“For several years now I have been waiting for the death of my father. I wait for her as the end of a pain is expected. For several years now I wish you a morning without waking so that the bites of sorrows stop and that your eyes can finally find calm. But by the cruellest of ironies, and because of what confines us, I now live with the concern of a message, of a phone call announcing his death. Because although I wish for the death of my father, I do not wish in any way for his misfortune. And his misfortune, I know, would be immense if he died with no one by his side. With no one to hold his hand. "
This is how one of the 25 podcasts begins that Wajdi Mouawad, one of the great names in today's world dramaturgy, author of the acclaimed work Fires, wrote and recorded in French with his own voice during the hardest weeks of confinement by the coronavirus and that They were broadcast on the website of the national theater of La Colline in Paris, an institution that he directs from 2016, from March 16 to April 20. Loaded with a powerful poetic breath, capable of elevating the daily anecdote to the dimension of myth and tragedy, something that also characterizes his theatrical writing, they were widely welcomed in France, to the point that they began to be translated into other languages even earlier the series ended.
Finally, four of them can now be heard in Spanish, translated and interpreted in complicity with the author by the Diario Vivo team , a show that premiered in Spain in 2017 in which journalists, writers and artists from different disciplines (each function different ) tell real stories that have happened to them on stage, usually related to their profession. “We believe that this newspaper will leave its mark and we want to contribute to it. It is both intimate and universal, like the stories we often stage on Diario Vivo shows . We found it so unique and powerful that we decided on the spot to share some of its episodes in Spain, "explains François Musseau, founder of Diario Vivo .
The key to the impact these podcasts have had is their ability to transcend the anecdote, the prosaic narrative of confinement, with many details that resonate with millions of people around the world, to take it to a poetic dimension. Mouawad starts from everyday situations, thoughts that have to do with the day-to-day life of the confinement, perplexing awakenings, domestic uncertainty, bewilderment, but immediately he intertwines all of this with the mythical account of the history of humanity, the one that tries to catch the meaning or nonsense of existence in a myth, a legend, a tragedy.
Thus, the pain of the father's distance takes us to the war in Lebanon, Mouawad's country of origin, exiled with his family because of that conflict since he was a child, first in France and later in Canada. A strange awakening, surrendered to confinement, to the "dark times of confinement", leads us to the darkness chosen by Oedipus when he gouged out his eyes. And the grief of routine to the horrifying loop of the myth of Prometheus, his liver devoured day after day by an eagle in punishment for having stolen fire from the gods to give it to men, confined for all eternity. "Prometheus was punished for his love for men. But we, for what love have we been punished?" Asks the playwright in an episode of his diary.
The four podcasts translated into Spanish can be listened to on Soundcloud, Ivoox and Spotify platforms. One will be released every day from today until Saturday. The entire series in French is maintained on the website of the La Colline theater, in addition to two of the episodes recorded on video by the author, with subtitles in Spanish, Japanese, German and French (on April 3) and in Italian and French (the one from April 10).