This year 2022 may not be remembered for a specific work, a great success or the announcement of the creator or actor. To the question of what this 2022 “harvest” was, perhaps the only possible answer is: extensive and uneven. He started the season this September with fear in his body. Professionals have warned of a fall in society ahead of summer. The trend, although it cannot be proven that it has changed, does not seem to be confirmed. The public in recent months seems to have returned to theaters regardless of the economic situation. But it will not be possible to calculate until the end of the season. Gone is last season, when attendance was down 20% from pre-pandemic years.
The last big theatrical success is yet to come moonlit nightReleased by Juan Diego Boto in 2021 and continuing on a long tour. This year the production was awarded two prizes at the Max Awards, a competition that recognized another rising figure and one to watch this year, Maria Velasco. In short, an intense year has come to an end, dominated by the ubiquitous presence of theaters and public festivals, the difficulty of implementing projects and large performances; And this, of course, was followed by a fight, a confirmation and a strange discovery. We will talk about it in this article.
Year of Juan Mayorga
On February 4, it was reported that the great Spanish playwright was going to the “dark side”: cultural management. Mayorga was appointed artistic director of Teatro de la Abadia. The author and director have recently achieved success Silence, a work adapting Mayorga’s Acceptance Speech at the Academy of Language, interpreted by Blanca Portillo. And it was after this premiere, on the 25th of the same month, that it started at the María Guerrero Theater. Golem, a new and disturbing text, directed by Alfredo Sanzoli, who opened his dramaturgy in the horror genre in a performance that also included another rising value of interpretation, Vicky Luengo. But the story did not end there. On June 1, Mayorga received the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature. what’s next Nobel Prize? It sounds far, but maybe it’s not that far. But today’s rules and it is from next January that it will be possible to really begin to assess his management at the helm of the abbey: his commitment to Fernanda Oraz, to revise the Greek tragedy, no less Electra; Returning to the repertoire of Helena Pimenta with Tabor, mother courage; His foray also as a new text director, Maria Luisa; And a call to one of the greats, Rodrigo Garcia, who will be arriving in May with a new product and house brand title: Christ is on Tinder.
“Pablo”
Pablo Remón and Pablo Messies are two values that have consolidated this year. The first from Madrid, the second from Argentina. They are very different, but they share certain parameters: they have a growing and more loyal audience, their proposals are focused on the actor and the script for the stage, and they have excellent actors who know how to give freedom and at the same time compression. Remon swept the box office with perhaps the season’s greatest comedy, Fakers, which included Barbara Lane, Nuria Mencia and Javier Camara. The Madrid man ended the season at Conde Duque Barbados in 2022A remake From his previous work with two greats, Emilio Tomes and Fernanda Orazi. Messies, on the other hand, has revolutionized his season at Naves del Matadero in Madrid the will to believeA work based on a film order de Dreyer and that he will try to conquer Barcelona at the end of December; The performance will take place in the great hall of the Teatre Lliure, Fabià Puigserver. They will get another max prize.
Lluís Homar, Almagro and the long and hot summer
Summer has arrived and with it the Almagro Festival. The inauguration was amazing. The great event of the Golden Age Theater opened with a tasteless tribute to the National Theater and the founder of the festival, Adolfo Marsilakh. A dramatized reading with big names on stage like Nuria Espert, which led to an artistic divorce between the festival director, Ignacio García, and the director of the National Classical Theater Center (CNTC), the Catalan actor Luis Hommar. The tension in the burning streets of Almagro could be relieved with a knife. And it was behind this that the real conflict between the leadership of Almagro and the national company was hidden.
CNTC’s joint productions with private production companies and other festivals undermined the company’s presence in Almagro, a fundamental presence for the festival’s economy. Cooperation is also closely linked with Catalonia. Do not deprive this saint of his part in the Plateau mystique, the Numantine resistance to Catalan material colonization. The case ended with a stern resignation letter from Almagro’s director. A letter that was more a Castilian epic song than a friendly song. Already looking for a new direction for the Almagro Festival, everything points to the profile of a manager, the name of Irene Pardo, of the National Community Theater Network, is being considered.
