Málaga (Spain) (AFP)
Actor Antonio Banderas inaugurates Friday the theater he founded in his hometown of Malaga, Spain, with the premiere of the musical "A Chorus line" which he is one of the performers.
To mark the opening of the brand new "Teatro del Soho" in Malaga (south), Banderas has chosen a work that evokes the anonymous artists and "all the suffering that is behind" this kind of show, has he explained to the press this week.
The story of "A Chorus line" focuses on "those people who really support the musical theater industry but whose names do not shine in light letters and are not known," he insisted .
He himself is one of 26 performers. He plays Zach, a choreographer who has to audition other artists.
Banderas imported a classic from the American musical, which had broken records for longevity in New York while being shown, without stopping, from 1975 to 1990 on Broadway.
An orchestra of 22 musicians accompanies the live show, in this new theater of more than 800 places.
"A chorus line" will then tour Spain, for performances in Bilbao (north), Barcelona (north-east) and Madrid.
"Then we have to see if there is the opportunity to make the leap to America," said Banderas, who hopes the show - "in Spanish" - can be presented in New York.
Banderas inaugurates this theater six months later after being awarded at the Cannes Film Festival by the prestigious Prix d'interprétation hommes for his role in the film "Pain and Glory" by his compatriot Pedro Almodovar.
The infarction he suffered in 2017 and the delicate operations of the heart that followed prompted the actor to realize without delay his dream of opening a theater in the city that saw it born in 1960.
He has committed to invest over 200,000 euros a year in the institution, sponsored by a Spanish bank.
To direct him, he hired Lluis Pasqual, a former director of the Spanish National Drama Center, the Odeon Theater in Paris, the Venice Theater Biennial and the Lliure Theater in Barcelona.
The actor recalls that Lluis Pasqual had "changed his life", in 1981, by giving him a role at the national theater in Madrid, before Almodovar did it to the cinema in 1982.
© 2019 AFP