Santander (EFE).- Anabel Alonso will play Celestina in a renewed version of the Fernando de Rojas classic that opens this Friday at the Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria, and that for an actress so linked to comedy is a start.
“She is a very vital Celestina, who makes herself understood and who comes for the public to understand her. She is not the bad guy in the movie”, explained the actress in the presentation of this adaptation for the Eduardo Galán stage, directed by Antonio C. Guijosa.
Anabel Alonso takes over from great actresses such as Nuria Espert, Amparo Rivelles, Gema Cuervo, Nati Mistral or Terele Pávez, embodying what, in her opinion, is the most important female character in Spanish literature, the equivalent of Don Juan in males. .
With this Celestina begins for her “a kind of renaissance” that arrives precisely in Santander, the city where she debuted with a monologue by Dario Fo, “when she was a 25-year-old girl” and Román Calleja, at the helm of the Caloca company , gave him his first professional opportunity.
After acknowledging that it had been a long time since she felt “that tickle of the premiere”, she has affirmed that beyond the repercussion that the work has, whether she likes it or not, for her it is “a turning point”.
Is it your most difficult role?
And is La Celestina the most difficult role for Anabel Alonso? At least, she says, it is “the most complex” because she has to play “a very good actress” who plays very different roles; It depends on who she has in front of her, she can be very despotic or very servile.
Although the public “has a hard time laughing at the classics”, he believes that this version of the work has “a lot of humor” and also sees his feminist touch in a character who, sewing virgos, restores freedom to women in a very macho society.
“It’s like the Tinder of the time, but at home,” she joked about her character’s goings-on, after recalling that she presented “El flechazo” on television and they already called her Celestina.
Many Celestinas have been made and if you want to be completely faithful to the 16th century text, the work would last five hours, according to Eduardo Galán, who defends that the first task of an adapter is to know that the function should not exceed two hours.
In his version, he has opted for a “classic but understandable language” and the great novelty compared to others is that here the story begins “with a flashback”, with the end of the work to open from that point a question: who are the responsible for what happened?
“La Celestina” is the first Renaissance work and reflects in its pages the changes of a society in which there are no longer estates but classes and in which the cult of the body and beauty is very present.
The classics stand the test of time
Sex and greed are what move the world and there Eduardo Galán sees the parallelism clearly: “We live in a time in which money and desire move us”, pointed out the author and producer, who recalled that “the classics They are classics because they have stood the test of time”.
Galán has confessed that “La Celestina” was required reading in high schools but he, who was also a high school teacher, never asked his students to read Fernando de Rojas’s book.
According to Antonio C.Guijosa, those who did do it in the eighties will have the memory of a text that “was a bit leaden” but this version “is very agile and recounts the vicissitudes of the characters at a very vital pace”, it has helped them reassured.
Except for Anabel Alonso, Víctor Sainz, who is Calisto, and David Huertas, who plays Parmeno, the rest of the cast doubles on stage: Claudia Taboada is Melibea and Areusa, Beatriz Grimaldos plays Elicia and Lucrecia and José Saiz is Pleberio and Sempronio .
With the collaboration of ONCE, the performance will be accessible at the Palacio de Festivales for people with visual disabilities, who will be able to listen to the directions with headphones, explained the Vice President and Minister of Culture, Pablo Zuloaga.
The work, which will travel to Madrid although the date has not yet been confirmed, will go after Santander to Roquetas de Mar (Almería), on May 6, and from 11 to 14 it will be performed in Zaragoza.