In the Lucero neighborhood (c / Cebreros, 2) the multidisciplinary stage space that bears the name of the actor Carlos Lemos has been open for two years. His granddaughter, also an actress Hope Lemos, is in front: –I opened it at the beginning of 2019 and the first year went quite well. The 2020 pandemic has been a tremendous blow. We are trying to recover but the sanitary limitations in venues like this one, with reduced capacity, are putting us in serious danger. We continue to pay taxes as usual but the income is notably lower.
In the space, which has an auditorium, stage and a large room for various activities, classes are given, professional montages are rehearsed and, when possible, an attempt is made to maintain a schedule of small-format shows, especially on weekends.
Esperanza Lemos, daughter of the actress Rosa Fontana, began professionally in the theater in 1995 with Adventures, mysteries and wonders of King Arthur, under the command of Alberto Miralles. Since then he has worked regularly on the scene, although now his interpretation is somewhat remote:
—I immolated myself a bit in favor of this scenic project. Before launching it, I was working frantically for seven years in a row on productions such as A Happy Wedding and Dinner for Idiots. I toured with them like before. Hopefully, we had fifteen days off each season. But I had in mind to start a local of mine. I can’t buy a theater, but I can open something like this in a neighborhood lacking in cultural infrastructures. When I got involved, it was first ten months of works and then I began to give it content and dissemination. So I decided to dedicate myself practically exclusively to my personal adventure. I am still an actress and if they offer me an interesting job, I will continue to act.
Esperanza says that she spent the summer with her grandparents, Carlos and Esperanza, in a coastal urbanization where her uncles Lola and Aurelia Lemos had also bought houses. Lola, a great actress, would be the oldest of the siblings, dying at 96. Aurelia, a councilor and prompter of great experience, was killed by a vehicle in that summer urbanization. Carlos read plays to his granddaughter and sometimes took her to see the theaters where she performed. However, he did not get to see her on stage because she died in 1988.
—My grandfather played great tormented characters, such as the Willy Loman de The death of a salesman or Enrique IV. He, on the other hand, was a very funny and familiar man. He loved the house, going out with the dog, making food … The last thing he did was Don Juan Tenorio de Alcalá de Henares, in 1987. He played the Commander. He, who had been the Tenorio so many times, ended up playing a role that, he said, he had a lot of hobby.
Carlos Lemos was born in Ciudad Real in 1909 during a tour of his parents. Everything around him was theater. The actor Gaspar Campos and the typical Enriqueta Campos were his uncles. With just over twenty years he joined the company of Rosario Pino and Emilio Thuillier and no longer got off the stage. It was one of the mainstays of the Lope de Vega company, founded by Tamayo. With her he made all the great roles of the universal theater. When television arrived, he also became the star of dozens of Estudio1 and Novela recordings. On two occasions he won the National Theater Award. He married Esperanza Muguerza, also from an artistic family. His father was the composer Severo Muguerza and his mother the singer María Berrio. Esperanza soon took to the stage with the name of María Berry. His godmother was, no less, the great Mexican star Hope Iris. After the marriage with Carlos, Esperanza was moving away from the interpretation.
Today Carlos Lemos, who like so many figures of his generation, passed into oblivion, sounds again thanks to his granddaughter’s project.
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