Cecilia, teacher and mother of three adolescent children, was a regular of the Lope de Life Theater of a lifetime. His two boys grew up going to the Sevillian coliseum, and until the closing of this emblematic space the representations were never missing in their weekend plans. Since in 2023 the City of Seville decided to close it due to the need to practice “urgent” works that prevented it from working, as it was argued at the time, the family fans have suffered an important impairment. And not only because traveling to spaces such as Cartuja Center or the TNT room poses logistics problems, but because the box office of the places where the Lope programming has significantly more expensive prices were rearranged.
“The closure of the Lope de Vega theater has meant to stop going to the theater with the assiduity we were going,” says this Sevillian. “When it was closed it was announced that the billboard would be distributed by other theaters of the city, but this, if it happened, has been in different conditions. Ticket prices have not been respected, which makes it unfeasible to go normally because I can’t afford it. ”
“This gives me a lot of anger, especially because it had almost become a habit to go to the theater on Sundays in the afternoon. My children and I enjoyed what I had scheduled that day. They had managed to be interested in going to the theater instead of any other option. This is being lost because now we can only go from time to time, since tickets of about 20 euros per person (and we are four) is difficult to spend every month. ”
It is difficult to calculate how many people, in the same conditions as Cecilia, has stopped going to the theater since the Lope closed its doors, but it is possible to imagine that they are not few. Before this closure, the price per entrance that Cecilia usually paid around 9 euros. “There were even 4 euros with a reduced vision,” he says, “and now are 20 or more.”
City and citizens
Tickets for some recent TNT shows have cost 12 euros, “although prices have not been put in any case,” says his responsible, Ricardo Iniesta. In the Cartuja Center, a work like ‘El Palemasso’ will cost between 23.76 and 30.24 euros: more than double and triple the family price of the Lope de Vega. See Héctor Alterio in March with the assembly ‘A small history’ will be a bit cheaper: between 24,84 and 28.08. “This is very difficult to keep the hobby. If you add a taxi that you take, you take something … you go a money in a single day of theater, ”Licks Cecilia. This season, the shows are expected to move to artillery, which will mean an added problem, since it lacks technical conditions for certain shows.
Teresa, a 79 -year -old retired one, feels another one of those affected by the closure of the Lope. Despite its age, this Sevillian displays a most intense cultural activity, from its participation in a reading club to belonging to the friends of the Baroque and Sinfonic Orchestra, but not being able to go to Lope de Vega “I It has affected a lot. For a long time, when I worked as a teacher, I went to the theater with groups of students. Very good companies were always coming very affordable prices. Now, the TNT is very distant for me, the Cartuja Center the same. It is true that I am often the central, but it is not the same, it is not the same, ”he repeats.
“I miss my weekend theater at the Lope de Vega, but what desperate me most is that, as far as I know, they are not doing anything,” Teresa protests. “I think Seville would have to take more care of this, even more at this time when ignorance seems to be seizing everything. For my part, I am sorry because it seems to me that, at this step, I will not enter that theater again. ”
GROUND IN NETWORKS
After the dust that raised the news of the closure, a striking silence is lived in the sector. Just a few scattered voices cry out against the situation and demand explanations from the City of Seville. One of them is that of the Zentralite, a space for creation, production, encounter and dissemination of performing arts. “Every day we give grilled in our networks with the question of Lope,” says Maria, one of her spokesmen. “We call the City Council and nobody answers, but our obligation is to do it and move the people of the profession, which forgot that the Lope has been closed for almost two years. It is outrageous that it is like that for so long and nobody says anything. ”
For the girls of the Zentralite it is precisely the fact that there is no clamor around the Lope what most disturbed. Disdain? Indolence? Fear of pointing out? “We don’t cost us anything to fly this flag,” they say. “We are talking about public heritage. Then we hit the chest defending the culture, while we are seeing a historic building that belongs to us all and that, so we have been finding out, is suffering a greater deterioration. If Benito Villamarín closed, we would undoubtedly see the protest manifestations. ”
The rumors that the theater could be ready for the commemoration of the centenary of the exhibition of 29 also does not seem a comfort to these women’s women. “Public theaters cannot be closed, they have to be open 24 hours a day, from Monday to Sunday. Do you know why? Because there are many companies without a place to rehearse, without being able to make residences, with nothing. Anyway, we are even more outraged as citizens than as performing arts professionals. The city is from the citizen, not the one who comes to take four reeds. And we want to know. Then they complain that conspiracy theories come out, but with the silence of the City Council they are giving us foot. ” Sevillaeldiario.es has also tried to obtain a response from the Consistory about the theater situation, without success to date.
Demand answers
Nor does it satisfy the alternative of the other spaces that have become house the programming of the Lope. “To relocate montages designed for the Lope in other theaters, with scenographies that did not fit and other similar problems, it has been bad to have generated not little discontent. Not to mention how it affects the spectators, who could previous 5 euros to paradise and now they must pay much more. ”
Ricardo Iniesta, of TNT, believes, however, the price is “the least of the problems. The real problem is that Seville cannot be without municipal theater, I had never been so long in this circumstance. We are delighted to host any show, but it is desirable for the Lope to reopen its doors as soon as possible. I know that Federico Jaime López, a near and hardworking person, is in the hurry of the world. Apparently the seats have already been changed and the pending obstacle remains the curtain of fire, which is somewhat more complicated to change. Although at some point I have been restless, this manager gives me confidence and I hope that next year we have theater. ”
The sure thing is that the Zentralite is not going to cease in its efforts until it has a satisfactory response from the Culture Delegation. “There are people who have told us to forget about the subject, ‘He is in works, leave it.’ I only know that he is closed, do you see scaffolding there? Look how Magna we have learned of all the details with hairs and signs. We don’t accuse anything, we just want them to tell us. We will have patience, but we want to know. We want to believe that power takes care of us, otherwise we would go crazy. But that does not mean that we demand answers, or otherwise it will go worse. ”
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