The rehearsal begins. The space is four-way, at the back of the stage you can hear a noise of comings and goings, actors, wardrobe managers, technicians. Today it’s time to rehearse and set movements of the Madrid Youth Choira dozen girls and boys around twenty who accompany the entire play with their presence and their singing and the movements on stage must be well planned. Andrés Lima walks like a fish in water in the rehearsal, happy among so much chaos. He fixes the collars and buttons the actors’ jackets – they all play up to ten different characters. He gives them confidence, he leads without a shout, he talks to everyone. At one point he takes an aside and tells this newspaper: “I tell the actors who are going crazy, ‘you have to navigate in the chaos, you have to be harmonious in the chaos.’” We are in 1936the new play from the National Dramatic Center that addresses the Spanish Civil War, a pure exercise in historical memory that will not please everyone.
Suddenly some colossal images of the Falange symbol and José Antonio Primo de Rivera flood the sides of the theater. Two young Falangists on stage are creating the lyrics of what will be the song of the new party, Cara al Sol. The scene was written by Juan Mayorga. José Antonio, played by Blanca Portillo, stands on a platform and makes the youth choir sing the song. Portillo begins to say José Antonio’s famous speech at the founding of the Spanish Falange at the Comedy Theater in Madrid on October 29, 1933. Those words that resonate deep in the brain of any Spaniard: “We want, finally, that if this has to be achieved in any case by violence, let us not stop at violence (…) there is no more admissible dialectic than the dialectic of fists and guns when “offends justice or the country.” The scene ends with a resounding: “Squads up to win, it’s beginning to dawn in Spain.”
It is a test, but even so you can already chew the strength that this creator has already demonstrated in the two works that precede 1936: Shock 1 (The Condor and the Puma) in 2019 and Shock 2 (The Storm and the War) in 2021, montages that dealt with prior and in-depth documentary research on the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and the establishment of the ultraliberal regime in the times of Reagan and Thatcher. An immersive space and a theater where the image and music are well present, calling for emotion and where the actors go from cold story to acid comedy under a fast-paced rhythm and staging.
After the rehearsal, we asked Andrés Lima about this project that will be on display at the Valle Inclán Theater from next week until January 26. A month and a half on the bill and only a few tickets remain. Then the work will go on a short tour that will end in April. The company will be returning home precisely on the day the Second Republic was proclaimed, April 14.
¿1936 is the third part of shock?
No, but it does respond to the same impulse to review history. Furthermore, the civil war is our great shock. But the documentation is different. Less journalistic and more historiographic. We have read a lot and had many meetings. We started two and a half years ago with the workshops that we do in projects of this type. We invite people and scenes emerge from those talks. We have spoken with historians such as Julián Casanova, Paul Preston, Ángel Viñas, Francisco Espinosa or Mirta Núñez. It has been exciting. There have been many people who have contributed, such as General Rojo’s grandfather, Andrés Rojo, who is a student of his grandfather and the Battle of the Ebro. Even theater people who know a lot about the theater of the time, such as Emilio Gutiérrez Caba or Mario Gas.
After that stage, a writing process begins, where he has collaborated with Juan Cavestany, Albert Boronat and Juan Mayorga. And after that moment the rehearsals begin, is that correct?
Everything is more mixed, the actors are already in those workshops, things are already tried there, they are even working on scenery and costumes. So in many cases there is already an approach to which actor does what and even how they are going to be dressed, for example. But yes, then there is a writing process, each one asks to write about a topic discussed and there the dramaturgy is formed.
Tell us an example of who has written what…
Cavestany has a scene about Franco called The firm handis about the visit of Franco’s father, Nicolás, which is documented, in which he goes to ask him for money. A very intimate, almost ghostly scene reminiscent of Hamlet’s father’s visit, but with Cavestany’s humor. Albert Boronat has written the scene that we call The othera fact also very well documented in which on July 14, 1931 there was a meeting to overthrow the recently proclaimed Second Republic. I have written the beginning of the southern campaign and Mayorga, for example, has written that scene that we just saw of how the Cara al Sol song in Falange is created.
More than twenty scenes, three acts, four hours… What historical stretch does the work cover?
From 36 to 39. I have tried to follow the route of the rebel army in a chronological way to show what happened and then I give the voice to several of the protagonists, such as Azaña or Franco, who go through the work. What happens is that we have to do flashbacks to understand the right-wing conspiracy to overthrow the Second Republic from the day it was born. Aspects that happened in the Republic are mentioned, such as the social and agrarian revolution that caused, for example, that in Extremadura there was a lot of land collectivization. It was necessary to understand the scene of the Badajoz massacre, since that atrocity was a direct consequence of that collectivization, it was a reprimand to say: “This is not done.” The mass shootings that were carried out are an example of the terror coldly displayed by the right, something that even General Mola left in writing.
