‘Natacha’: portrait of a young worker in Madrid from the beginning of the 20th century

When Luisa Carnés (1905-1964) wrote ‘Natacha‘, his first novel, was a young woman of just twenty -four years. He worked in an important Madrid publishing house, the Ibero-American Publications Company (CIAP), which was on Prince of Vergara Street, and in the book he talked about his stage in a hats clothing workshop. “Luisa Carnés knew very well what he was talking about in this novel,” he says Laila Ripoll-, since she herself had been a working girl, worker teenager and working woman. Born in a humble and large family, at eleven years she is forced to leave school and start working in that workshop, where she remains for more than ten years. During all that time, and stealing hours to sleep, he becomes a voracious reader and an early writer ».

Laila Ripoll ran into Luisa Carnés a few years ago and put on ‘Tea Rooms’, an adaptation of another novel by the writer who obtained a success that neither the director herself expected. This is what encouraged Eduardo Vasco, director of the Spanish theater, to return to an author to whom the two want to recover and claim. ‘Natacha’ opens next Tuesday, February 11 in the Margarita Xirgu room of the Spanish theater. Natalia Huarte Encarna the protagonist, Natalia, and accompany her in the cast Jon Olivares, Pepa Pedroche, Fernando Soto, Isabel Ayúcar and Andrea Real.

«Deeply influenced by their readings of Russian novelists, especially Tolstoi and Dostoevski, Luisa Carnés makes this novel her own experience in literature, “says Laila Ripoll. ‘Those years of painful learning left in me a trace of bitterness that is revealed in my novel Natacha’, I would declare later, and would add referring to their years in the workshop: ‘I did not understand then why a adolescence can be so bitter, or Young, old thoughts. I did not think that there could be a different life to ours: the tub full of strange people’s clothes, that piece of sky and the small roof ».

The director confesses that the adaptation has been “peliaguda.” “Like every first novel, Luisa Carnés wants to tell everything she has learned, especially from the great Russian novelists.” The characters, they add, are «the basis of the story; They are polyhedrals, they have many edges ». “They are characters -Suma Pepa Pedroche-, who seek to survive in the society in which they have lived. They try to do their best but collide with reality and the rest of the characters that also try to do their best ».

«Through the protagonist -says Laila Ripoll,” the author tells us about the conditions that women’s working women endure, of the strenuous days, of fear of being fired, of harassment, of exploitation, of inequality, of the absence Horizons, disease, tedium, marriage, prostitution, sex, love and death ».

The author adds Natalia Huarte, «Proposes a trip that takes Natalia, in just two years, of an almost teenager, to maturity. The work begins with an emotional precariousness that is added to its economic precariousness. He is a character that progresses, who presents many contradictions, who has an absolute inability to resign himself, and that makes decisions, some with more success than others, until he decides to take the reins of his life and become his owner ». The actress defines her character as “a strong woman who is precisely considered an unfriendly and sullen woman … is something very contemporary, the same as addressing issues such as mental health.”

The entire function, says Laila Ripoll, is seen through Natalia’s eyes, which lives in Madrid in the twenties of the last century; “A worker Madrid, who was bourgeois in a time and now appears less.” A Madrid adds Fernando Soto -What interprets a character to which they nicknamed ‘the disgusting’-, who is another character in history. “We should talk about a literature and a Madrid dramaturgy, because the landscape derives in the character, Madrid is very present and in a very protagonist.” «Madrid,” the director’s director is – is an impressive city with a great dramatic personality, and it was very important to be present in the function ».