Lola Lopez, Paco Zarzoso and Lluïsa Cunillé met in the years 90 in Barcelona's Sala Beckett, then directed by José Sanchis Sinisterra. Lola returned to Spain after a few years of training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where he cultivated his passion for Shakespeare, and he did it with a bang with the successful premiere of Libration by Lluïsa Cunillé, under the direction of Xavier Albertí. Here La Hongaresa de Teatre begins to take shape, flagship company of the Port de Sagunt in which our interviewee has built a solid career as a playwright and actress, with more than one exit from the pot, as his participation in the work Troyanas by La Fura dels Baus under the direction of Irene Papas. We talked to her about her company, from the Valencian scene, of feminism and its way of approaching creation.
How important was the work? Libration in the gestation of La Hongaresa? Why did you decide to rescue her? 2019?
Libration It has been a fundamental work in my professional career in two important moments, first in the gestation of Hongaresa and then with the revival in co-production with Zafirina. Both the professionals who participated in the first production, in March 1994 in Barcelona, like those of the second production in Valencia in March 2019, They are essential in the trajectory of our company. In 2019, were fulfilled 25 years of that premiere in Spain of Libration, work that had never been restored here and that had won all the critics' awards in Barcelona (best address, best performance and best authorship) and we also celebrated 25 years of our meeting, So I proposed to my partners at Hongaresa that it was an excellent time to replace this brilliant piece., this time directing two actresses who have accompanied us in our career for a long time, Mafalda Bellido and Blanca Martínez.
Nowadays theater abounds performative where body expression takes precedence over the text, which, however, is the spearhead of La Hongaresa's pieces. What new theatrical fields attract you??
In my career and training, body expression has been very important.. In London I was admitted to LABAN (contemporary dance) and LAMDA (theater), I chose Theater and asked for another scholarship to continue in dance., that couldn't be. I have been a body expression teacher at the ESAD in Valencia and it seems to me that body work is essential. But the Greek tradition of our theater is the word and good texts are the raw material of a good play., Even Pina Bauss included the word in her choreographies. I am attracted to all the theatrical fields that are good, I don't care about the code (realistic, surreal, classic, performative…) or gender (cabaret, tragedy, comedy, astracanada…). From the theater, like pig, I even like the walks.
During the last twenty-five years, Each Hongaresa production has been linked to the premiere of a new text, signed by the company's authors or by other external authors. but always new. Have you never been tempted to make your own retelling of a classic text?? ¿And Rey Lear, For example?
My first two works, The symbol e Isola, They are women's retellings of Shakespeare's plays., in them they appeared, from Juliet and Cressida, until Cleopatra. One of my favorite texts is Lady Macbeth; From the beginning the classics are and have been my references. In my contemporary dramaturgies, as Javelin, the classics are an echo of the protagonist: Cassandra and Antigone… I am always in dialogue with the wise men and women, from whom you learn the best. King Lear is one of my favorite works, In London I played the character of the Fool in the production of Lamda and I would love to put it back on its feet.
You have created works that give voice to silenced women such as the Cuban-Spanish novelist Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda “Tula”, who fought to make a living from his profession like the rest of the men, the anarchist militiawoman María “La Jabalina”, shot without evidence for crimes she could not have committed (was convalescing in the hospital) or the Alicante poet Paca Aguirre of the so-called “other generation of the 50s”, formed by female poets who were initially cornered. What would you highlight of all of them?? Are you optimistic about the new feminist push that is rescuing relevant women figures buried by history??
From María Pérez la Cruz (“the Javelin”), from Tula Gómez de Avellaneda, of Paca Aguirre and Águeda Campos Barrachina would highlight that they all have in common their fight for the truth, justice, humanity, and the defense of women. Two of them shot by the Franco regime, they gave their lives for those values, Tula and Paca left in their works the same defense of women and art in capital letters. The past 14 October, in what was a women's prison in Valencia, a plaque was inaugurated for all women unjustly imprisoned. In my speech I acted like Águeda, shot in 1941 with her husband Amando, that in 1940 he had paraded a republican flag through that same prison yard. He left his two children, of 7 y 5 years. Moments before the event, through that same patio, now from a school, happy children left classes, That is already a reason for optimism.. And if, I am optimistic about the new feminist push. We are half of humanity and young women do not have to be convinced that we have the same rights as the other half.. There are the demonstrations of recent years. Relevant women from history are being rescued, but we must value the anonymous fighters who did not leave books, paintings or works, but who gave their lives for rights that we now enjoy.
