Mª-Yolanda Fernández-Suárez

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University of Burgos | Published: 15 March, 2011
ISSUE 6 | Pages: 103-111 | PDF | DOAJ | https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2011-2219

Juan Pastor Millet was born in Alicante in 1943. He has a degree in Drama and did his training with William Layton and Arnold Taraborrelli in Laboratorio T.E.I.1 Till 1980 he worked as a theatre, cinema and TV actor. As an independent director he has produced plays by both Spanish and foreign contemporary authors, and also by classic ones like Calderón de la Barca, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Molière, Ibsen, Strindberg and Brecht. From 1987 till 2006 he combined his job as a director with his job as a Drama teacher at RESAD (Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático). In November 2003 he opened his own Studio and Theatre House in Madrid – Guindalera. From then on he devotes all his time to the family project Guindalera Escena Abierta  together with his wife Teresa Valentín-Gamazo and their daughter, the actress María Pastor. In 2009 while they were celebrating Brian Friel’s 80^th anniversary staging three of his plays – El Juego de Yalta, Molly Sweeney and Bailando en Lughnasa – they were awarded the prestigious “Premio Ojo Crítico de Teatro” for their commitment to new authors and their pedagogical character.2

“Guindalera” takes its name from the neighbourhood where the theatre is located but also after Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard as this dramatist is the leading spirit of the risky but solid project that provides a steady job for about twenty people. These heroic entrepreneurs have to work hard to maintain their activities without any government funding, being totally independent (Ortega Dolz). That is why, apart from the little auditorium that can take up to 70 something people, they have to diversify their offer holding an actors’ studio; they also organize campaigns for private and public institutions to form and educate new audiences – “Trasteatro” aimed at teenagers and “Entra en Escena” for young people.  All of it helps finance the auditorium and gives them enough stability to stage around five or six plays a year.

It is precisely playing to such a small house that made this family revive an art-house theatre that aims at becoming a cult venue for theatre-lovers and establishing direct communication with their audiences. In this age prone to excessive displays of resources and theatrical effects, Teatro Guindalera claims an imagination shared with their audience while seeking to forge a closer relationship with them by creating a cosy atmosphere. In their auditorium the distances are so close that you can read in the actors’ eyes and even hear them breathing, which makes it really easy to connect emotionally. This close contact continues after the play as the company offers their audience a liqueur – morello cherry, after their name – while chatting to them about what they have just seen and how they have perceived it.

I first became aware of this little theatre venue when hearing they were performing a Friel’s play. When doing some research on the scope of Brian Friel in Spanish theatre I discovered that, in fact, Juan Pastor is the director that has more often staged his plays.3 I interviewed him to know more about his interest for Friel and to gain a better insight into why this playwright is not so well-known in Spain as in other countries. María Pastor welcomes me and while waiting for Juan Pastor, she comments that her father is a devoted fan of the Irish dramatist and that they have been in correspondence for months.

Q: María was telling me about your fascination with Friel and the letters you have exchanged.

A: Corresponding with us is a nice gesture of him. They are cherished letters, type-written and with ink corrections as well. In his letters Friel comes across as a very friendly person who would love to come back to Spain but he says he’s been quite ill.

Q: One of the key interests of your theatre is that it offers the possibility to get to know playwrights whose plays have rarely been performed in Spain and Friel is a good example of this; when did you first become interested in his work?

A: I think it was in London many years ago but before that I already knew him because I was working in a little theatre in calle Magallanes, called Pequeño Teatro.4 This goes back to Franco’s times with the T.E.I. Those of us who worked in the theatre in those times were militants, we risked our lives. The police was closing down the theatre now and again.

Q: Do you mean the time in which Jose Carlos Plaza staged one of his plays, Amantes?5

A: That’s right. They were two short plays: Amantes: Vencedores y Vencidos. Plaza and me, we were both William Layton’s students. I was an actor but I didn’t work in these plays. I think that was the first time I knew about Friel. Years later in London I went to see Dancing at Lughnasaand had the sudden impulse to produce it; maybe because among his famous plays it is the most theatrical one, there are many characters, a lot of action, different levels… Eventually, we produced it in 1999. That’s how everything started. There are usually unexpected circumstances. You do these things by an impulse, a strong impulse. Then, of course, I admire Chekhov and Friel does, too. That’s also the main reason why we have chosen Molly Sweeney and El Juego de Yalta, because of their closeness with Chekhov and my fondness of him.

