– “La fiesta del Chivo” was considered an impossible work to adapt. How did they solve it?
–Really, I can only give an opinion and we would almost have to ask Natalio Grueso to develop it in more depth. But what I think is that the success of Natalio’s adaptation when adapting such an extensive novel lies in the fact that it uses a very clear dramaturgical and plot line, instead of trying to summarize everything that is said in the book. It is the story of a thirteen-year-old woman who has to flee from the Dominican Republic to the United States after being a victim of kidnapping, rape and torture by the dictator Trujillo, all executed with the consent of her father, who had disgraced and who only has the option to deliver his daughter as a sacrifice to the boss. That woman, Urania, returns years later to confront her father, who is in a wheelchair and is a wreck, to settle moral accounts with him. And that past comes to life with the dramaturgy, editing and staging.
–He directs a myth of Spanish cinema, such as Carlos Saura. What does it mean to you to finally be able to work at your command?
–I have known Carlos since I started working in the cinema and he has always been a reference for me, because he also makes a type of cinema that has always interested me a lot. All my life I wanted to work with Saura, but unfortunately when he called me to appear in some of his films I was always working on something else. I never would have imagined that this meeting would take place in the theater, I never dreamed of it. This profession is very amazing.
– How does an actor face a character like Trujillo?
-In theater I have interpreted a frieze of evil but deeply human characters, such as Karamazov, Quevedo or the Rothko of “Rojo”. But I do not consider myself a specialist in anything, and I always use the same technique to develop a character: I never put myself above him and separate opinions, I let them flow parallel to the character and I concentrate on bringing him to life. I let the viewer make the moral decisions, I will never sign the characters that I do on stage. Spectators flock to the theater to complete our work. We have to be neutral, very careful and detailed, to build characters that are worth not for a representation, but for them to live with us for at least a couple of years. Beyond that, interpreting extreme good or extreme evil makes no difference, in the sense that it doesn’t leave a mark on me. When I finish with “El Chivo” I will not have been permeated, the character will not have rained down on me in such a way that I have to say “now you are going to become a bad person”. I have been working in theater for more than forty years and the characters have given me the humanity with which I live. I do not know if I live my best moment as an actor, but intimately it is the most important.
– One of his most celebrated interpretations focused precisely on another dictator, although very different from Trujillo: I’m talking about the Franco of “Madregilda.”
-Yes. To understand each other, Franco was austerity and Trujillo was the appearance of spending, luxury, excesses, a guy who sought non-consensual sex with minor girls. Franco, not even his most absolute detractors will ever attribute it: he was what he was, but he was a man who did not like such excesses. He was a barracks general and Trujillo was a predator of the society that he himself created when he believed himself his father, owner and lord. He made of that society what he wanted, among other things genocide, rape, torture, embezzlement, robbery. We are talking about a plethora of crimes that today are super-contrasted.
–They both ended up together: in the Mingorrubio cemetery.
– Yes, and not only them. Mingorrubio is the last dwelling place for the worst of every house.
– Just a few days after passing through Oviedo the centenary of the birth of Luis García Berlanga is celebrated. And in August, that of Fernán-Gómez. Good moment to reclaim Spanish cinema?
– Any moment is good to claim our cinema. And yes, it is also remembering these two great masters of cinematographic art, and of theater, as was Fernando. His memory must continue to commit us to our work beyond the entertainment component. Because this work continues to consist of being a reflection of the society that we are, and it will never stop being so. We have to encourage the viewer to find many of the answers to the questions posed to us in the theater.
– Put yourself in the shoes of the minister and tell me a measure that you would approve to help our cinema and our theater.
– I hope with great enthusiasm that before the end of the legislature the artist’s statute is approved. It should be there by now, but the pandemic has delayed it, and I think it will make many things clear, it is an important statute. That said, it is absolutely unthinkable that I was a minister of anything, I am very ignorant and it has already become quite difficult to think, with balance and future projection, about the only thing I know, which is my profession.
– Beyond the “Chivo”, what is he with now?
– I’m shooting the second season of “Disappeared”, and also very comfortable and very well. We arrived on set with the illusion of actors working for the first time. We have seen life in danger and, although we are now in a small comfort zone, we will continue to the end with the protocols. I have the feeling that when there is no capacity reduction, we will not provide for all the spectators who will come to the theaters.
“I’m going to get very excited in the dressing room of Don Juan José Otegui”
The two performances of “La fiesta del Chivo” at the Campoamor theater (Saturday and Sunday, 7:00 pm) will be very special for Juan Echanove due to a purely personal matter: his close relationship with the actor from Oviedo Juan José Otegui, who died last April. An interpreter who has left a deep mark on Echanove, who does not miss that in the Campoamor theater there is a dressing room, number 1, which bears the name of Otegui.
“When I get dressed as Trujillo in the dressing room of my friend Don Juan José Otegui, I’m going to be very emotional,” reveals Echanove, who speaks with deep affection of the Oviedo interpreter. “He always said: ‘Let’s not go out to win the game, let’s go out to tie it.’ It was rigor and humility, and Oviedo taught me in the great coexistence we had over the years, ”says the Madrid actor.
The friendship between Echanove and Otegui was well known in the world. In 2004, when the Union of Actors awarded an award to Otegui for his career, Echanove himself was in charge of presenting him with the award, at a gala held at the Prince Felipe Auditorium in Madrid, and accompanied by Otegui’s son, Sergio , who is also dedicated to interpretation.
Two years later, Echanove chose Otegui to share the scene with Pere Ponce in “Visiting Mr. Green”, the production with which the Madrid-born interpreter made his debut as a theater director. A production that premiered in January 2006 at the Bellas Artes theater in Madrid and with which they toured for more than a year throughout Spain, with great success.
“It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve done in my career,” says Juan Echanove about that montage of Jeff Baron’s work. The protagonist of “La fiesta del Chivo” also shows to show off with pride the teachings transmitted to him by the long-awaited interpreter from Oviedo. “I carry his legacy with me. If you ask me where I came from, I will always say that it was from the Juan Diego and Juanjo Otegui circuits, one of the great masters,” says a Juan Echanove who confesses very excited about performing at the Campoamor theater, in the one that was the house of his long-awaited friend.
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