The actress, musician and writer Clara Sanchis Mira (Terulos, 1968) arrives in Barcelona for a few weeks with two theatrical proposals. At La Gleva, on Tuesday, she premiered Mércoles que parequen jeuves, a delicious monologue that Juan José Millás wrote for her, directed by Mario Gas, in which the actress impersonates Millás and kidnaps the entire audience, gun in hand. And on October 6, he will present Los desiertos crecen de noche, by José Sanchis Sinisterra, in which he acts and co-directs with David Lorente, at Sala Beckett. This work by his father is part of the Tardor Sanchis cycle, which the Poblenou hall has programmed to honor its founder. You will also be able to see three more works by the Valencian playwright, El lector por horas, ¡Ay, Carmela! and Vitalicios, in addition to dramatized readings. La Vanguardia talks to the actress between the two works.
How do you approach Millás’s text?
I was a student of his at the School of Letters at the age of 25. It was a wonderful place, with great teachers. I have always had this vocation for writing, which I have not abandoned. We immediately had an affinity with Millás and he encouraged me to write. It was a happy meeting. He taught me to have this look on what is small and since then we have always been in communication. In fact I think there is a certain identification between him and me.
Reading it to you in your articles in La Vanguardia, somehow its shadow appears.
Clearly, I am his student and there is a connection, which perhaps has to do with feeling both uncomfortable and comfortable with doubt, with paradox. We like to doubt together, which is something I also share with my father and Juan Mayorga. I declare myself incapable of quick decision.
And one day he writes a text for you.
Before there was another one, Dios y el diablo, which we haven’t managed to do yet, maybe because it’s too uncomfortable. And three years ago he presented me with the first Wednesday embryos that look Jewish. It’s a wonderful lecture by Millás, but a good conflict was missing, because I couldn’t say it, he should say it.
And there it occurred to them that the actress impersonated her personality.
exactly And to enter the stage saying: “I’m Juan José Millás”, shooting right and wrong and kidnapping the audience: it’s the dream of every actress. This approach shows even more that the boundaries between what is real and what is unreal are fuzzy, they are confusing. Identity is one of his great themes, and he confessed to me that the character of Asunción Ortega is the psychopath inside him, because he has always had the vocation to be a psychopath but lacked courage.
Performs another monologue after Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.
And that I promised myself not to do another monologue. But we fell in love with this text, like Mario Gas, who directs me.
What do you think of the selection of works from Tardor Sanchis?
I find it formidable. Can you imagine me saying no? (laughs) The cycle covers those territories that my father is experimenting with, with that mastery and that pen, which is impressive. He travels around different worlds, and when he conquers one territory he leaves it to go find another, because he has infinite curiosity. They are unique beings.
What will the audience see in Los desiertos crecen de noche?
David Lorente and I are in love with the short texts my father wrote in his personal laboratory. They are very funny, although also poignant, surreal, complex. They travel through their styles and with these we have built a journey through the language of dreams. They are texts from the eighties and nineties but very modern and also existentialist. The drama we have made weaves a thread that unites them. A character is devoured by the void and through another character we enter the world of dreams. As the four actors are also musicians, in our dreams a music band appears and, in the manner of jam sessions, we fulfill our dream.