Q: How do you approach the texts, in English or through a translation?

A: It depends. In the past, even in those difficult times of Franco’s regime, there were many texts published in Spanish -mainly by South American publishers like Hélice, which published all the plays that were produced. However, nowadays it is very difficult to find texts in Spanish.

Q: Yes. I have done some research and Friel’s plays seem to have been translated into the main European languages but not into Spanish.6 So did you use the original version and then adapted it to Spanish?

A: I wouldn’t call it an adaptation but a meticulous translation. They were difficult to translate but when you already know the theatre language you realize that the key lies not in the text but in the subtext. That’s why Friel is an admirer of Chekhov, because Chekhov is the master of subtext. Even in a little play like my favourite – La señora del perrito (The Lady with the Lapdog)– which is so elegant, so full of poetry, even in this one the subtext is the key, in this particular case a poetical subtext. What is relevant is not what is said but what happens. If you have some experience you can even guess what the next line of the text is going to say. Then you have to consider the style, of course. Nevertheless, I believe that the key lies in what happens rather than in what is said. At least, that’s how I have approached these plays.

Q: After such hard work translating the plays, have you ever thought of publishing them?

A: It is not worth doing unless there is an institution interested in it. Who’s going to buy them? I am a member of the Asociación de Directores (ADE) and they publish a lot. The problem is that it’s not worth it even for this type of association, which is subsidized. Then Teatro Español used to publish plays but they have stopped doing so. Plays are no longer published. When a play is published it is in the hope that it will be staged and the copyright will bring the benefits that the book is not going to give you. But the book on its own is a financial ruin.

Q: It seems to me that after such an important effort and hard work it could be worth publishing it just from the literary or academic point of view, not necessarily with a view to staging them for the sake of the theatre-going public.

A: We are not interested in that, what we are interested in is the theatre, unless they give you some kind of grant for that specific purpose. We would accept it gladly but it just doesn’t happen to be like that. I remember the first time we staged Bailando en Lughnasa. When looking for some help from the Irish embassy they ignored us. Now the new ambassador seems to be closer to the Spanish-speaking world, as his wife is Argentinean. He is a fan of Friel as well and when he came to see our production of Bailando en Lughnasa he was elated. He said he had seen this play in the US, Canada, Ireland and other places but that he had never enjoyed it so much. But till now the Irish authorities in Spain haven’t shown any interest. I recall the cultural attaché saying that the Spanish and Irish worlds were so close that there was no need to promote Ireland in Spain. Well, it’s in fact the opposite attitude of the Instituto Alemán, for example. You cannot imagine how much they invest in order to promote their culture, not only in Spain but also in South America. Once we went on tour to South America with all the expenses paid by the German government. But Ireland has always neglected this aspect.

Q: So, going back to the translation, you consider that being accurate is essential, don’t you?

A: Yes, that’s right. It is different when I am doing an adaptation. Now I am working on a play that will be a free version, but only when the playwright is alive and you get his permission to do it or you do it in collaboration with him. In general, I prefer working with authors that are alive so that we can exchange opinions about the text. But I would never manipulate a play written by someone else and then maintain his/her name on the programme.

Q: And in the performance how do you approach some Frielian elements like the music pieces that are essential in plays like Bailando en Lughnasa? Do you follow his suggestions or choose other pieces?

A: In some cases the pieces we have used were suggested by him and, in other cases, I interpret what he’s telling me through what he proposes in his stage directions and adapt it to my idea of the show, but trying not to betray the spirit of the play.

Q: As for the reception that Friel’s plays have had, can we say that they are accessible for a Spanish audience in spite of dealing with local topics?

