Emmanuel Carrère’s fascination with the case of the lying murderer Jean-Claude Romand, who has deceived everyone for twenty years and who kills his entire family when he is about to be discovered, led him to write The Adversary, which has now become in a play directed by Julio Manrique, who has adapted it with Cristina Genebat and Marc Artigau.
Premiered at the Temporada Alta festival in Girona, L’adversari is performed at the Romea theater until next Sunday, with two actors who are above good and evil. Carles Martínez is Romand, and Pere Arquillué gives him the replica as Carrère and twenty other characters.
Martínez explains his experience of getting into the skin of this “poor devil”: “It is something very delicate, because he has the appearance of a normal man, but everything that happens happens; it’s a long journey. I have built it from not seeing it as a monster, but as a fairly normal person. But these things can happen in our closest reality.
With respect to his characters, Arquillué affirms: “I have come closer to Carrère’s position, in addition to interpreting these twenty roles, which is a very interesting dramaturgical game”. The actor also celebrates the dramaturgy that has been made: “When there is an adaptation, it is usually said that the book is better, but in this case I think that, based on what the public tells us, that it enters a lot into the work, we are more there”.
“By playing all the roles, I question the viewer more and he plays more with me, proposing this why Carrère is looking for in the book, but cannot find. There are people who leave upset because they have come to feel empathy for the character, even if it is a savage thing like a cathedral ”.
After El cos més bonic que s’haurà trobat mai en aquest lloc, by Josep Maria Miró, Arquillué seems to have specialized in playing various characters: “Also in Paradise Lost he played a god who had many faces, as a narrator, as an author … It was a coincidence, but I’ve had a great time doing various characters and breaking the fourth wall to get closer to the public”.
Regarding the character of Romand, Martínez believes that “we will never finish it.” “It is a mystery, an enigma. From the outset, you can never imagine that something like this, that he starts by not taking an exam at the university, could end twenty years later in this tragedy. The early development is almost a vaudeville.”
“Because it is incomprehensible –Arquillué intervenes–, because you do not give credit. There is a moment when he says it: if I had taken this argument to a publisher, I would not have bought it because I would have considered it incredible. We never just met ”, he concludes.
Catalan version, here
