Juan Diego has died on us.
His unmistakable voice, of a night owl who went to bed early, will never fill the stages again.
I had the privilege of producing the last great interpretation of him,
El coronel no ha que le Escriba
by Gabriel García Márquez, in Zaragoza, directed by his friend Carlos Saura.
It was the first function of the colonel, the last of Juan, whose witness in the paper took another great, Imanol, to whom the teacher Juan had given the alternative when he arrived in Madrid.
Being on that stage with him that day will be a memory forever.
The previous year we also did
Cat on a Zinc Roof
together , where Juan taught us all what it means to be an actor.
After the first few months in which his illness left him breathing, a bad flu, one of those that the pandemic no longer lets us remember, hit him in the chest.
The doctor told him that he had to stop.
We had to stop the performances, Juan had to start using oxygen, we already considered the play closed, when he calls me and tells me:
-
Jose, let's continue, I'm good now.
But John...
-Neither but nor Juan, that if I don't do theater I'm out of breath.
And he went up to the roof of the cat, leaving his oxygen behind the scenes, taking advantage of stage exits to oxygenate himself, as he said, and ended the season with the honor and professionalism of a gladiator, of a bullfighter, risking his life in each scene.
A few months later, when the opportunity arose to adapt No One Writes to
The Colonel
, he took a step forward, more rooster than the rooster that accompanied him on stage, and premiered in Zaragoza without being able to reach Madrid.
Juan was a lot of Juan.
This morning his son Adam told me, that he had stayed this week to make a short film, that he no longer had the life for a feature film.
He now has eternity to do all the roles he always wanted to do, and it will still be too small for him.
García Márquez will receive him in the afterlife with open arms and Juan will tell him with that voice that no one will ever hear again.
-
Gabo, now I have someone to write to me.
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