Josep Maria Flotats (Barcelona, ??1939) returns to his city to direct and represent Voltaire-Rousseau. The dispute at the Romea theater, from February 22 to April 1. In 2018 he did it in Spanish in Madrid and now, in a translation by Salvador Oliva, he plays Voltaire alongside Pep Planas, who plays Rousseau, two of the most important philosophers in 18th century Europe, separated by 18 years and two ways of seeing the world.
At the end of the performance, which philosopher does the audience stay with?
Jean-François Prévand, the author, played Rousseau for many years and explained to me that sometimes, at the end of the performance, they would take a vote and the audience would always be more or less tied, with one or two votes difference in favor of one or the other.
Which of them do you feel closest to?
I’m also fifty percent. In my training I am the son of both. It is the French Republic that has more or less set my brain. The two were very enemies, but in 1791 Robespierre placed them both in the Pantheon.
How would you define them?
Rousseau is the first romantic avant la lettre, although he had many contradictions, such as his position towards women. Voltaire was more civilized in the modern sense, conservative but progressive, and he abolished slavery in his region. He defends those accused of the Inquisition and counterattacks the politics of the time. They put him in the Bastille twice, because he was brave and a fighter.
He is 50% but he plays Voltaire. It feels good?
Yes, because in these years I have made it mine. He is my Voltaire and let no one touch him.
Why now in Catalan?
For a vital necessity: there have been too many years without doing theater in Catalan. But I couldn’t, I didn’t have theaters in Barcelona, ??it was difficult.
And now it arrives at Romea.
All of this comes from my friendship with Josep Maria Pou. For many years we have been looking for a work to do together, but we have not found it. Either it wasn’t quite for him or it wasn’t quite for me. Then he told me that, since he was still the artistic director of the Romea, he would like me to come and do something. Focus has welcomed me with open arms.
Now they come from Valencia and also tour Catalonia.
It was the idea. We will go wherever they want us, whether they are large or small theaters, because I have magnificent memories of Cyrano, of Pla’s work… going everywhere. And I think that in the current circumstances, such as the language issue, even more so.
How is Salvador Oliva’s translation?
Very good, because it uses a very understandable language, but at the same time faithful to the grammatical construction of Voltaire and Rousseau, which is what the author did with the originals. Prévand added something so that there would be more dialogue, but the basis is texts from both of them. There are even three moments in which Voltaire does not understand a word that the other says, such as capitalist, alienated people or romantic atmosphere. “Is it a Swiss invention?” he asks.
Let’s talk about your life journey. Why do you study in France? Do you have French family?
Don’t have. My father never wanted to talk about the war. When he returned from exile from Argelers walking, he knocked on the door, my mother almost fainted, and said: “We have lost.” One day, in the middle of a meal, he blurted out: “I saw the Ebro red with blood.” They took us to the French Schools and then to the Lyceum, because they didn’t want us to go to a school where, in the morning, they would make us raise our arms and sing Face to the Sun.
Where does your passion for theater come from?
When I was 18, I saw an advertisement for some youth meetings in Avignon. I worked at the French Consulate and I paid my ticket to go. So at the festival they only did one play a day, because only the National Popular Theater (TNP) performed. The first night, at the Palace of the Popes, I saw Les caprices de Marianne, with Gérard Philipe, and at the end music played by Maurice Jarre played. When it was over, I was crying and shaking, I couldn’t move. It took fifteen seconds for the audience to get up and shout bravos. That was in 1958 and after ten years with María Casares I co-starred in Demain, la veille, by Edward Bond, and they explained to me that eternal silence, which made them think that they had failed.
And at the age of twenty he applied for a scholarship to study in France.
I spent a year bothering the French Institute to have a scholarship that they invented to study in Strasbourg. They only gave them to already known artists. When the course was over, I went to say goodbye to the director and he told me that it couldn’t be that I didn’t continue. He wrote me a letter to go see the president of the university. When the rector processed it, the Spanish embassy told him that they wanted scholarships for only one year so that young people would not acquire ideas contrary to the Movement. And he told me: “I have fought against Hitler, now Franco won’t come to boss me around.” And I did the entire race in Strasbourg. That war that my father had lost, his son was winning with the help of a kind of angel.
Then he goes to Paris, Barcelona, ??Madrid… And up to here. I know you won’t answer it, but what was it like when she left the TNC?
It’s been so long since I’ve worked here in Barcelona that what I want now is to talk about theatre. I will explain it in detail in my memoirs, if I write them.
And with so many places you have lived, how do you feel: European, French, Spanish, Catalan?
I’ll start with the easiest one: I am European, but I don’t feel European at all with today’s Europe, I reject it. I have both nationalities, but I feel organically Catalan, because the songs that my mother sang in my ear to put me to sleep were in Catalan, and that is in my genes and I live it very happily and consciously.
