“In the best moments of sea and sky I felt like Snowflake. I was leaving the theater and the people on the bus were singing to me Why did I cry? the fervor that the musical awakened is incredible and generated some absurd situations with which I wanted to play”, he explains the actor of musicals Carlos Gramaje. Known for having played the first Saïd of sea and sky and having participated in the great productions of Dagoll Dagom, takes advantage of this “absurdity” a the comedy South of the Parallel, which arrives today at the Theater of Salt.
Confeded as a metatheatrical gamethe piece is an excuse for review Gramaje’s long careerwho has participated in musicals like Sea and sky, Pirates, Night flower, I hate you my love o Aloma. In the montage, Gramaje, playing himself, he has to prepare a concert at the Palau Sant Jordi with a crazy fan to whom he promised that they would work together 25 years ago.
With script by Xavi Morató, South of the Parallel raises a reflection on fame. “It’s a relationship that I’ve lived in four decades of profession and that I didn’t expect, because when you start doing theater you think a lot about success and personal and professional fulfillment, but not about how people will experience it and over the years you meet fans for whom fame becomes a pilota, too much in love with the character”, says Gramaje.
«Fame has two sides: on the one hand, you meet people who try to disturb your private life, on the other, there is the magical part, it is the people who make everything possible and you also have a duty to them”, acknowledges the actor, who confesses that he experienced some moments in which it was difficult for him to understand “the magic of this fervor”.
Accompanied by the actress Queralt Albinyana and with the support of projections and the voices in off by Mònica Terribas, Anna Rosa Cisquella or Joan Lluís Bozzo, Gramaje does too a “tribute to the memory of musical theater”because “the most important thing is the songs”, and especially a Dagoll Dagom, “who else has risked making products of his own creation”.
«I’ve been incredibly lucky to play characters that I’ve helped create from the rehearsal room, of not having to copy or imitate anyone, as is now the case with musicals that are franchises”, he points out. In this sense, he assures that “the panorama of the musical has changed a lot” and that the historical performers have “had to adapt to the concept of intrusion”. “The irruption of media personalities was a stage that I have never quite understood,” he says.
Respect to The joy that happensDagoll Dagom’s last musical before the final farewell with the return of But what?l, hopes to be able to go see it because “the original format must always be valued”. “There are people who already think that I will do the last Sea and Sky and even ask me for tickets, but I really don’t know anything!”, he jokes.