Madrid
Updated:
Keep
Lola and Julia are sisters; they are married, respectively, to Tristán, a prestigious and rising lawyer; and Félix, currently unemployed, and whom many would consider ‘the perfect man’, a truly exemplary person. These are the four protagonists of ‘The danger of good company‘, a comedy written by Javier Gomadirected by Juan Carlos Rubio and interpreted by Fernando Cayo, Carmen Conesa, Ernesto Arias and Miriam Montilla. The production opens tomorrow at the Reina Victoria Theater (where it will be until the beginning of May).
“Everyone warns us against bad companies, but nobody against good ones, when my experience has taught me that the good ones end up being more dangerous,” explains the character played by Fernando Cayo in one of his first interventions.
My case proves it. My wife is Julia’s sister. They love each other since they were little girls. Fantastic, isn’t it? Yes, if it weren’t because the union between them accentuates to an unbearable degree the comparison between the husbands, Felix and me. And my bad luck has wanted Felix to be the very personification of Irreproachable Virtue. Not of the appearance of virtue, that of those who affect to be one thing and then are another, but of a real, patent, solid, solid virtue. Which brings me nothing but inconvenience. You cannot imagine the discomfort of having eternally close to a Virtuoso Don of the nose with whom you are compared day and night and it is that Félix reminds whoever wants to see how easy, but extremely easy, it is to be a tender and detailed husband, an excellent citizen , a helpful house husband and even a cook, provided, of course, that one puts a little goodwill into it». «My wife -confesses Javier Gomá between smiles- told me after seeing a rehearsal that she had fallen in love with Félix».
«You insist on being exemplary in a reckless way, ignoring or pretending to ignore the pain that your person causes in others -Tristán snaps at Félix at one point-. Have you ever stopped to think about the humiliations, vilifications, humiliations and abuses that your example has caused to so many people? In the bitter resentment that continued comparison with you has sown? Did you think you can be good and that’s it, hala, without calculating the consequences? Well, it’s about time someone told you that exemplarity is extremely dangerous.
“Nudge Work”
«It is a work of elbows; everyone can recognize situations and can feel identified with one of the characters, because it is born from the bowels of the human being, “explains its author, who is being more and more unfaithful to his wife, philosophy, with his lover the theater; a discipline that allows you to address aspects of reality that are not trapped in concepts. «The attitude of general relativization, of pleasure, of play, of sportsmanship, of self-irony that the theater has, the essay does not give it to you», Javier Gomá justifies.
“This is not a philosophical or thought work -he adds-, it is a work of later conversations”. «The theater is non-conceptual; theater is action, it’s drama, it’s characters and conflicts. A spectator can have a good time -and with all the conviction I tell the spectators not to miss this show-; It is a very particular work, you will laugh, you will be moved. The approach is philosophical, yes, but not the narration».
‘The danger of good company’ was first ‘I want to get tired of you’; It was published in 2019 and Gomá included it in his theatrical trilogy ‘A man of fifty years’ (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2021), which was completed with ‘Inconsolable’ and ‘The tears of Xerxes’. The pandemic has delayed the staging of what its author defined as a ‘moral comedy’, which is now being released by Juan Carlos Rubio. Director and author have worked together in recent months to reduce its duration and smooth out the edges of a text originally intended to be read and not interpreted. “It has been much better, I am very satisfied with the result,” acknowledges Javier Gomá, who slips that he found inspiration for her in family situations. although it does not go down to detail.
«I have located the action, which in the original takes place in different spaces: a car, the living room of a house, etc., in a piano bar -explains Juan Carlos Rubio-; It is from this place that the story is told, which includes several songs» (Fernando Cayo, who premiered ‘Inconsolable’, the monologue with which Javier Gomá stepped on stage for the first time, sings and plays the piano in the performance). It is Rubio’s way of lighting up the humor that this ‘high comedy’ breathes, a genre that has been practically banished from Spanish stages. ‘The danger of good company’ basically talks about the fifties crisis and couple problems, all from the entanglement, the confusion and the sense of humor. «It is a fundamental tool in my daily life -says Javier Gomá; those of us who tend to take ourselves too seriously become unbearable, and we need humor to relativize. Humor is very civilizing.”
The work also talks about a very Spanish issue, ‘el cuñadismo’. Javier Gomá laughs when he is asked if his brother-in-law is man’s worst enemy. “He has the elements of closeness and equality; few people are closer to one, but at the same time he is the partner of your wife’s sister -in this work there are different combinations-. And exemplarity -the philosopher’s stone of ‘The danger of good companies’- when it occurs in terms of closeness and equality».
See them
comments