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‘Hosts‘is a function with four characters: the couples that make up Roberto and Verónica, on the one hand, and Daniela and Gustavo, on the other. Although in reality a fifth character sneaks into the comedy, social networks. The author and director of the show is Inge Martin, who is also part of the cast along with Lucia Quintana, Jose Luis Alcobendas and Markos Marín. The play has just premiered at the
Quique San Francisco Theater (new name of the Galileo Theater), where it will be until next September 12.
It is the first long work of the actress, who in recent months has been part of the cast of ‘Perfect strangers’. ‘Before I wrote a short play,’Little Blanchard ‘, which the Spanish Theater included in a cycle of dramatized readings, and which talks about María Blanchard, the Cubist painter, who was forgotten for sixty years ”, he explains.
“I’ve been writing all my life,” Inge Martín says, “short stories, stories, novels … But I had the urge to write theater; It is something that is part of me but that I had never thought of giving it a definite shape. Until I felt that I needed to express myself out there, create the material for my profession ».
The idea for ‘Anonymous’ was born in Argentina, where the author has been living for three years. «I wanted to do a simple comedy that it reached the public well -explains-: four characters with unity of time and unity of action. I wanted to talk about this that is happening to us as a society: it is increasingly difficult to talk to people, to communicate in a way other than through social networks. We have different versions of reality and it is difficult to find each other.
One of the axes of ‘Hosts’ are the taboos imposed, that, he says, of which one cannot speak. «It irritates me a lot and makes me want to break them up and talk about these issues. In the function things are said that nobody says, because it is not possible ».
The dictatorship of ‘politically correct’ and extreme reactions to opinions and comments has resulted in a greater lack of freedom than there was for twenty or thirty years. «It is not named, but it is spoken, on the subject of ‘cancellation’. The character of José Luis Alcobendas is a well-known writer who says atrocities, which today could cause his publisher to cancel his contract and stop publishing him.
These are also times of self-censorship. «We have all been writing a comment on the networks and leave it in the middle of a sentence to avoid complications. It’s not worth it because it’s going to be a fecal tsunami what I will receive as an answer if I write this. What a need! “
Lucía Quintana incarnates, in ‘Anonymous’, an instagramer; «In the work the ‘direct’ of Instagram are present, which condition what it says. And one of the background reflections is that of Byung-Chul Han, a Korean philosopher, very fashionable today, who speaks that in social networks there is a need to give the imposed reason, and that this is enormously violent for the human being. That we can only smile, nod, clap and be super-optimistic and super-positive. And the capacity for dissension disappears. Networks cause a need for homogenization. And what the character of José Luis Alcobendas does is rebel against this ».
When she sat down to write, Inge Martín wanted to create a comedy, but with a few drops of acid. “It’s an uncomfortable comedy,” he acknowledges. Should the theater bother, move? «I don’t know what the theater has to be… It could be, it has to be so many things … The theater must cause something in your body to move. It can come through the brain or through the senses. ‘
The years lived in Argentina, which has a very particular theatrical universe, has marked Inge Martín. «The freedom with which they face work and life is priceless; It is something that I wanted to incorporate into my profession: to be with them, to write with them, to act with them, to receive classes from them … I am looking forward to returning to immerse myself in this way of doing so for real. It is a source of inspiration.
More and more actors who write and direct – or playwrights who act. Inge Martín «I have a friend who is only a playwright, but most of my colleagues there are actors who write, direct. Cast it is taken very naturally, the roles are not so delimited. You feel more freedom.
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