Bezera does not die because he does not want to
Paco became Bezera A trending topic This past November. There is something unusual about this scene. His response to Vox’s Gonzalo Babe in the Madrid Assembly, that the spontaneous “Take the Madrid people out of their mouths, because the Madrid people don’t want to be in their mouths,” led to a lonely crusade that the playwright had embarked on. Five months ago, against the community of Madrid and against the artistic direction of the Canal Theater will reach the community by force.
This newspaper followed the case after the Community of Madrid, through the Political Council that manages the Canal Theater, removed the play Santa Teresa de Jesús de Bezera from the program in July. I’m dying because I’m not dying. A few weeks ago, the profession completed the dramatized reading of this work organized by the SGAE Foundation, which won the prize organized by the foundation, Jardiel Poncela. Every day the circle narrows around the director of theaters, Blanca Lee, who spent these months without the press until last Friday, when she offered a press conference; and the Community of Madrid, which maintains that the administration can go through the artistic directions of the theater and established a contract model that allows this. History is not going to stop, Bezerra does not seem to be silent, and every week civil society realizes that this is a conflict that goes beyond people and is connected to fundamental rights such as freedom of speech or expression. .
Dance: Beautiful in small
In the world of dance, independent creators and small structures have caused the greatest interest. When the national dance company is in a drift of invisibility that does not seem to stop, it was creators such as Jesús Rubio Gamó, Lucia Marote, Janet Novas or the Brazilian Pollyanna Lima who set the pace.
A work by Bailaora Rocio Molina, recently premiered at the Naves de Matadero, deserves special mention. Carnation. This artist, who this year also won the Silver Lion at the Venice Dance Biennale, presented an innovative montage of existential dance close to the poetry of silence, opening the gate like never before between flamenco and contemporary dance.
“The Power” of Malaga
If there is one thing that has surprised this world of performing arts, it is the depravity of a part of Spanish geography that is theatrically forgotten and mistreated by its local rulers: Málaga. Alberto Cortes, La Chachi, Luz Prado, Alessandra Garcia, Violetta Niebla. A generation born in the eighties, born of pure independence and do-it-yourself, and who perceive the scene differently. They are into something else and it shows and is appreciated. But be careful with Malaga, which is long. In April comes the wonder of Teatro del Canal, premiered at the Seville Biennale, Flamenco by veteran choreographer Luz Arcas. Marianna, modern people turned into pure people. There was another discovery inner night, by Serrucho, an unclassifiable piece that is already starting its tour after the fall festival.
A disappointing international scene
Probably the most disappointing of the year. Apart from safe values and already hyper-established in their codes and ways of doing things, such as Italy’s Romeo Castlucci, Robert Lepage or Christian Lupa, things have been very dry, especially after a disappointing run at the Fall Festival. About the two big names of the international scene dominated by French law: Brazilian Christian Jatah and Portuguese Thiago Rodríguez. The big surprise came at the Cádiz festival, FIT, where the work of another Brazilian, Janaina Leite, was presented for the first time, with one of the most revealing stage dramaturgies of recent years; And with the confirmation of the creator of Chile, Manuela Infante, who presented it How to turn into stone.
Also noteworthy in this section is the appearance of the Argentine Marina Otero and the healthy continuity of the work of the French Pascal Rambert, which premiered this year with all sold-out performances at the Théâtre de la Abadia. Finland With actors Israel Elejalde and Irene Escolar.
Too many goodbyes
Every year, death collects its debt. One of the outstanding directors of the international scene, Peter Brook, and one of the outstanding actors, Jean-Louis Trinignan, have passed away. In Spain, one of the most beloved actors of the last 50 years has died: Juan Diego. But other fundamental legs of theater history also left, such as Alicia Hermida and Berta Riazza, both of whom started working in 1947, Hermida would work like this until 2016, 75 years on the stage. This year was particularly cruel to actors, Paco Merino, the actor who said he was invisible and did it all, the great Chete Lera, the Valencian Mariana Fernanda d’Ocon or Carmen de la Maza also disappeared. Also missing were two men much loved by the profession, the Catalan director Joan Ole and the Valencian playwright and director Salva Bolta.
Source: El Diario
