To be or not to be: actress and mother. The personal universe of Irene Azuela

One of the constants of dramaturgy, or at least within some of his most important works, is the ability and art of transforming the complex, forbidden or hermetic into reflections, messages or universal discourses -close to the reality of the spectator-, regardless of its time and context.

We are also talking about a field where the vital issues of human life are confronted, questioned and reconfigured in a lively and dynamic way, through time.

One of the most vital examples of the above is found convincingly in Hamlet, the iconic play written by the English playwright William Shakespeare, an author and work that is canonical and universal, considered the inescapable reference of literature throughout the West. .

For more than 400 years, Hamlet - a play would take little more than four hours of show in faithful representation - has been the subject of multiple studies, rereadings, interpretations, translations and adaptations throughout the world, transcendence and universality that for the Mexican playwright Mario Conde becomes entrenched, among other things, in a subject that we cannot get rid of: the relationship with our parents.

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Other great examples from literature such as Oedipus the King, Life is a Dream, The Death of a Salesman, Battles in the Desert, and from the cinema such as All About My Mother, Star Wars or Nebraska move on the same and offer an answer or a point of view: 'my father betrayed me', 'I must accept my mother as she is', 'my parents are not what I thought', 'I learned to love my creators'.

Whereas Hamlet doesn't know what to think.

That is why its length: of the four hours, there are three with hesitation about whether Hamlet should 'be or not be' a worthy son: obey his father and condemn himself to hell, or let him die and cover up the betrayal of his uncle who, outside from being a regicide and a chapulín [treacherous, disloyal], he shows no other vice, least of all towards Hamlet”, Mario Conde points out.

To be… a mother and an actress

The vitality, strength and malleability referred to in Shakespeare's work has also allowed a reimagining not only from the freedom and licenses around its adaptation and montage themselves, but also on the adjacent readings of its context.

Two recent examples invite us to read Hamlet from the feminine sensibility and motherhood.

The first of them is Hamnet, a novel by the Irish writer Maggie O'Farrell, considered one of the best literary works of 2021, based on the death of William Shakespeare's son -a name that is never mentioned in the book-, seen from the intimate world of Anne Hathaway, the mother, three years before the English playwright published Hamlet, generating a game of duality between the work and its context, emphasizing a reflection on mourning and motherhood.

The other example recently had an appointment at the Milan Theater in Mexico City, where the actress Irene Azuela (The buffalo of the night, The dark springs, Arráncame la vida) starred in a new version of this classic, which registered 21 successful performances with sold-out locations, between March 10 and May 1, 2022.

Conceived by her producer Óscar Uriel years before the arrival of the pandemic, the Mexican actress tells El País exclusively that although Hamlet is a demanding work, it is also a gift and joy for any actor.

“(...) I had no other option [accepting the role of Hamlet], because you always have to say yes to a character of that size.

And without a doubt, Hamlet is one of the most complex characters that have been written in the history of dramaturgy, which lies in finding this place where questions, let's say intellectual, coincide with a significant number of emotional events that the character goes through. ”.

“The theater is a place inhabited by empathy and imagination, very valuable elements today.

It is also a place where the community lives, an idea that has always caught my attention and seemed very powerful.”

- Irene Azuela.

Or not be… fully surrendered

For Irene Azuela, a passionate woman interested in her profession on and off stage, the connection between her facet as an actress and being a mother (beginning in 2017), inevitably takes place through a mutual correspondence of total dedication and without restrictions, pondering the important things in his life, as well as the power to create community, elements that are always present in his day to day life.

“I don't see any other way to do a work like this, than through a complete and deep immersion.

For me, the theater is a space where you have to give yourself completely, but in a work like this, much more.

There is no way to dose it, to say 'today I'm going lightly, today I'm going to take care of myself', it forces you a lot to let yourself go and at the same time to pay attention, because they are very solid concepts that inhabit it, but also very subtle, fragile at the same time and there is a certain musicality in the words, not to mention the memory;

you have to put your body, heart and head to work.

“(The theater) regarding my personal life and being a mother has forced me to pay attention to what is essential and has helped me to measure things that were difficult for me to measure before.

And again, being a mother makes you a much more complex human being, which invariably comes down to what one puts into the characters she plays, ”considers the actress.

The also winner of the Ariel Award for best actress in 2008 and 2009 reflects on the links between Shakespeare's piece, a play in which death is always present and contained within life itself, and motherhood: "Recently I have been reading Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell, which deals with the son that William Shakespeare and his wife lost a few years before writing Hamlet, centered on the female figure.

I knew this reference, but until I read the book I understood the state Shakespeare must have been in to write this play.

And how fascinating also that Hamlet is slightly the opposite of what the author lived through, the son worshiping his father.

That gave me a much deeper reading.”

Being a work that she fully enjoys, Irene Azuela recognizes that Hamlet is a piece with passages that resonate and interest her in a special way and that resonate with her personally: “I really like the scene with the mother, the perception that Hamlet has of his mother when he discovers that her sexual life is something that violates him, when he finds out that she is still active, he doesn't like it, he gets angry, he pouts... that seems to me an interesting topic.

Also, the whole issue of being or not being, doing or not doing, deciding or not, seems to me to be very bastard [great, fascinating].

I think that people who are as rational as I am, that can move us a lot: 'why should one thing have more value than the other'.

That dilemma is one with which I connect the most”.

Faced with an environment full of uncertainty and digitization, where from the screens of mobile phones and tablets we decide what to see and how from our homes, the mother and actress believes that comfort is somewhat overrated.

"That is why for me the theater is a sacred place, as long as we are all together we had to have decided, to have the will to leave our homes to have an experience that would put us in a place that has nothing to do with comfort, like when you have an amazing ride.”