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Carme Portaceli: “Theatre is an attitude towards life” | Montse Barderi

Carme Portaceli is experiencing a successful moment. She has just premiered El president by Thomas Bernhard at the TNC, and the Teatre Lliure de Gràcia is staging Krum by Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin, directed by her. Portaceli works with some of the country’s best actors, and her name has become a seal of quality. Since the early 1980s, she has been tirelessly directing, teaching at the Institut del Teatre, and conducting workshops. She is the founder and director of FEI (Factoria Escènica Internacional).

She has also been a playwright, winning the Max Award for Best Playwright with Fairy. Her theatrical career includes works memorable to many, such as Cara de foc, L’auca del senyor Esteve, Ricard II, La nostra classe, and Les dues bandoleres by Lope de Vega.

Interview Highlights:

Montse Barderi: What interests you about dramaturgy?
Carme Portaceli: I am interested in bringing texts toward what you believe they want to say, which is what they want to say filtered through your heart, your experience, your vision of life. Reading and bringing the text according to what your concerns dictate to you, your vision of the world, your soul.
M.B: What interests you most about directing?
C.P: I am interested in the possibility of creating the world you want to represent with practically nothing,
searching how to convey what you want and knowing you have a great responsibility with what you are telling and what you are saying. I love working with actors and being able to make what happens alive at that very moment on the stage.
M.B: The other great contribution you have made is teaching?
C.P: I believe we must be capable of leaving our experience, a very important legacy for the future. Without past there is no future, and we in this country know that very well. What I like the most is transmitting the passion for this profession, a luxury, because earning a living playing, doing what you like most, is great luck. And I try for the students to understand that theatre is a way of life, an attitude towards life. And that they have to have fun, that sometimes they will suffer, and above all, that they have to work very hard. As Chaplin said: “There are no geniuses, there is work, work, and work.”
M.B: How did FEI originate?
C.P: FEI was a pioneering initiative at the moment it was born, in 2006. It was launched with the intention of creating a platform of artists that could manage their own shows and also that we could nourish each other. We settled at Nau Ivanow, which until then had never done theatre, and it worked very well. It was exciting because opening a hall to the public, which we constantly filled, meant we had a loyal audience.

At the moment of its birth it was very well received by the profession, by the public, and by critics. Then things changed, economic aid did not come as at the beginning, although it was never large, but it gave us security to think about the future and to plan.

Nau Ivanow became a creation factory and we were left outside. Despite the very hard moments of crisis we have lived together, we have survived, we keep working, we constantly co-produce with Public Theatres, with Festivals, in Barcelona, Madrid… I liked it better when we were all together and we had a space. I believe that having a space is your freedom.

M.B: And you, after many years of work, have been gaining your own space and recognition, to the point that right now you have two productions at the two main public theatres in Catalonia, the TNC and the Teatre Lliure. Not long ago, you premiered Les dues bandoleres by Lope de Vega with the National Classical Theatre Company. The trust from theatre directors and the actors who work with you is undeniable. Do you think critics have understood your theatre with the same conviction? Because it seems that after working so much, every time you premiere something new, they look at it as if it were the first thing you ever did.
C.P: I would answer with a phrase by Maria Jesús Valdés: “It’s not that men don’t want us, it’s that they don’t see us.” I am very satisfied because I owe nothing to anyone. Everything I have done I have done alone and I have been driven by passion for this profession. With all the difficulties women have to be accepted, with the demand to be perfect to justify that we deserve to do what we do, my love for theatre has always been, despite everything, a driving force for me.
M.B: Currently, Krum (El Costra) by the Israeli author Hanoch Levin is being staged at the Teatre Lliure of Gràcia, an author practically unknown here. Who is Hanoch Levin?
C.P: Hanoch Levin is the great Israeli poet, a man who died in 1999, at 55 years old, having already written about 75 texts. A wonderful poet. Krum is possibly one of the most impressive plays I have had in my hands throughout my life. From what I have learned afterwards, and after having been invited twice to the Isra Drama Festival and the Hanoch Levin Festival in Tel Aviv, he is an author adored by theatre people, a very controversial man for his political ideas and his vision of life and the country. And he has some very interesting, wonderful plays. A kind of Fellini-Chekhovian with the structure of Makinavaja and the humor of the Marx Brothers. Ultimately, it talks about life.
M.B: Why do you think it is important to do this play here and now?
C.P: I think that a good play where the protagonists are people is always a good choice. If theatre is a possibility to open the mind, to see other worlds and other lives, a play that talks to you about what life is like is extremely important. And in this case, these protagonists are the poor, the losers, the people who cannot take off beyond a hand’s breadth of land because the weight of their birth does not allow it. And, moreover, from each one you can extract a little piece of yourself.
M.B: Both the chorus structure of the play and the social extraction of the characters, people from humble and marginal classes, reminded me a bit of The Lower Depths by Gorky, which you directed some years ago at the TNC. Both texts have the virtue of capturing poverty, and if necessary human misery, without ever abandoning poetry. How have you worked with the actors to bring out that poetry?
C.P: I learned many years ago that, in addition to common sense — so atypical in this moment of our society, which is possibly the most modern thing that can be brought to the reading of a play — there is something that makes it reach the heart more or less: the tone. Finding the tone of a text is essential to be able to explain to the fullest what you believe it says.

