In Homeland he imagined the first independent candidate with real options to lead the Generalitat. It was 2012, after the historic Diada that brought together more than 1.5 million Catalans under the motto Catalonia, the new state of Europe. But he had started writing it five years ago: then, the story had no credibility. An independent president in Catalonia? There was a time when it looked like science fiction. And the playwright Jordi Casanovas anticipated it from the theater. Now, he is finishing the first work that talks about the process and that will premiere on October 2 in Manlleu.
Some dies d'ahir (Some days yesterday) focuses on the events of October 2017 , on how a normal family suffers from political shocks. "It is time to reflect now that we no longer live such an electric period," says Jordi Casanovas in a bar in the center of Girona, the city where he has lived for a year and a half. Here, in the place that Carles Puigdemont ruled and traditional independence fief, all the streets are full of yellow ties, all the squares decorated with posters calling for Freedom for political prisoners or a Catalan Republic . Girona was one of the first towns to baptize a square as October 1: the City Council voted by majority to change the name to the Plaza de la Constitución in 1979.
- The public is dying of current affairs. But in Spain we are not used to making fictions about real events. In the United Kingdom it is common and the public responds very well, the fiction code is accepted and that some things may vary and be different. Here there is some reluctance on the part of a critical sector.
Jordi Casanovas understands theater as a space of risk. Although no public theater supports Some dies d'ahir, he has stubbornly pushed it forward with his own production company. At 42 he has written more than 40 plays and has staged about thirty. He does not keep track or give much importance. Jordi Casanovas writes compulsively, devours reality to explain it with fiction.
- Why is the process just about fiction?
- Many creators do not dare or give them laziness. And they are partly right. When I released Homeland , everyone asked me: 'What do you defend? Are you for or against?
He sighs with resignation. And it follows:
- I do theater! But everyone wanted an answer. We lived a moment of much polarization. With some dies d'ahir I want to make a more complex and subtle reflection. There are no black and white solutions. There is a need to understand, to explain these convulsive moments. I don't remember living anything like it. Those days can already be explained, if we take a long time the emotional memory is transformed ...
- How do you remember those days of October?
- I was about to pack because it seemed we were going to kill all of them. There was a pre-war feeling.
- Is packing a literal thing or a way of speaking?
- Literal. And on top of that I was reading about the Balkan War and I became absolutely paranoid. In the end, I have come to the conclusion that the big difference between what happened in the Balkans and the situation in Catalonia is the issue of religion, it is what made it go a step further. It is no coincidence that now two works on Sarajevo coincide on the theatrical billboard in Barcelona: it is a mirror in which to look with distance. Here the word war has been frivolized a lot and true barbarities have been said.
- In his work he flees violence and the image of a broken family.
- Yes, I was interested in trying how external reality and politics can turn a family's life, how suddenly their problems and small personal dramas go to the background. I wanted to break the topic that talking about politics is synonymous with discussing. My characters try to convince and dialogue: they are a father, a mother, a son and a daughter.
The Font family could be anyone: a mother retired from teaching (due to a low due to depression), a rather conservative father, an independentist son and the university daughter who is looking for a flat in Barcelona and who is not interested in independence or independence. contrary. The work begins a few days after the jihadist attacks of La Rambla and will have an epilogue in October 2019, with the reaction to the trial judgment of the process .
The family is a recurring concept in the production of Casanovas. In his trilogy about Catalan identity - Patria, Una catalana y Vilafranca - he raised a subtle political reflection on what it means to be Catalan. For that, he looked back at his own origins. Jordi Casanovas grew up in Vilafranca, home of the castellers , where life passes quietly and the biggest event of the year is the Festa Major. Surrounded by the Penedès vineyards and the main Catalan wineries, Vilafranca is a municipality with 39,000 inhabitants and strong roots and traditions.
- As a child I played in the street with all the children in the neighborhood. He knew everyone's last name, except those of a family. We simply called them "the Castilians." For us it was normal. But when you think about it after the years, you wonder if everything really was as good as we thought it was ... Now it is a question that is not even necessary. In the 90s and 2000s, there was much talk about a poble sun, something that today would have to be called into question.
A poble sun ... A concept that was forged in the anti-Franco struggle of the late 60s and which the Pujolismo took hold of. Casanovas has one thing pending: his biopic about Jordi Pujol. A couple of years ago, he tried to promote an ambitious project for 14 actors but remained in stand by.
- It was a very large work and does not look like any Catalan public theater will finance it.
- What do you think that so far this year Jordi Pujol has appeared twice on TV3 to talk about issues such as cooperation?
- Talk about everything but yours ... And you wonder: What's going on?
- Lately it is lavished a lot by Madrid. With the LaJoven company he has released Gazoline , which is now in Barcelona. And Jauría has been a phenomenon with sold out tickets, extended in the Pavón. Surprising that this does not come to Barcelona ...
- It has many functions closed by the Catalan territory. But none in Barcelona, it's true.
- Why, not even at the Grec Festival?
- I don't have an answer ... [shrugs and smiles wryly]
- His colleague Marta Buchaca , also a playwright, complained on Twitter that it seems that Catalan talent in Madrid seems to be valued more than here. What do you think?
- In Madrid they are more practical: if something works, they program it. In Catalan public theaters there is a lot of nepotism. It is something that also happens in Madrid, but there the private circuit is more powerful.
Eight years ago, Casanovas appeared at the direction of the National Theater of Catalonia (TNC). He was told that he was too young and the Generalitat appointed veteran Xavier Albertí . He does not think about performing again but he does defend the work of the public: «If the public theater does not bet on the new playwrights there will be no classics in the future». He has already written a few. And after an intense period of documentary theater (to highlight: Ruz / Bárcenas or the recent Valenciana , against the backdrop of the crime of Alcásser, the rise of Zaplana and the route of the bakalao), he wants to prove some terror.
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