A: Yes. They are readily comprehensible. The public can picture them perfectly well. For instance,Bailando en Lughnasa is easy to relate to, at least for my generation. Everything that goes on in that play reminded me of my aunts. It shows a reality so close to the Spanish one!

Q: In this respect, were any changes needed when doing it in Spanish? We can see that you kept the title as close as possible to the original one – Bailando en Lughnasa – while the film version by Pat O’Connor released in Spain in 1998 was translated as El Baile de Agosto.7

A: In this particular case, I think we have to put it down to the impulse you receive. You consider if it is more or less commercial, more or less attractive, whether you want to remain accurate to the playwright or not. Concerning this I am very thorough. You work with an author but you cannot take his place. Moreover, on this occasion I thought the title was very attractive even if you did not understand its meaning because it sounds mysterious and it calls your attention. When people were speaking about the play they used to say Bailando en Lúna-I-don’t-know-what, but they were already fascinated by it.

Q: After the play both director and actors meet the audience and exchange ideas and opinions over a drink. When chatting to the audience, did anybody ask about this Lughnasa festival?

A: Curiously enough, they didn’t. However, this was precisely what attracted me the most the first time I saw the play in London: what lies behind the myth, the harvest festivals that are still celebrated in some villages in the north of Ireland, England and France. It fascinated me how those generations still maintained a close contact with the land.

Q: The critic from El País – Javier Vallejo (2009) – described the 1999 production of Bailando en Lughnasa as “bright” while he considered the latest production as “more melancholic”. I would like to know if there have been any changes in the text or the production that can have caused this difference.

A: From my point of view, and I told him personally: “Javier, it’s you who sees everything differently. You were very young in 1999.”  On the other hand, yes the text is the same but the production can never be the same. For instance, it’s true that the colours had varied: they were brighter in the first one and may have been more melancholic in the last one. But this was just a change in the lighting. However, the costume was very similar. I consider these simply unimportant nuances.

Q: So we can put the change in perception down to the critic’s personal circumstances; similarly, you are also a different person, we all change with time.

A: Of course. I had planned to do the same production but, naturally, when you are producing a play you are working with material that is alive so, obviously, it’s not going to be exactly the same. You never have the same resources, you are older, and the milieu is different. That’s what is so wonderful about the theatre, its greatness lies in that. It has nothing to do with a museum or the cinema.

Q: I would like to know whether a director feels freer when choosing a playwright that is not well-known in Spain, as the audience does not have any specific expectations.

A: Not at all, just the opposite. You are staking a lot when you are opening a new production of an unknown dramatist because you run more risks. It is very difficult. People usually come to the theatre due to indirect references, because of famous actors, but a more serious audience goes to see the play of a dramatist they already know. So with a play by Lorca, for instance, you can guarantee an audience but with someone like Friel you are staking a lot.

Q: Well, but here in Teatro Guindalera you have already created your own audience (Ortega Dolz), people who come regularly because they know you and trust what you do and because they want to discover new playwrights.

A: Yes, that happens with some theatres, for example in London. There are wonderful little theatres where you know that the show is close to your likes or where you are guaranteed certain level in their shows, although then they can be very varied.

Q: And which do you think are the reasons why Friel is hardly known in Spain in spite of being generally acknowledged as one of the greatest contemporary playwrights in the world, even by some Spanish critics? (Vallejo 2008; Díaz).

A: Unfortunately, this is logical in Spain because here the theatre programme planning is very deficient. We are still suffering from the backlash from Franco’s regime. It happens not only with Friel but with any other authors well-known around the world that are completely ignored in Spain. And not only the contemporary ones but the great authors like Ibsen, Strindberg, etc they are not programmed. There are no publications. The industry, if we can consider it as such, is extremely deficient.

Q: As far as I know, some of Friel’s plays have been performed in Catalonia.8 Is there more theatre activity in Catalonia than in Madrid do you think?

