For the fifth time, the great lady of the scene takes on the role of Carmen Sotillo, the immortal widow created by Miguel Delibes in
'Cinco horas con Mario'
, which is performed at the Teatro Bellas Artes in Madrid.
What is it like to go on stage in these strange times of pandemic? Very complicated because you are looking to see what day they will tell you not to come to the theater.
It is like a continuous suspense after being locked up at home for months because I, because of my age, am at total risk.
How are you
has it taken?
In this time I have had many low spirits.
He gets along very badly.
There are so many people who are having such a bad time, who have left and who leave daily ... I am a very busy woman and I have placed everything in my house, I have removed it and I have put it back.
But there came a time when there was nothing more to do.
I wanted to fly.
Feel like getting the vaccine?
I do.
When they send me, I put it on.
Do you understand that there are 17 different criteria to manage Covid according to each autonomous community?
It is very complex.
The central government has kept the forms and they have kept us informed.
He has done what he could.
But then I feel terrible that there is no common sense in each president of each region and that they are not able to agree on one thing that concerns us all.
He is a Christ because there are communities that propose initiatives and others that mount a fight over everything.
That doesn't solve anything.
Tension is one of the most negative things for coexistence.
One of the few good things the pandemic has brought is that coughs have disappeared from theaters.
Yes. I think there has been much less colds and flu due to the mask, which has saved us from many things.
And the mobiles?
You left the stage because of a phone that was ringing insistently.
Now they sound less.
There are also fewer people in the seats due to the limited capacity.
What have you rediscovered about the character Carmen Sotillo from 'Five hours with Mario' 41 years later?
Over time new things are discovered.
Now, Carmen has come to the essence.
It is total essence.
With this there are five stages with the character and in each stage we have done a cleaning.
The work is a faithful reflection of the Spain of the Franco regime in the 60s. Are there still traces of that time?
Yes. Until recently they were quite hidden, but now they can be seen.
Some groups have a need to back down, which would be crazy.
And how is he getting along with Carmen?
I recognize that he is a character that I do not like.
She is very human and I understand her.
It is the result of where she was born, who raised her and the society that existed at that time.
I get along very well with her because she gives me a lot of compassion.
I am very saddened by those types of women who attempt against themselves.
Women did not exist.
I work a lot with Carmen's silences, with what she doesn't say.
I work from the inside because she is a walking contradiction.
You have had a conflictive relationship with the work and had to abandon it due to a personal crisis.
He did two shows a day with tours that lasted for months, resting for just one day.
This role has a great burden and is a huge responsibility for a single person.
So, I wasn't wearing even a sound support.
Theaters don't have the necessary acoustics.
Now, at least, I have the support of sound because people have become more deaf.
Deafness is something that you don't want to recognize.
Doing that day by day eats you up.
I was exhausted and depressed.
It is a very hard work to take the character home.
The actors do the exercise of stripping ourselves in the dressing room of the character, but it is undermining you from the inside.
I needed to stop doing the show to catch my breath.
In Barcelona, I passed out within a quarter of an hour after the premiere and it was a tremendous thing.
An actress has to show the viscera, how do you do it?
I don't know how to do it any other way.
I get involved to the depths.
I work with all my internal and external being.
And with all my vital memory.
I use images a lot because in a monologue I have to remember and narrate.
Have you ever gone blank in the middle of a monologue?
Yes, this text is so well written that you cannot remove a comma.
As a word goes away, the paragraph goes away.
You can't spin it.
In the end, you go out because you have the serenity to do it.
She has related that at one time she had no freedom because she was neither single nor separated nor widowed.
During the dictatorship you could not legally separate because you had to say things that were not true in order to manage the separation.
You married for life and if that marriage broke up you were left hanging on one end because you had no rights as a woman.
And the men were not even required to support their children.
It was horrible.
You had no right to anything.
In what else has Lola Herrera been a pioneer?
I have struggled as I could.
At the time when I lived, everything was very difficult.
Now, there are many people who come to this profession with a kick, although many are left behind.
There are actors who, at the first change, are playing a leading role.
So, in the theater and in the cinema there was a path to follow and show that you were qualified for what they entrusted to you.
Now there are many stars with 18 and 20 years.
Although, then, after 50 women have it very difficult.
Board of Directors Sarah Harmon confessed that she had been late to the feminism party.
Has it happened to you too?
Light man.
I go with my daughter to all the protests in the street.
But we couldn't raise our voices.
You had to do social service to get your passport and be able to go abroad.
Social service was knitting, things for babies, learning to cook ... I rebelled and I didn't.
My stomach rose with the things I heard there.
As was?
We were family of losers.
Francoism was neither wanted nor desired and my father told me not to go.
That total was not going to have a car or was going to go abroad
Was there retaliation?
No. I stopped going and that's it.
Concha Velasco said that she suffered harassment from important people in the world of cinema.
And you?
No. I've been lucky.
I know of quite a few colleagues who have had problems, but I have not.
Daniel and I got together right away and got married.
And then later, imagine there had been someone.
I would have sent him to hell.
You made that controversial film "Night Function" in the cinema, in which you opened on the channel when you recounted the relationship crisis with your ex-husband Daniel Dicenta.
It was very hard because it raised a lot of dust.
It's the best thing I've ever done for me, but I paid a pretty heavy price.
I was judged as an exhibitionist, I lost the friendship of colleagues, the family protested ... They did not understand what was happening there, that they were two unfortunates who were talking about how bad something they did with enthusiasm had turned out for them.
Was that one of the reasons you made so little cinema?
No. I was already 45 years old then.
I have not made movies because I was focused on the theater.
I discovered the theater on stage and I went crazy for it.
I really was a radio woman.
I was on Radio Valladolid, then I went to Radio Madrid to the cast of actors and, from there, to the Teatro de la Comedia with Manuel Dicenta, who later became my father-in-law.
They were unsolicited circumstances.
When the shock of the premiere passed, I discovered the magic and passion of theater that lasts until now.
Have you suffered from despotic directors?
Yes. At the time of the dictatorship, the people in charge were a bit of a dictator in general.
In theater and on television, there were very dictatorial people and also very mediocre.
I worked with a lot of mediocre and even bad people.
In what moments of your life have you rebelled?
In many and I continue to rebel now.
Why?
The world we live in, which I don't like at all.
It is very unfair and is becoming more individualistic and a liar.
It is a world of loneliness and relationships are very different.
I don't like the way of relating right now.
Unlike most people, securities bother you.
I do not want a security that does not allow me to fly at a certain time.
I have done all the way of my life like this.
When I have been offered financial security, which is very difficult in this profession, I have always rejected it.
I didn't want to tie myself to something.
Do you sin less and less?
I have almost forgotten what the sins were!
[laughs] Your limits to do something should be the rights of the person in front of you.
I like peace.
You cannot sin of pride.
I am a woman of order.
In these times of surgery and botox, you have done nothing.
I got my neck done when I was 50 because I had a daddy and it looked great on me.
I've had treatments over the years, but I've been doing it all for five or six years.
I only go to the hairdresser.
How do you age with dignity?
You have to know how to celebrate your birthday and accept it.
Accommodate what you can do at your age.
Knowing how to grow old is not easy, especially in a world where old age is so frowned upon.
When you start to see physical deterioration, it makes you uncomfortable.
You see how the ossicles are dislodged.
You have to find other ways to enjoy that is not only external.
We attach great importance to the external.
We live in a society where the only thing that matters is being 20 years old and being spicy.
Young girls start doing things very quickly and, little by little, they lose their physique.
They play here and there and the appearance is lost.
I don't know if they know themselves.
They are horrible.
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