Muchas veces me preguntó por qué las últimas dos semanas de todo año, la gente pretende ser más amable y busca, a casi toda costa, demostrar un cariño que, básicamente, es hipócrita. Ni creo que cada comienzo de año sea una oportunidad más para hacer las cosas mejor, pues creo firmemente en que cada segundo, cada minutos, cada instante, por breve que sea, es una oportunidad para ser mejor (o peor, ahí sí cada quien decide). Así que, asqueada por las llamadas telefónicas de fantasmas que se asoman a lo sumo cada 26 de diciembre, jurando y perjurando que los teléfonos estuvieron suspendidos todos los demás días del año (yeah, right...) o que las redes del celular se 'caían' cada vez que marcaban ellos, específicamente ellos, y nada más que ellos.
En fin, hace un par de años, no encontré boleto de tren para viajar de Castellón a Barcelona a primera hora del 1 de enero. No pude festejar con mi familia española, pues tuve que abandonar Castellón a las 7 de la noche del 31 de enero para poder tomar mi vuelo de regreso. Al llegar a Barcelona, había más de 50 personas, con todo y maletas, esperando un taxi. Obviamente, sólo había disponible algo así como dos coches. Al llegar la media noche, ojo, restaban como 40 personas aún, el ambiente de prisa y preocupación cambió. Intercambié abrazos fugaces con extraños y sonrisas sinceras con quienes estaban allí. Es más, alguien hasta me compartió dulces, pues estaba pálida, helándome y muriendo de hambre. La verdad, ése ha sido mi año nuevo más honesto, el más sincero: llena de extraños en un estación de trenes. Media hora después cogí un taxi al hotel, aventé las maletas, bajé al bar, me tomé una copa de vino y me dormí.
29 diciembre, 2008
23 diciembre, 2008
verde que te quiero verde
Nunca recuerdo mis sueños, pero ayer, tras muchos tragos combinados con cantidades decadentes de Miguelito de Mango y Chamoy, soñé mi sueño ideal: yo era parte de una versión alterna de Wicked. Sí, Elphaba estaba allí, al igual que Glinda, más los munchkins eran verdes y yo era parte de ellos. Vi como me volvían así, verde, platicaba con Elphaba en el vestidor y todo. No quería despertarme, es más, aún siento que si cierro los ojos seré parte del musical, pero de mi versión. ¡¡¡Déjenme dormir más!!!
No es que desdeñe la versión de Broadway, al contrario, la vi hace poco y me maravilló por las buenas actuaciones, por los efectos y la música, pero, especialmente, por la increíble adaptación que conjuga lo esencial de Wicked (Gregory Maguire) con los personajes de The Wonderful Wizard of OZ (L. Frank Baum). En Wicked no hay espantapajaro ni hombre de lata ni final feliz, en Oz tampoco las cosas son tan sencillas, pero en este musical es reconfortante saber que el amor aún puede triunfar sobre absolutamente todo, inclusive la magia –blanca y negra, bueno, verde–. Así que sin más, cruzo mis dedos para que la traigan a México, de preferencia algún conocido que sepa de mi gran afición por estas obras, para que me deje traducirla y me deje ser Elphaba, desde luego, en mi sueño nunca importó que mi voz nada más no sirva para cantar, es más ni para tararear.
Ahora que ya salió la última parte dela trilogía Wicked, A Lion Among Men (la segunda es Son of A Witch), cabe la posibilidad de verla convertida en película (Universal tiene ya los derechos), lo cual me da pavor, pues allí sí no vale la pena traer de vuelta a Oz, y no lo vale puesto que, esta no es un trilogía para niños pequeñitos. Ojalá no corra el mismo destino que His Dark Material (Phillip Pulman).
No es que desdeñe la versión de Broadway, al contrario, la vi hace poco y me maravilló por las buenas actuaciones, por los efectos y la música, pero, especialmente, por la increíble adaptación que conjuga lo esencial de Wicked (Gregory Maguire) con los personajes de The Wonderful Wizard of OZ (L. Frank Baum). En Wicked no hay espantapajaro ni hombre de lata ni final feliz, en Oz tampoco las cosas son tan sencillas, pero en este musical es reconfortante saber que el amor aún puede triunfar sobre absolutamente todo, inclusive la magia –blanca y negra, bueno, verde–. Así que sin más, cruzo mis dedos para que la traigan a México, de preferencia algún conocido que sepa de mi gran afición por estas obras, para que me deje traducirla y me deje ser Elphaba, desde luego, en mi sueño nunca importó que mi voz nada más no sirva para cantar, es más ni para tararear.
Ahora que ya salió la última parte dela trilogía Wicked, A Lion Among Men (la segunda es Son of A Witch), cabe la posibilidad de verla convertida en película (Universal tiene ya los derechos), lo cual me da pavor, pues allí sí no vale la pena traer de vuelta a Oz, y no lo vale puesto que, esta no es un trilogía para niños pequeñitos. Ojalá no corra el mismo destino que His Dark Material (Phillip Pulman).
17 diciembre, 2008
vaya regalo de santa...
Como casi todos los días, acceso al periódico inglés The Guardian. Leo una cosa por allí y otra por allá, pero hoy, sin duda, el suceso que marca mi mañana (y seguro uno que deambulará por mi mente los próximos meses) es el retiro del maestro Peter Brook. Aquí, la entrevista de Angelique Chrisafis con este veterano del teatro que ha roto todos los límites posibles con humildad (el pilar que sostiene al teatro real, al verdadero).