Everything on a stage has to mean something; nothing should be there just for the sake of it. For me, the text, movement, sound space, the stage space, lighting, costumes — everything has to serve to tell the story.

In the case of these two plays, we are talking about the lives of people who could have been any of us. The weight of history, of politics, hovers subtly (sometimes not so subtly) over their heads, and they do what they can with the circumstances they have been dealt. Gorky, due to his era and tradition, I believe is more pessimistic.

Hanoch Levin, at least as I understand him, is a hymn to life, because life is loving, being loved or ceasing to be loved, or falling ill, or growing old, and always dying. And that is life and it is absolutely beautiful. Each person does what they can, or dreams what they have been taught to value as good, but life remains life. This is the greatest song against ego I have encountered throughout my career. Maybe that’s why it’s so well-liked, perhaps now we are entering an era where these egos will no longer be the most valued in the market.

M.B: The protagonist of the play is Krum, a character played by Pere Arquillué. However, Krum ends up being a spectator of a whole gallery of lives that appear on stage like a diorama. The text doesn’t follow a classical structure of setup, conflict, and resolution, but rather a sequence of scenes that give the play a choral dimension. Your movement assistant, Ferran Carvajal, who also assisted you at the TNC with El president, must have been key. How did he work with the actors’ movement and the transitions between scenes?

C.P: Movement is extremely important to me. When I direct, I’m very physical because I believe the body is part of what is happening inside, and it must also signify what is happening inside. It’s not about creating archetypes of characters; it’s about raising expression one degree, raising the diaphragm one more degree, knowing we are doing theatre, not television. The text has to have a truth in the superlative degree, and the excellence of the acting work must be total. And the rigor with which you must work is even more demanding when you take on a more abstract and expressive approach. In Krum there are practically no transitions because life unfolds this way, simultaneously, without permission, without turns.

The intention to create chaos, obviously super-organized and precise, was clear to me from the start. And in this sense, we worked with Ferran, indeed a key piece. He is also very precise, and we understand each other very well. The rehearsals of the entire company, of the whole neighborhood where Costra lives, signify this walk through life searching for a way forward with the background of the song Vedras Vedras by Luigi Tenco, which Jordi Collet found, a key piece in my productions, to express this hope that one day everything will be different.

In El president there is a very different structure, and my obsession that everything elemental on stage is shown openly means that changes happen simultaneously: technicians doing their work and actors preparing for the next scene. And this has to be organic, very precise, and well done. And with a soundtrack, also by Jordi Collet, that accompanies the atmosphere the play needs.

