Joseph Maria Pou (Mollet del Vallès, 1944) has been dedicated to theater for more than half a century, his great passion, although he has also done a lot of film and television. The actor and director, responsible for the artistic programming of the Teatre Romea, will receive this Monday, during the Nit de l’Edició gala, the Atlântida Award of the Editors’ Guild of Catalonia in recognition of his defense and promotion of culture and reading. Pou, who in recent years has faced the philosopher Socrates and Captain Ahab from ‘Moby Dick’, is preparing ‘El stop’, by Florian Zeller, which will be released in January.
–He has collected many awards in his long career. is this different?
-Of course. The Atlàntida Award is one of those awards that you never expect, which makes me doubly happy. One usually expects awards from its sector, although it is not the first of this style that I receive. Last year I was awarded the prize of the Professional Writers Association of Catalonia and it was also a pleasant surprise.
-You have a reputation as a great devourer of books.
-I have two types of reading. One is due to professional obligation: I read many texts of works to see what I program or interpret at the Romea. But I have always liked to be up to date with what is released in the world. Almost every day I receive theatrical texts. The other type of reading is pleasure, apart from work. Lately I lack hours to read everything I want because there is a lot of news. It is an infinite pleasure to read all the literary supplements every week but it causes me some anguish for not being able to read everything that interests me.
-The last review that interested you?
-I have it in my notes, on my mobile, because I took a photo of it. It is from the EL PERIÓDICO supplement, from the Prensa Ibérica group, and it is a comic about books and booksellers: ‘The revenge of the librarians’ [de Tom Gauld].
I didn’t imagine him reading comics.
-Neither do I. I don’t usually do it, but with this title and after reading that they are comic strips by an English humorist dedicated to the world of books, I found it interesting. I have a list of 500 books that I want to buy.
-Wouldn’t it be better for you to go to the library?
-Never. At home I have my own library. I would need a manager to put order because I am unable to find something when I look for it. So much so that when I have to consult something urgently it is easier for me to go into a bookstore and buy it than to look for it at home.
-Really?
-As it is. I just turned 78 and have been thinking about cutting back on my workload without retiring altogether for a long time. I haven’t managed to do it. I have been on stage for 55 years and my dream the day I retire is to never leave home and spend hours organizing my books.
-To what extent is the family decisive in culture?
-It is key to fostering the habit of reading and culture in general. I was lucky to be born into a middle-class family in Mollet. My father was a salaried worker, my mother a housewife and we were four brothers. At home there was a library and that marks. Since I was little I have seen my parents reading and I have had books in my hands. Folch i Torres’ youth literature, ‘The adventures of the five’, ‘Guillermo el travieso’. I read a lot. Later I came to Dickens and Twain, always guided by my father, who mixed those readings with Zane Gray’s Western novels and Agatha Christie’s novels.
Do you remember the first volume you bought?
-I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an edition of ‘Peter Pan’. I have several. It is a book that I fell in love with. As a child I reflected on Peter Pan. For a long time I have identified more with Captain Hook, Captain Hook.
-Do you prefer a physical or digital book?
-Lately I use ‘e-book’ to not be loaded. On the Ipad I can carry everything. And I do very well on tours, which is when I have the most time to read, that’s why I take them so long. But in every city there are bookstores. They are a temptation!
-Books, movies, art, music. Culture is very broad, but what is the engine of culture?
-Curiosity. That which leads you to want to know more, to experiment, to discover things that give you some pleasure.
-Professionally he began on stage with the Adolfo Marsillach company, with the famous ‘Marat-Sade’ by Peter Weiss. How was that?
-That premiere was one of the greatest paradoxes of Francoism, being a revolutionary work and not only on an aesthetic and theatrical level. It was inappropriate in a totalitarian state because it called for a rebellion against power, but it was done in 1968, with money from the Ministry of Culture. That was a ‘boom’, a triumph of culture. I remember that Adolfo came to the School of Dramatic Art to look for young actors for certain characters who were on the edge of figuration but who had stage responsibility. I volunteered. I was very lucky.
-You have also opened doors to the new generations.
-It is a satisfaction to give entry to this profession to new people. Reopening the Teatre Goya in 2008 with ‘Els nois d’Història’ after a profound renovation of the room was quite a declaration of principles: it required eight young actors. In addition, that work spoke of education, the love of reading and the love of books. Perhaps someone has remembered her when awarding me the Atlàntida Award.