Madrid (EFE).- “Oh, Carmela!” It is a “contemporary text with a desire to be a classic”, the actors María Adánez and Pepón Nieto agree, who play Paulino and Carmela in the play by José Sanchís Sinisterra, directed by José Carlos Plaza.
From today until June 11, the Teatro Bellas Artes in Madrid hosts the story of these comedians, “Carmela and Paulino, varieties to the fine”, who in 1938, in the middle of the Civil War, went from town to town and because of an involuntary mistake they end up performing a play for Franco’s troops.
Pepón Nieto points out that Carmela carries “joy as her flag, more naive and daring than Paulino, who is more shitty -as she tells him-, actually, more realistic,” the actor told EFE.
Nieto underlines that Sanchís Sinisterra wrote the show when the concept of “historical memory” did not exist. The great price that the defeated pay is that of forgetting and he talks about not forgetting; That is the price that the defeated had to pay and endure that the victor put his foot on their necks.
The actor emphasizes that the axis of the show is to remember “not only not to repeat but to dignify what happened, so that what happened is known.”
María Adánez points out that it is a “very authentic, honest, humble, simple” assembly, within the complexity of the function, in which they have tried to reproduce, “as closely as possible”, what that could have been like. moment at present.
A performance in which dramatic depth gives way to comedy, “a text that continues to be very current, not only because of the war in Ukraine, but because it calls for the danger posed by nationalisms; We live in a very polarized and trivialized moment through social networks, where very important events lose strength.
The actress rejects the attitude of “certain leaders who manipulate society, and that is in the show, in which there is a call not to kill for ideals. You can never consent to a war, it is the worst; even if there is a winner there is a loss as a society”.
Both actors point out that the text pays homage to their profession: “not everything is valid inside, Sinisterra comes to say, art has to be outside of ideologies because then it would not be art,” says Adánez.
Nieto adds that at that time “the public needed the encouragement of the comedian, who put his heart and soul into making the audience smile, despite being immersed in a war, hungry, cold and terrified of losing his life” .
Carlos Saura took “¡Ay, Carmela!” to the cinema. in 1990
“Ay Carmela!” it won the Max Award for best playwright in 1999 and was brought to the big screen in 1990 by director Carlos Saura, starring Carmen Maura and Andrés Pajares. Her first theatrical performance was in 1987 with Verónica Forqué -actress with whom María Adánez has shared filming and television series since its inception- and Santiago Ramos, her stepfather, also deceased.
In the emotional section, this coincidence has led him to live “a very spiritual moment, because in the room where we rehearsed there was the poster for the play with the image of the two of us”.