M.B: Krum and El president are two plays responding to very different poetics, but both present characters who, more than dialoguing, often think out loud. Their urgency to speak is stronger than the need to reason, which leads to incontinence. Bernhard’s characters are dominated by solipsism expressed in long, absorbing soliloquies. In Levin’s case, we have characters like the Afflicted or Krum himself, who never fully escape the prison of their thoughts.
C.P: The president and the presidentess need this verbiage to cover what they are truly afraid to admit to themselves: they are no longer loved, they are useless, they only create unhappiness and violence around them. We witness the fall of gods who don’t want to give up privileges and who have not been able to create a happy or dignified life. With this verbiage, Bernhard makes them betray themselves, show who they really are and what they think about things. Finally, he is the President of a democratic republic and cannot say aloud what he really thinks. Their side had lost the war. They need to believe what they believe because it is the only way to stay on top without having a single quality to deserve it. The case of Costra and the Afflicted is different. They suffer a life they never asked for, could not choose, and are victims of their dreams that possibly will never come true. Curiously, one play talks about those at the very top and the other about those at the very bottom.
M.B: I would say that both Bernhard and Levin, like all great contemporary playwrights, know how to stir that layer of our mental life where nothing we say is subconscious but neither is it fully conscious or controlled. It is the space where our fantasies, daydreams, and rumination that have yet to take a fully verbal form dwell. They are characters who speak to find out what they want to say… How did you approach staging in each case?
C.P: In El president it was very important to respect as much as possible the score the author demands (or that I believe he demands), because doing so helps understand better what drives them from one place to another within that unstoppable verbiage. What idea, image, or line of thought makes them jump to another topic at a brutal speed. And finding the dynamic of transitioning as if nothing happened, but knowing from where the thoughts come and where they go. From day one, I saw the whole show had to be frontal, very close to the audience, and all scenes take place within 4 meters of the stage. I also knew that in scenes 1 and 2 the mirror had to face the audience. In Krum (Costra) it was essential that what they say — which is very strong if you think about it — was said without that awareness; they say it out of necessity, with a very concrete intention. And I knew the relationship with the audience had to be as if they all lived among the people and looked at what the people look at.
M.B: One thing that caught my attention is a detail that appears in both productions and seems like a directorial trademark. Both Rosa Renom in El president and Pere Arquillué in Krum stick out their tongues, doing a llengot at certain moments in the play. How should we understand this in each text?
C.P: For the president’s wife, I think her throat hurts, and when it bothers her because some words scratch her throat—like the word patria—after she asks for cough syrup, she sticks out her tongue to check if it hurts. The president also coughs constantly. I believe this is a way Bernhard shows us an unpleasant and intimate side of these monsters. In Krum, it is our own creation: when he speaks to the audience as inhabitants of that neighborhood, saying he will write a novel at the cost of his sufferings and lives and will live fabulously. And he sticks out his tongue affectionately, just like everything in this play, full of love for human beings.
M.B: In these two productions, you have a top-notch cast, both in El president (Rosa Renom, Francesc Orella, Montse Pérez, Daniela Feixas, Josep Costa, Josep Julien, Sergi Misses) and in Krum (Arquillué, Oriol Guinart, Pepa López, Gabriela Flores, Mònica López, Lluïsa Castell, Jordi Brunet, Carmen Negrié). Those who have seen you rehearse say that you always manage to create a great atmosphere of trust and teamwork with the actors. What do you expect from an actor when they join one of your productions? What qualities do you look for in an actor or actress?
C.P: I work a lot with actors and actresses. I demand reaching a very high tone and level of truth, and that requires absolute commitment. I like working with actors; I believe they are the key to theatre. Without them, nothing is possible. I get to know them little by little, I see where they’re going, I see quite a lot, I look for the train of thought, so the idea doesn’t die, so we all go together toward one goal: to tell something that I believe the text says, and to tell it in a complete way—with the body, the voice, the text… I don’t like them to rely on tricks; I want them to take risks. I love the stage and I have a great time in rehearsals. Of course, I also suffer, but I consider that part of my job, part of the process, and something totally intimate that no one else should have to live. If I want to bring out the best in someone, I can’t make their life impossible. Besides, I enjoy myself so much that I adore them—they make me laugh or cry or move me in many ways, day after day. Theatre truly begins when directors are no longer there. It’s just the actors and the audience.

Text extracted from the NUVOL portal

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