He doesn’t like to pose for photos, but when it comes to taking them, he does it with all the professionalism. She also doesn’t really like addressing the public, as she does in the play La nostra ciutat, in which she plays the role of the narrator, but no one would say that. “I like the tug-of-war of the dialogues better, but this role is very beautiful. It has a part like telling a story, which starts very softly and ends patapam”.
We are at the Teatre Lliure de Montjuïc, where the actress stars in the play by the American Thornton Wilder (1897-1975), set in a rural village, directed by Ferran Utzet, with dramaturgy by Llàtzer Garcia. It is a captivating piece that, although it was released almost ninety years ago, is a classic full of modernity and innovative solutions for what was done in the thirties.
“My character is not quite sure if he is a narrator, a demiurge or a theater councilman, because the play is also a tribute to the theater – explains the actress, who occasionally plays a supporting character. He says he is and he is not from the community, then he has like one foot in and one foot out. Sometimes I think she could be a granddaughter of one of the protagonists”.
The actuality of the work is one of the outstanding elements of this assembly. “We say it’s modern, even though it was released in 1938! It is very disruptive, because it has magnetism, it has magic. Pure theater always has something poetic, and I think that’s what catches it, because there are no big actions, life happens there. The author shunned the realistic theater and wanted to do something different. It was a changing world, with fierce capitalism and hard conservatism, and now this is present again in our society”.
The audience celebrates the end of the play with a lot of applause (without wanting to crush anyone’s guitar, it must be said that the third act is very surprising), but Renom points out the young audience: “I find the reaction of young people very curious. The older ones have seen more theater or more things and maybe we are not so surprised, but the young people are very moved and this has surprised us very pleasantly. They are young and maybe they don’t think so much about death, and this play makes you think about it: if we take advantage of life enough, if we don’t look at each other enough, if we are or are not where we should be… It surprises the young man, but for good”.
The actress also highlights the performance of Rosa Boladeras and Mercè Pons, the two housekeepers of the two neighboring houses: “Look, I’ve seen them many times and I’m still caught by the magnetism of their movements. Or the magic of children, who play with things that aren’t there but they think they are.”
“In dramaturgy, Llàtzer Garcia has dusted off some things, but Ferran Utzet has done a very careful and very faithful direction”, points out the actress, who considers that “the play is not intended to be a moral lesson, but a reflection of life to think about it”.
But the actress has just started rehearsals for another work, a project in which she has a lot to do. It is about the assembly that Jordi Boixaderas, directed by Mario Gas, will perform based on the correspondence of the actress María Casares and the writer Albert Camus. “They are two extraordinary characters, with a very beastly, very beautiful and very special relationship for the time”, says Renom, who made the dramaturgy.
Casares-Camus: a love story will premiere in Salt on the 2nd and 3rd of December, as part of Temporada Alta, and later it can be seen at Teatre Lliure, which co-produces it with the Girona festival.
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