A: No, not really. What happened in Catalonia is that there wasn’t any theatre infrastructure during the regime while in Madrid there was an infrastructure but it was terrible, with outdated impresarios. Therefore, the former infrastructure hasn’t allowed the new one to develop while in Catalonia it was created from scratch, and being something new it has developed with fewer difficulties. But don’t think that there are more projects going on than in Madrid: there are only four or five companies such as the Lliure, the National Theatre Company and some more. In fact, there are many actors from Catalonia who end up coming to Madrid in search of work. On the other hand, the school – Institut del Teatre – has been very influential. It has produced many generations of well-trained actors.  And we can’t forget the fact that Catalonia is closer to Europe so it’s more open to European influences. As for Friel, it is really difficult that his plays can be performed in commercial theatres, because he is not known and nobody wants to take the risk. Producers look for plays that are safe – that are known to be successful.

Q: As for Bailando en Lughnasa, you opened it in Madrid in 1999.  Did you go on tour outside Madrid?

A: Yes, we did some towns. We did about fifteen towns and cities more or less, mainly in this autonomous region.

Q: When we first met last Christmas (2009) you commented something about performing Bailando en Lughnasa in other venues.

A: Yes, there was the possibility of performing in a commercial theatre, but it didn’t come up. Well, we usually have many plans but several times they get thwarted. We had also planned to work in “Los Veranos de la Villa”,9 in an open-air theatre, but it didn’t happen either. We thought that Bailando en Lughnasa was a perfect play to be performed in the summer. We considered that it could be heard very well in an open-air theatre, we believed that the public was more mature as we had already our own public, but in the end it wasn’t possible.

Q: From the point of view of the audience, how have Friel’s plays been received?

A: Very well indeed. It wasn’t only the public; the critical reviews were excellent for the three plays.10

Q: Yes, I have read some of them on your webpage and I was wondering if the fact that famous critics – like Luis María Ansón or Javier Vallejo – acclaim a play, will that attract more public to see it?

A: It is being very successful but why?11 Because there are some actors from TV series, not because of Arthur Miller.

Q: Isn’t it a bit contradictory? Because we tend to think that people who feel attracted to the theatre are the ones who are not so keen on watching TV.

A: Frankly, I do not know if there are some people left who enjoy the theatre. You find us in a difficult moment right now so we feel quite pessimistic.12 We have been working for years and this type of project is really hard to maintain. Anyway, our job is basically doing the rounds, day to day, little by little but when something goes wrong it brings us to a standstill.

Q: So, going back to the comprehensibility of Friel’s plays and considering that only a few of them have been onstage here in Spain, do you think some of his plays require certain atmosphere, a specific historical moment or a particular situation to be performed or, on the contrary, that they are timeless?

A: Personally, I think that Friel will be a classic like Chekhov, because he deals with the human being, the mystery in his relationships, his behaviour, regardless of the merely superficial historical or localized data. For instance, Molly Sweeney is a wonderful play that tells us not only about the human condition but also the mystery of life and what reality is, whether it is real. He is a classic, a classic still alive and he deals with topics that we can find in every culture.

Q: Absolutely. But I was posing this question because the last time we spoke it was you who told me about the performance of Translations in the Basque Country.13 And according to my notes it was done in the late eighties, very few years after Friel wrote it. I believe there must have been a reason why it was done in Basque rather than in Spanish, don’t you think so?

A: Possibly, but I don’t know why or rather I don’t want to go into it.

Q: I have been working on the translation of this play and think that, if another director ever stages it, it would work better with an audience from Galicia, Catalonia or the Basque Country, as they would be more aware of the stark contrast between the two cultures and languages that clash onstage.

A: Possibly, but that doesn’t happen with the plays we have chosen as they are more neutral from this point of view. They are less anecdotal but deeper. The anecdote covers something deeper and is not as relevant as Friel’s mature consideration of deeper issues.

Q: When I was talking to your daughter, she mentioned that in your correspondence with Friel he suggested that you stage Faith Healer next. Why do you think he thought of this play? Are you planning to do it?

A: Well, I had started to consider staging it and in one of his last letters he sent the play saying “it would be fantastic that you did this one”.  I don’t know why. It was just pure coincidence as I hadn’t mentioned anything to him.

Q: Has he seen any of your plays?

