This Wednesday, January 24, a new edition of the Para Chillán Theater Meeting, Entepach, begins, which this 2024 brings productions from Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Portugal to the city. Within the framework of this activity, and as always, on the opening day of the meeting, the Enrique Gajardo Velásquez Prize will be awarded to the national actor Francisco Reyes, who in addition to receiving this recognition for his career, will present at the Municipal Theater the play “Encuentros briefs with repulsive men”, thanks to the sponsorship of the Municipal Cultural Corporation and the efforts of Teatro a Mil. The play, in which the actor Marcelo Alonso also participates, will be presented at 9:00 p.m. with free entry for the community (withdrawal of invitations is not necessary).
Just days before this reunion with Chillán, the actor spoke with La Discusión regarding the work he will present, the award and the projects that await him for 2024.
Francisco, how do you receive this distinction that Entepach 2024 will give you?
I receive it gratefully, I am grateful for this invitation, grateful for this recognition, it is always nice to be recognized and I am delighted to go to Chillán and to be with you, to be with the people of the festival and present the work to the public, so I I feel very good.
Have you come to Chillán before?
Yes, several times, both for tourism and to do theater. I was also there when we did Los Pincheira, we walked around that area a lot.
Can you preview something about “Brief Encounters with Repulsive Men” that you are going to present with Marcelo Alonso at the Municipal Theater of Chillán?
It is an appropriation made by Daniel Veronese, who is an Argentine playwright and director who directed us in the play. He is a very renowned playwright in Argentina. He took a novel by David Foster Wallace who is a contemporary American now deceased and whose peculiarity is that he is quite a sarcastic guy to mess with the themes; He is tough in the sense that he is not very squeamish and in this case he gets into the issue of two guys’ relationships with women or the opposite sex. So, in some way the viewer visits a conversation about different topics between two men in relation to their relationships or in relation to how to conquer the opposite sex. The conversations are very diverse, there are eight different paintings that have no direct relationship with each other. One of the characters takes the active character, so to speak, and the other the passive one; We could define masculine and feminine, but there is no transvestism, there are only two men on stage, who speak with a lot of sarcasm, which becomes a very hilarious thing; People laugh, but they laugh a little like against their will because what is being said is not very correct and that, then it is interesting. The play has always had a very good arrival in all the stages it has been presented and I suppose Chillán will not be the exception.
Do you know the Municipal Theater?
Yes, yes I have been there. It’s very pretty, super cute. There are very beautiful theaters in many cities; There are theaters that are enviable, even in Santiago we don’t have them, apart from the Municipal de Las Condes.
We wait for you for 70 years…
Yes, well. That’s the thing, it’s tremendous, in this culture things are slower than carts and horses. We were just in Melipilla, for example, and it is a theater that was also born from a reconstruction. The room was very rich, so now we just have to fill it with good things.
As for what you are doing now outside of the theater, on television we have seen you in several soap operas. Now Family Secrets was announced on Channel 13, of which you are also a part. How do you evaluate your work on television?
Well, it is an almost uninterrupted problem, except for the pandemic, because there the story went down a bit. But I have been doing it for more than 30 years, it is a job that I like to do, it is a way to reach the public more massively. Well, there are good soap operas, there are bad soap operas, more or less, there is a little bit of everything. And it is also what has given me my livelihood in these 30 years. I am very grateful for that because each one always has the vision that we could have gone deeper artistically and thematically, but many nice things have been done, especially in the intense era of National Television, when we went out to regions and good things were done. . And now, well, we will see this first television series that I do on Channel 13, which we recorded during a pandemic and was archived for some reason. I don’t know how it’s going to stick, but I hope it goes well.
What is your favorite character on television?
Baltazar (The Law of Baltazar, Mega). Definitely. The character had everything to do with me, with my story and also with those southern landscapes. I really like working outside of Santiago, because you get involved with the local people, who integrate with the production, often acting as extras or providing some service. That’s why I like it and I love that Chillán is in particular this place where we are going to present the work and that they also give me this recognition.
All of Chile cried with the death of Baltazar…
We also cried when filming that scene. Because it was also very shocking for us, and because it was also the end of the project, a project that had been so rich for everyone.
What are the plans for you this 2024?
I will continue with this play, but I am also rehearsing another production that I am going to premiere on March 14 here in Santiago, called “Educating Rita”, and there I share the stage with Andrea García Huidobro, and directed by my fellow actor Álvaro Espinoza , his first address. There is also a movie coming up that we are going to make at the end of April, and for television it is still not clear what is going to be made, but for now I am focused mainly on theater.
Can you invite the chillanejos to join you this Wednesday the 24th at the Municipal Theater?
Of course, I want to invite everyone. It is an intense work, but attractive, and you will feel comfortable, uncomfortable, and you will laugh too.
