Eduardo Villanueva |
Cáceres (EFE).- In his particular “journey of the fierce monster”, the title of his latest show, the actor and playwright Rafael Álvarez, “El brujo”, reviews his theatrical self and analyzes the relations of this art with the political class. “There is contempt, even hatred, towards the theater,” he affirmed in an interview with EFE.
Although he is a regular at the Cáceres Classical Theater Festival, which this year celebrates its 34th edition, Rafael Álvarez ‘El Brujo’ had not been on stage in the monumental Plaza de San Jorge for ten years.
In “El viaje del monstruo fiero”, the man from Córdoba sews his last four shows through the autobiographical thread of his theatrical ‘I’, while reflecting on this art and the complicated relationship between politicians, all with a staging minimalist scene. “The important thing is the strength of the word,” he points out.
“This is a very difficult profession. It has gone very well for me, but I have had to work a lot; You cannot imagine -he insists- what I have fought, even with the public to be able to attract it to a type of language ”. “Until the public finds it convincing what you do is all a struggle,” she adds.
Once this embryonic phase has been overcome in their daily work, the second one arrives. “Critics and connoisseurs come, and then there are politicians and festival directors… all the paraphernalia of people who make a living from this profession, but who are not from the trade.”
The conclusion is that it is “a huge struggle” with the addition that now “young people have it much more difficult.”
“There is a normal fear of not being able to survive, an anguish of not making ends meet that makes us docile and fearful, and the institutions have taken advantage of this, with great ignorance of this art, to get rid of the budgets dedicated to theater ”, he criticizes without biting his tongue both on one side and on the other of the political sphere.
The financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 brought a string of cuts with the death rattles of the governments of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy. “It was aberrational that the theater had a VAT of 21% and football, 10%. It was not a symptom of indifference towards the theater, it was contempt, even hatred, ”he adds.
All this was, in his opinion, “the desire to put an end to these showbiz people who are going to bother us.” “It happens to politicians of all colors,” he remarks during the interview.
In his opinion, “the recent left, that inflamed, indignant and hysterical resentment left, it is no longer that it is countercultural or paracultural, it is that it is acultural; It is outside of the culture. It professes a culture of slogans and political activism, but it is a much tamer left than it is believed.
The comedian, who for his genuine improvisations looks at the present and the society that surrounds him, makes jokes about politicians. “Humour, if it is genuine, is healthy because you start by laughing at yourself. You laugh at a politician, but you are also laughing at yourself because you think: “and I would vote for him”.
“I laugh at life itself, at the paradox that is life in which we are involved; from the left and the right, well, in the end, each one sees the world as he sees it and this -he maintains- is nonsense ”.
In line with all this, and when asked about the political situation in Extremadura, Rafael Álvarez sees it as “a very typical farce of Extremadura society, a very direct society, very folksy, but also a bit local.”
“I see him as sympathetic to a certain extent, because this woman -in reference to the popular candidate María Guardiola- is a bit of a farce character, but the other one too”, alluding to the regional leader of Vox Ángel Pelayo Gordillo.
He recommends “detente” to both, an exercise that allows them to think better about problems. “If you get too angry and think that you are right and everyone else is totally wrong, you become dogmatic, hysterical and unbearable.”
“Let them take it easy and try to reach an agreement; if not, then they repeat the elections and that’s it”, affirms the actor, who maintains that Guardiola’s political position when it comes to “not wanting to swallow with Vox is fine”. “It seems to her that she doesn’t have to go there, because she seems very good to me,” he says.