Paca Aguirre, friend and protagonist of your work On, He said that “pain must be put to work.”, If it doesn't stay inside you and it becomes a vermin.". How important is pain in the works you have signed as an author??
That is one of the great phrases of my beloved Paca, and when we worked on the dramaturgy of Encendidas we repeated it a lot. Paca was anti-cainism and anti-revenge. And if, pain is the fertilizer that has to be converted into beauty, in art, just like in life, flowers come out of the dung. In my works there is pain to transcend it.
The legendary Andalusian company La Zaranda announced in 2016 who moved from his native Jerez to Madrid due to the lack of regional public support and delays in payments. Is the situation similar in the Valencian Community?? Have you felt the support of the institutions during these twenty-five years?
In these 25 years we have felt everything: the backrest and the back. The headquarters of Hongaresa is the Port of Sagunto, and here we have been able to premiere all our works, That's a great endorsement.. During the periods of PP governments in the Valencian Community we have suffered censorship of works such as The soul is serene, because it dealt with the thorny issue of Cabañal, me too, personally, I have been harmed by the public institution with an unfair dismissal, but that's another story. we are alive, survive and creating and happy with our work, so all good.
In the last edition of Sagunt a Escena you premiered Saguntiliad by Paco Zarzoso, a work in which the true protagonist was the Roman theater of Sagunto itself and which sought to raise public awareness regarding the value of culture. Has the sensitivity of public powers towards culture made in Valencia changed in the last stage? And the Valencian public??
Yeah, It is clear that the sensitivity of public powers towards culture has changed in the last stage. But, as the bible says, “to know is to love” and if you don't know you don't love. Twenty years of drought in culture are many years and the public's sensitivity is killed or numbed, but fortunately, humanity has wisdom, sensitivity and natural intelligence, and when the work has quality it reaches the public.
In recent decades, rooms like L'Altre Espai have disappeared in Valencia (before, Moma Room), the Sala Moratín or the Teatro de los Manantiales, but others have emerged like Ultramar and Sala Russafa willing to fight. There is talent on the Valencian scene, but what about strength? Is the foundation solid enough to withstand what is coming at us??
Of course there is talent and strength in the Valencian scene, and the appearance of new rooms Ruzafa and Ultramar is a joy. We create with 17 theater professionals the Sala Ultramar project in 2012 in its first headquarters (Father Jofre). Then we moved to the previous Manantiales Room and we could not maintain the project as it was created due to lack of economic infrastructure to support it.. Fortunately it was not closed and it provides great products to the city. If the support is not created that dignifies the profession as what it is, a profession, not volunteering or self-exploitation, We will not endure what we have or what comes upon us.
What do you have in mind to celebrate the company's twenty-five years??
In this strange “pandemic and heavenly” year we have suffered the pandemic horror of paralysis from March to July and the heavenly hope of having created a lot since October 2019 until early 2021: On (Valencia Main Theater, 2019), Libration (Castellón Main Theater), Tula Divine Chaotic Tula (Matilde Salvador), Saguntiliada (Roman Theater of Sagunt), Stone and crossroads (on tour through Argentina and Spain), Threshold (October in Ultramar room), On (November in La Grada in Madrid), Javelin(November in Valencia) y, in January 2021, We prepare the presentation of the compilation book of 16 works by Paco Zarzoso, a party to commemorate the quarter century. Viewing the list, the volume of work we develop is scary, so yes, we celebrate being alive and working. Yes indeed, as said before, If time and the pandemic do not prevent it.
