Andrea Jiménez and Victoria Szpunberg, the sum of two thriving figures of the Spanish theater | Culture | EUROtoday

A household that drags a deep wound. A trauma of the previous during which guilt and rejection are mixed. A tough reality to agree. Stories that change, neglect or invent. Who is the sufferer and who, the perpetrator? Volcano, A radical present that mixes suspense and humor, brings collectively Andrea Jiménez (Madrid, 37 years previous) and Victoria Szpunberg (Buenos Aires, 51 years previous), two thriving figures of the up to date Spanish scene. This manufacturing of the National Dramatic Center is represented on the Valle Inclán Theater in Madrid till April 13, and has Macarena Sanz, Alberto Ribalta, Eneko Sagardoy, Pilar Bergés and Iván López-Ortega as protagonists.

It is Saturday, March 8 and on the road it’s raining to Mares. Coinciding with the celebration of Women’s Day, the employees of the National Dramatic Center have summoned a strike that afternoon within the theater for the wage hole that they undergo in entrance of their male companions and that can lastly paralyze the perform. Andrea Jiménez and Victoria Szpunberg come to satisfy the nation with just a few hours of sleep, however joyful and vigorous. As his theater: dedicated and with out concern of complexity or danger, reflective however with out giving up the playful. They say that for Volcano They have expressly sought to one another, after a primary assembly sponsored by Carme Portaceli for the work Heartbreakadditionally with textual content by Szpunberg and path of Jiménez, across the explosive mixture of “freedom and obedience” of Santa Teresa de Jesús, which premiered within the National Theater of Catalonia two years in the past.

The beginning factors of Volcano They had been evil, ache and guilt. Topics that the 2 creators centered on yet one more particular, the hearth in a constructing during which a household inhabits and that has tragic penalties, inflicting a trauma the place guilt and rejection are mixed. “The work focuses on how difficult to survive, inevitably, we generate stories and those stories contain forgetfulness, absences and inventions,” explains Jiménez, creator and director of the profitable work Casting Learwhich premiered final season.

But Volcanowith an oblong surroundings on which movies which are recorded dwell may be projected, they don’t cease in that fireside and its penalties, however dives in solitude, incapacity, machismo, class privileges or the yellowing of the media and society. “It is not a work of denunciation, but a society deeply denounces,” says Jiménez, whereas Szpunberg factors out: “The basics is not to abandon complexity. We live in a welfare society, we have training and the privilege of being able to speak to the public. If we don’t risk thinking from complexity, who can do it?

A complexity that Andrea Jiménez has been practicing in the 18 theatrical works that she has released with her company theater in vilo, which founded in London with Noemí Rodríguez and then moved to Madrid. There are no trials as such, the actors do not have to arrive with the text learned. It is a hybrid methodology in which with a start of the text the rest is brewing, in residences where the premise is the game, improvisation, provocations and the different atmospheres generated by the complete team, with specific actors for which it is written specifically.

Szpunberg, based in Barcelona, ​​has established itself in recent years as an author with works such as The weight of a body, Heartbreak o The categorical imperative And he confesses not to have any modesty when working since his own self. “I’ve always worked from my self or from the actors. Even the distinction between self -fiction and fiction seems misleading, it is used as a way of denouncing a more emotional relationship with the story. Because a story of the self deserves to be told. It can be just as a fiction plot as a personal narrative, the thing is in how many layers, how much complexity, how much game and how much concept you generate around that to raise it. The radical and demanding search exists equally in fiction as in self -fiction. It fails the same, ”says the director.

And what better date than 8-M to bring feminism to conversation. Both are concerned about what they describe as a “virulent” reaction wave against the “complaints” made by women and the “underground decision”, in Jiménez’s phrases. “We are already noticing in work contexts something like a revenge. While we were fighting like dogs, they were calm in their kingdom and, now, when they have seen that working ants begin to overcome despair comes, ”provides the director. Szpunberg, which in April will premiere within the National Teatre of Catalonia its new work, The third leak, Directed by herself, she emphasizes how tough it has been for ladies to entry the nice theatrical establishments. “They give you opportunities, but they also dwarf. I want to talk about the world and not the fact of being a woman, ”says Jiménez.