Extended au revoir ... Peter Brook. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
He is perhaps the most influential stage director alive, the man who deliberately broke every rule in theatre, stripped performance spaces bare and let the audience's imagination do the work. At 83, Peter Brook flinches at the word retirement. But after 34 years at the helm of his revolutionary Paris theatre, the Bouffes du Nord, he has announced a gradual transition to ease in a new generation of directors to run the space.
When Brook seized on the Bouffes du Nord in 1974, it was a dilapidated former music hall and variety theatre. He is slowly handing over to successors, Olivier Mantei and Olivier Poubelle, who both have strong musical backgrounds. The world-famous innovative space, which Brook styled as the ideal theatre, is now likely to focus on the strength of its acoustics in staging a mixture of popular music, opera, classical music, dance and theatre.
Speaking to the Guardian today, in his only British interview, Brook said he had decided against doing a press conference, issuing a press release or making a grand announcement. He sees the move not as a handover but as a "gradual transition from the inside".
He said: "I wanted to look very realistically to the future. I can't say I'll stay here forever. Everyone says something has been created almost invisibly in this theatre over 34 years. A lot of thought went into what would be the proper continuity. I didn't want to just place someone here and say, 'Here, take over.' I never talked about retirement as retirement is something forced on you by the state if you are unfortunate enough to work for the state. This has always been a private theatre."
Over the next three years, he will slowly hand the reigns over to Olivier Mantei, deputy head of the Paris opera company Opéra-Comique and currently head of the musical programming at the Bouffes du Nord. Olivier Poubelle, a theatre entrepreneur specialising in modern music at some of Paris's most cutting-edge popular music venues, will work alongside him.
Brook said both Mantei and Poubelle had been part of his team for many years and would allow the Bouffes du Nord to capitalise on one of its most "striking" features: "the marvellous quality of sound there, whether for classical, popular music, very popular music or solo singing. This is in the tradition of the theatre which began its life as a music hall."
He denied that this would see music taking over from theatre at the space, saying both men were "hugely experienced" in theatre. It was more a question of the current trend for a "coming together of diverse forms of theatre and music".
Brook said the transition would take place in the runup to 2011; he will still direct his own work, including a forthcoming adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute. He said he did not want to throw someone cold into the role who would then feel they had to slavishly follow his own way of working.
"The first thing I wanted to establish – having spent all my life fighting against tradition and saying everything in the theatre must always be in a state of evolution, must always refuse to have a method, a way of working – was to avoid [appointing] a successor who would have to try and prove my line, which is against the whole life force of the theatre."
Asked what he had learned from his 30 years at the theatre, he said: "Never ask yourself what you have learned ... only ask yourself what are the circumstances which are different from last year. In that way, you can apply last year's lessons. Experience means that the ground is prepared. As in Hamlet's last lines, 'The readiness is all.'"
Extended au revoir ... Peter Brook. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
He is perhaps the most influential stage director alive, the man who deliberately broke every rule in theatre, stripped performance spaces bare and let the audience's imagination do the work. At 83, Peter Brook flinches at the word retirement. But after 34 years at the helm of his revolutionary Paris theatre, the Bouffes du Nord, he has announced a gradual transition to ease in a new generation of directors to run the space.
When Brook seized on the Bouffes du Nord in 1974, it was a dilapidated former music hall and variety theatre. He is slowly handing over to successors, Olivier Mantei and Olivier Poubelle, who both have strong musical backgrounds. The world-famous innovative space, which Brook styled as the ideal theatre, is now likely to focus on the strength of its acoustics in staging a mixture of popular music, opera, classical music, dance and theatre.
Speaking to the Guardian today, in his only British interview, Brook said he had decided against doing a press conference, issuing a press release or making a grand announcement. He sees the move not as a handover but as a "gradual transition from the inside".
He said: "I wanted to look very realistically to the future. I can't say I'll stay here forever. Everyone says something has been created almost invisibly in this theatre over 34 years. A lot of thought went into what would be the proper continuity. I didn't want to just place someone here and say, 'Here, take over.' I never talked about retirement as retirement is something forced on you by the state if you are unfortunate enough to work for the state. This has always been a private theatre."
Over the next three years, he will slowly hand the reigns over to Olivier Mantei, deputy head of the Paris opera company Opéra-Comique and currently head of the musical programming at the Bouffes du Nord. Olivier Poubelle, a theatre entrepreneur specialising in modern music at some of Paris's most cutting-edge popular music venues, will work alongside him.
Brook said both Mantei and Poubelle had been part of his team for many years and would allow the Bouffes du Nord to capitalise on one of its most "striking" features: "the marvellous quality of sound there, whether for classical, popular music, very popular music or solo singing. This is in the tradition of the theatre which began its life as a music hall."
He denied that this would see music taking over from theatre at the space, saying both men were "hugely experienced" in theatre. It was more a question of the current trend for a "coming together of diverse forms of theatre and music".
Brook said the transition would take place in the runup to 2011; he will still direct his own work, including a forthcoming adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute. He said he did not want to throw someone cold into the role who would then feel they had to slavishly follow his own way of working.
"The first thing I wanted to establish – having spent all my life fighting against tradition and saying everything in the theatre must always be in a state of evolution, must always refuse to have a method, a way of working – was to avoid [appointing] a successor who would have to try and prove my line, which is against the whole life force of the theatre."
Asked what he had learned from his 30 years at the theatre, he said: "Never ask yourself what you have learned ... only ask yourself what are the circumstances which are different from last year. In that way, you can apply last year's lessons. Experience means that the ground is prepared. As in Hamlet's last lines, 'The readiness is all.'"
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