A: The only one he has seen is Bailando en Lughnasa. We first sent him a dossier with the critical reviews, photographs, newspaper articles, etc and, as we saw he was still interested in our projects, we sent him the DVD of our production. That’s when he answered saying he would love to come back to Spain. Apparently we had been here some years ago and he had enjoyed it very much, especially Avila. He insisted he wanted to come back with his wife but his health was precarious as he had suffered two strokes. As for staging Faith Healer, when you choose a play it first has to attract you. Personally, I never produce a play that is commissioned. I have always started with an impulse, something that has me in its grip. Then you have to start considering the audience for this type of play, the resources that are available, etc and, if you can afford it, then carry on. First the impulse: reading the play and, if it captures my attention and I find something mysterious that I get hooked on, then I proceed with the moment of reflection in which you consider mainly your resources. I believe in the process. That’s the way I usually work but other directors in Spain are commissioned for a specific project. I have retired from my job as a teacher in order to be freer and maintain this project.

Q: You might be retired and freer but you are more committed at the same time.

A: Well, yes. I always say we are in what we can consider the underground; but very happy to be here.

Q: Having a satisfying feed back from your audience must certainly help you.

A: Yes, but mainly being completely independent, because we are.

Q: So what is demanded from a director when he/she is subsidised? Is he restricted in any way?

A: To start with, how much financial help is there? Just scraps. The subsidies go mainly to Centro Dramático Nacional, Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico, Teatro de la Zarzuela, these are spending millions; and also Teatro la Abadía, whose grants made sense originally. It would be more logical and ideal to distribute all the huge amounts of money that they receive. I once worked it out and, just with the subsidy allotted to Teatro La Abadía, we could set up more than one hundred little theatres like ours all over Spain. And you can’t imagine the amounts of money invested on Centro Dramático Nacional. And then, the little money left goes to the more commercial productions – comedies with actors from TV series – that aim at filling the theatres. It’s amazing this new trend of Spanish TV series; and the musicals, too. It’s just amazing.14

Q: I completely agree that distributing the money fairly would make more sense. Just to finish this interview I would like to thank you for your time and pleasant chat. And I hope you can find a solution to your current problems soon.

Madrid. Teatro Guindalera. 23.10.2010.

APPENDIX

Directors/companies that have staged Friel’s plays in Spain (in chronological order).15

Jose Carlos Plaza
1972, Amantes: Vencedores Y Vencidos
2006 / 2008, Afterplay

Pere Planella
1988, Agur Eire…. Agur
1993, Dansa D’agost

Luis Iturri (d.1998)
1994, Bailando En Verano

Juan Pastor Millet
1999-2000 and 2009-2010, Bailando En Lughnasa
2007-2008, 2009, El Juego De Yalta
2008-2009, Molly Sweeney

La Funcional Teatre
2000, Dansa D’agost

Ignacio Aranaz
2004, Después De La Función

Fernando Xicu Masó
2004, El Fantástic Francis Hardí (Faith Healer)

