“The pain is very close to the skin, and for the people involved in the case there is still no possible distance,” says María Goiricelaya, who presents the show Altsasu at the Espai Lliure de Montjuïc, as part of the Grec Festival. Goiricelaya and Ane Pikaza make up La Dramática Errante, the name they use to designate their artistic seal, within Kabia Teatro.
“Sinisterra tells me which scar I would like to talk about, linked to me and my land, and this is how this media work was born,” says the playwright and director of Altsasu. Goiricelaya is aware that it is difficult to distance herself from this highly mediated case, which is why she proposes objectivity, a kind of documentary theater, to address all the faces of that trial.
Because, “although the Altsasu case has evolved, we have not touched the work since we premiered it,” he continues. “The focus is on justice: both sides, the people of the town… Any case where justice has worked in a doubtful way works dramaturgically. There has been evolution within the case, but we have no longer followed it.
The performances are still an experience for the public: “Every time the show ends, people want to talk, debate and also see where we disagree. As actors, the work has a voracious rhythm, and it is also uncomfortable to interpret according to which characters”.
Goiricelaya discovers how they approached the material: “We approached from the most documentary part, very real and cold, since it is the judicial part, and on the other hand there are the most intimate moments, trying to reflect what sensibility each character breathes. The material does not reflect that humanity and that is what we have fictionalized”. And he concludes: “When we left the Basque Country, it was easier for us to go to Colombia than to other parts of Spain.”
On the Grec stage it will also be possible to see, on the 9th and 10th, the version of La vida es sueño, by Calderón, by Cheek by Jowl, with Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod in front. The actors are put by the National Classical Theater Company, directed by Lluís Homar.
The actor defines the difference that the direction of the British pervades the production: “We with the Golden Age have a reverential look and that doesn’t do him good. 400 years ago they did not do classical theater, they did theater. And Declan looks at it horizontally, because it was theater for the general public. And that takes weight away from him because in his editing there is a lack of reverence”, concludes Homar.