What motivated you to get involved in a project of this magnitude?
Various things. The first was to tell about our shock, a war that is much closer than we think. Furthermore, we wanted to tell a story that has been taken away from us. Firstly because of Franco’s historiography, which gave a very false image of all that. And then with the Transition, where interest in looking at the past was lost and silence was imposed again.
Franco’s historiography gave a very false image of the Civil War. Then, with the Transition, the interest in looking at the past was lost and silence was imposed again.
Andres Lima
— Playwright and director
But in the last 30 years the Civil War has been studied from other points of view, don’t you think?
Yes, but with quite some difficulty. All historians have told us that they have had many problems investigating police and military archives, and that many fundamental documents have disappeared. Furthermore, this work of historians has not reached the public in a majority way. The Civil War is still not studied in school, I think there are many people who can approach the work and learn things they did not know.
I said that there is a third reason…
Yes, clearly the resurgence of fascism. They may have voted for Meloni, Milei and Trump at the polls, but they have projects that, although they are not 20th century fascism, are still based on the search for a totalitarian state where trust is placed in a supreme figure who supposedly It’s going to fix our lives. Political projects that, although they are within a plebiscitary system, do not believe in it and want to end citizens’ rights. That has me scared.
Working on that era, are there moments that remind you of what happens today?
In many moments of the performance I am overcome with deep sadness because I see him too close. José Antonio’s speech, today I see and hear it on Vox. I heard many of Franco’s reflections, loaded with national Catholicism, on the Spanish right. Back then there was about 60% illiteracy, the cultural base that this country has now is different, but everything is too close. It all sounds too familiar.
Do you think they are going to accuse you of an unbalanced vision?
Surely. But I am clear about several things. Once the war begins, violence spreads everywhere, but the systematic violence of Franco’s army was much more organized and harsh, something that the figures used today clearly demonstrate. And, above all, who carried out the coup d’état? Would Spain have had almost a million people dead if there had not been a coup d’état? Well obviously not. The democratic history of this country was cut and an attempt was made to impose a regime with weapons and terror.
Do you fear angry reactions?
There are still people who think that the coup d’état of ’36 was very good. For them, of course, everything will be unbalanced. But everything we do is based on documented historiography, we have stuck to what happened and what the protagonists say. Although, obviously, I have a point of view.
Which is it?
My position is anti-fascist, which is what I have always had. I don’t come to satisfy Twitter or history followers. I abhor and fear the use of violence by fascism, old and new. If someone comes with a thought that is against seeing the work, they can refute it and we can have a beer at the bar and talk about it. I believe in dialogue. Another issue is that later, instead of talking, they want to throw a can of paint on you or hit you.
Repeat in the play with Willy Toledo, what moment would stand out in the play?
With Willy I am united by all of Animalario (the company in which they were both for more than ten years). He is an extraordinary actor. Yesterday I was watching the passage of the first act and I was thinking, what a bastard, he’s good in everything. But there is something very beautiful. Willy is a person who stands out for having ideas that raise contrary and related passions. And this work plays Yagüe, one of the wildest generals in Franco’s army, and he does it with an elegance, without ever judging him, something that allows you to see what he really was like.
Juan Vinuesa plays Franco, then you have two of the greats of the scene like María Morales and Natalia Hernández, and in the rehearsals that we have seen, Alba Flores stands out.
Alba has such a hunger for theater, and a capacity… She is a great artist with an unsurpassed level of commitment. And he has very good genes, he sings and goes from being General Rojo with a mustache to being Celia Gámez supersexy or to embodying the Passionflower. Not everyone can do that. Alba is young, but she is really much younger than her age, she does everything as if it were the most important experience of her career, and that is wonderful. There is also Morris, I tell him one thing and he does the opposite, but what he does is better. And Paco Ochoa, who is the greatest chameleon I have ever met in my theatrical life. Here he plays George Orwell and has a perfect accent. He has no idea of English and yet he nails the accent, he could play all the characters in the show. It is a Ferrari made an actor.
How does the work end?
With a scene that I am not going to tell you, not for anything, but because it is a surprise. It’s very pretty, it’s called The Pit. There is a jump to today. It ends in the present.
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