as a card-caster, where you can see a little of your future”