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Israel Elejalde: "Now it seems that we must all champion an immovable cause"

2021-09-06T03:42:47.143Z


The Madrid interpreter, founder of the extinct Pavón Teatro Kamikaze, debuts with Pedro Almodóvar in 'Parallel Mothers' and defends that all stage work is a political act


Israel Elejalde (Madrid, 47 years old) is a committed actor, with his trade, with the ideas he defends, with his history, with life. Now, however, he observes that "we all seem to champion an immovable cause" and defends that self-criticism is the way out of the confrontational environment that is so similar to other periods in history. As an actor (he has just performed in Venice

Parallel Mothers

, by Pedro Almodóvar, in which he is one of the main interpreters) he has carried out one of his maxims: “Any stage work is a political act”, and with that spirit he has starring, especially in the theater, to classics and modern, lately with Miguel del Arco in the extinct experience of the Kamikaze Theater. This interview was done by phone in August.

From the left, Israel Elejalde, Penelope Cruz, Pedro Almódovar, Milena Smit and Aitana Sanchez Gijón on September 1 at the Venice festival.ETTORE FERRARI / EFE

Question.

Can't you just be a spectator?

In the theatrical productions in which he has participated, it seems that he seeks to shake the public.

Answer.

Theater is not just entertainment.

It is a place where you can feel reflected, involved, challenged.

As Juan Mayorga says, from there you should always leave with more doubts than you had before entering.

I have tried this in productions with Miguel del Arco and in those in which I have directed.

I don't like doing theater so that people confirm their ideas, those with which they entered the room.

I like that it is uncomfortable, that it forces you to reflect, to look at the world again.

I don't like doing theater so that people confirm their ideas.

I like that it is uncomfortable, that it forces you to reflect

Q.

Has what you heard or read changed your convictions?

R.

Not always, but it has happened to me. Today it seems that we all have to champion an immovable cause and that is something that indicates a lack of self-criticism, and leads to brutal confrontations that do not occur only in politics. But it is true that in politics, as in football, the enemy is denied everything. A healthy society shouldn't work like this. There are issues we must grapple with, but there should be a critical awareness of the people who are supposedly closest to you or your political options. Now, any dissent among those we consider our own is brutally punished. This makes a society with a very low critical consciousness, where the level of violence will go up, if we cannot stop it.Theater and the arts in all their forms are a good mechanism to try to show that this is not the way. So you have to develop artistic manifestations that are not dogmatic, but reflective, that provoke doubt, that do not accept that dichotomy of bad and good.

Israel Elejalde.INMA FLORES / EL PAIS

P.

Ultra contagion is universal, it seems.

R.

When the domes begin to use these mechanisms the confrontation goes down.

The Trump phenomenon and the assault on the Capitol are the consequence of a process of constant degradation, of a brutal erosion of democracy.

When you start to use ultra language, the masses accept that this is what you have to do.

This is where racist proclamations or contempt for any democratic decision come.

It happened in bars, but what used to be bravado has become a radicalism that infects society.

It does not matter now that something is a lie if even the leaders give it a letter of nature as truth.

Q.

A factor that was powerful in the Transition, communism, has taken on another aspect almost of insult.

A.

My father belonged to the Communist Party and I grew up in the offices of the Central Committee.

I met La Pasionaria, Carrillo, and my father was a trade unionist in Barreiro.

The word communist for me is related to the defense of democracy and the defense of the rights of citizens and not with that fascist vision that has more to do with other places where communism has been that.

I will not defend what Stalin did or what Lenin did, nor will I defend the USSR or the Pol Pot regime ...

P.

How do you experience this phenomenon?

R.

That disqualification saddens me because it does not appeal to the truth. One of the reasons why the word "communist" is used in this way is because we, the people who move within the framework of progressive ideas, have also used the word "fascist" too much. We have released it the first time and everyone uses it so that a time has come when a fascist is anyone who does not think like you. And now there are really fascists in the institutions, where there were none. People who begin to recognize themselves as a fascist and attack you as a communist. Fascism has never fought for democracy. So there comes a time when that word, "fascist", ceases to have value and there is the opposite movement of people who boast of being so. It's sad.

P.

How have you felt the job of theater actor?

R.

The theater is contemporary, it is attached to the moment you are living.

Anyone can make films for the viewer of the future, but a function is only present and then remains in the memory, with which one has the need to talk about what is happening.

Sometimes you don't know if you are the one who chooses the works or they are the ones that choose you.

For example,

El misántropo

appears just after 15-M and the play deals with the need to be honest, to fight hypocrisy.

Then we did

Hamlet

, when there begins to be a discredit of the institutions and the country is like lost, and finally we do

Ricardo III

, in what was probably the worst moment of our politics.

Not the worst moment in our country, but in our politics.

This work is a reflection on the seductive capacity of these beings whose strength, whose charisma, lies in strongly desiring power.

And instead of causing us rejection, we are seduced by those types of people.

Q.

What has the movie you made with Almodóvar meant for you?

R.

We have premiered in Venice [at the film festival]. It has been very exciting. The film has been received in a magnificent way and I am very proud to be involved in a project like this. When I first read the script, the words of Azaña in one of his last speeches came to mind, when he said that Spain needed peace, mercy and forgiveness. And I think the film speaks of a word that reflects or contains that: a film of harmony, of facing our past to face the future. I think it is a movie full of love and for me it was very exciting to find myself in pictures with her.

Source: elparis

All life articles on 2021-09-06

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