2023-06-08 16:54:13
David Botello, the most televised face of historical disclosure, does not tremble when mixing things that seem irreconcilable. Not because he puts pineapple on the pizza or dips the churros in the soda, but because he appears on stage with a risky bet and full of jokes. in his monologue ‘Felipe V: the King who gave us a frog’which represents this Friday and the next in the Luchana Theatersunites humor with tragedy, history with comedy and rigor with art to recount, in its own way, the eventful landing of the first Bourbon Monarch in Spain.
«In that balance between comedy and tragedy we Spaniards have a great teacher named Cervantes. In the Quijote’ he manages to write a comedy that, at the same time, often turns into a great tragedy. And for something in the monologue I say that Felipe V is the most quixotic of our kings, among other things because of that stage in Seville in which he even began to have very serious hallucinations, “explains Botello, who has been dedicating himself to spreading the word since 2015. history on television formats such as ‘El punto sobre la historia’ (Telemadrid), on the radio with ‘The story on the road’ (Cadena SER) or through half a dozen history books.
The tragicomedy in question is the strange behavior that Felipe V showed from his first day in Spain. He arrived in the country as an extremely shy teenager, unable to attend his own councils of ministers, and when it was finally opened, what appeared was a person with serious mental problems who at times saw ghosts and at others believed he was a frog. «This is a very unknown King who, however, played a very important role in the history of Spain. He arrived with melancholy, which was a way of calling depression, and after the Succession War he developed bipolarity with very surprising episodes such as overnight not feeling his limbs or thinking his head was going to fall off. », assures Botella about the starting point of his text.
After the death of his first wife, Maria Luisa Gabriela of Savoy, the King developed new psychoses and disorders that turned the court into nonsense. «One day he became obsessed with the fact that the sun had attacked him and another that he was dead and had to be buried. Convinced that his wife had been the victim of a curse, he decided not to change his clothes for several years, so that he was in tatters and exposing his shame”, outlines the author of ‘Felipe V: the King who came out as a frog’ about some of the topics he deals with in his work.
Not satisfied with the result, the King stopped cutting his hair, washing, cutting his nails and began to receive people in bed. «The bad smell was very famous. There are several letters that comment that many of those who were close to Felipe had to leave the room so as not to vomit, “he points out.
“There are several letters that comment that many of those who were close to Felipe had to leave the room so as not to vomit”
There are few precedents for a historical disclosure monologue in the style of Botello, which does not make playing on the tables ugly. The closest thing is the actor’s pieces Rafael Alvarez ‘The Witcher’ or historical monologues such as those shell velasco he played Juana la Loca, but without reaching the very particular style of his text. «I take a very powerful story to spread it and, at the same time, make people have a good time. Yes, it is an experiment, we want to see how it works”, the actor maintains about the many possibilities of also disseminating through theater in “a more casual way”.
The interest in the history of Spain, be it in new shows, tourist routes, books, television and radio programs, does not stop growing every day. Botello, who has been part of this success since 2015, warns of the last barriers that separate Spaniards from fully embracing their history without myths or clichés. «There are people who are more and more interested in history, but there are also those with more qualms because of those who do not make it attractive. I am a big fan of history teachers because I think they have a very difficult job with teenagers, but the working method, the program they have, is very complicated. He enters better through anecdotes than by sticking to those rigorous and extensive programs. We still have to work on it », he defends.
#story #humor #tragedy