Joan Peris
2005, Molly Sweeney

Teatro Do Atlántico
2010, Afterplay

Xulio Lago
2010, O Xogo De Yalta

1. Teatro Experimental Independiente, set up in 1968 by a group of directors after the dissolution of the former T.E.M. (Teatro Estudio de Madrid), which had been founded by William Layton, Narros, Vicuña and Betsy Berkley. Layton was an American actor that had studied following the Stanislasvki method and had first come to Spain in 1955. As a teacher he became the driving force behind the TEI and was highly influential on a number of current directors. This type of experimental theatre has a specific nuance in Spain as it alludes to the theatre productions staged in the last years of the dictatorship after the experience of some experimental North American companies and clearly opposing the regime. [↩]
2. El Ojo Crítico is a radio programme with cultural news that has been being broadcasted for over twenty five years from Monday to Friday on RNE, Radio 1 from 19.00 to 20.00 pm. It supports new artists and current, vibrant culture, awarding yearly prizes to different forms of artistic expression. What makes its prize different from other awards is that the winners are directly nominated by the jury. The first theatre prize was awarded in 1979. [↩]
3. See the appendix at the end of this article for a list of directors and plays produced in Spain. [↩]
4. Opened in Madrid in 1955, it staged plays by Arrabal, Ionesco or Beckett, becoming a small oasis in the cultural desert of the dictatorship. [↩]
5. In fact, Jose Carlos Plaza is the first Spanish theatre director to stage a Friel play –the one mentioned here- as early as 1972. It was not till much later, in 2006 and 2008, when he directed the more well-known Afterplay, with Blanca Portillo and Helio Pedregal playing the two characters. [↩]
6. In French the poet Alain Delahaye has translated most of Friel’s plays (Crystal et Fox, Amants, Philadelphia, à nous deux!, Les amours des Cass McGuire, Trois pieces selon (après Anton Tchekjov), Communication, Traductions, Molly Sweeney, Guérisseur, La Terre Natale and Danser à la Lughnasa; all of them published by L’Avant-Scène Théâtre.  In Italian Friel has been translated by Carla De Petris (1996) “Traduzioni” e Altri Drammi
   [Faith Healer, Translations, Lúnasa], Roma: Bulzoni Editore;  in Portuguese, by Paulo Eduardo Carvalho (2000) O Fantástico Francis Hardy, Curandeiro; Traducoes; Dancas a um Deus Pagao; Molly Sweeney, Univ. Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro. For translations in other languages see The Brian Friel Papers. Held in the National Library of Ireland, they contain a vast collection of documents related to Friel’s career and creative process from 1959 through 2000. [↩]
7. Some critics agree that it was probably complicated to maintain the full meaning of the Gaelic word Lughnasa, the harvest festival in honour of Lugh, sun god of the Celtic Pantheon, very much alive in the Catholic Ireland of the play’s time (García Garzón 2009) and a Celtic festival that is a copy of Our Lady’s festival in August in Spain (Vallejo 2009). Other Spanish theatre directors that have done this play also chose the easy option: Pere Planella with Dansa D’agost and Luis Iturri with Bailando En Verano (See Appendix). [↩]
8. Pere Planella: 1993, Dansa d’agost; La Funcional Teatre (Casino Menestral Figuerenc): 2000,Dansa d’agost;  Fernando Xicu Masó, Teatre Romea: 2004, El fantástic Francis Hardí (Faith Healer). [↩]
9. t is a cultural summer festival that takes place in Madrid in different venues, both indoors and outdoors. [↩]
10. http://www.guindalera.com/index.htm, clicking on “Montajes” and then on the poster for the play. The reviews for Friel’s plays were: on El Juego de Yalta (Ansón and Villán 2008); on Molly Sweeney(García Garzón 2008); on Bailando en Lughnasa (García Garzón 2009, Vallejo 2009 and Villán 2010). [↩]
11. The play was Todos eran mis hijos (All My Sons) that was staged from September 9h to October 31st. [↩]
12. When we met for the interview (23 Oct. 2010) they had had to cancel their show because the leading actress had broken her arm. They were at a complete standstill until they could replace her a few weeks later. [↩]
13. It was produced in San Sebastian in March 1988 by Pere Planella, founder of Teatre Lliure, in collaboration with the Companies Tanttaka and Topo. The title in Basque was Agur Eire…. agur (Goodbye, Eire… goodbye), translated by Teresa Calo Fontan (Brian Friel Papers, MS 37,085 /8 andMS 37, 087/27). It was also staged in the XIII Festival Internacional de Teatro Vitoria-Gasteiz in autumn of the same year. [↩]
14. During the Ojo Crítico Awards ceremony his wife Teresa Valentín-Gamazo made a similar claim for government grants to enable schemes like Guindalera Teatro to survive, asking the Minister of Culture to pay more attention to the small projects rather than spending millions focusing on big events (www.guindalera.com, cliking on “Noticias”: “Entrega del Premio Ojo Crítico”). [↩]
15. Apart from these plays, Translations was staged in Barcelona by the Abbey Theatre company –English version with subtitles in Catalan- on their European tour in 2001. [↩]