The ambitious production of the musical ‘Gypsy’ conquers Málaga | Culture

Unequivocally converted into one of the most brilliant stage directors in our country, Antonio Banderas (Málaga, 64 years old) picked up on Thursday with Gypsyhis fourth musical theater production, which once again was born in the Soho Theater, Malagaspace recovered by the most international Spanish actor. He insists on putting together, with great care, great budgets and an exceptional team, shows that entail many difficulties and a lot of work, as is the case with this project that many experts think is the best American musical of all time. Each time Banderas climbs higher and higher and this time he has used Marta Ribera, a legendary actress, dancer and singer who has won multiple awards in this genre in our country, who swept the premiere to the point of having the entire audience on their feet applauding wildly. in one of his numbers before the performance had concluded. Something that is seen very little, and especially in a theatrical setting.

But Ribera is a crack and the work, especially marked by what we recognize as text theater, is a beautiful libretto by Arthur Laurents, based on a true story that Gypsy Rose Leeartist of striptease of the interwar period, he left written in his memoirs and in which Rose, his mother, takes special prominence, whose character, an excessive and phagocytic mother of the artist, It is what Ribera embodies. Since 1959, the year this musical premiered, numerous famous actresses have played this role, since we are faced with a legendary musical performed on numerous occasions, not only on Broadway and the West End, but on other international stages, without forgetting the film version of Mervyn LeRoy. Always with success guaranteed among other things by the music of Jule Styne and the lyrics of the great Stephen Sondheim (which Roser Batalla has translated into Spanish), as has happened in its first foray into Spain and will surely happen again in an upcoming premiere scheduled for December on Broadway.

Everyone received warm applause in Malaga on opening night, where Banderas thanked the work from the orchestra of 26 live musicians under the baton of Arturo Díez Boscovich; of the 30 actors among whom were Lydia Fairé, Carlos Seguí, Laia Prats, Chemari Bello, Aaron Cobos, and veteran actresses such as Carmen Conesa, Marta Valverde and Lorena Calero (hilarious trio); by the set designer Alejandro Andújar and the costume designers Antonio Belart and Rafael Garrigós. He also appreciated the choreography of Borja Rueda (although three pieces of the original by Jerome Robbins are visible) and the brilliant lighting of Juan Gómez Cornejo.

In his reflections on stage direction, Banderas assures that the beginnings are difficult: “You create a team that you have to fall in love with your proposal, in the same way that you are. of the show that you want to put on the sacred and magical tables of a theater. For all this you have to negotiate, listen, renounce, impose, discard, defend, wait, attack, resist, beg and learn to cry in silence when, at some moments, you come to think that the function you initially had in mind is moving away from you. you. You will also become an answering machine, an energy coordinator, a tyrant, a psychologist, a father, a brother, a creative giant, an idiot behind a green light, or a mat on which someone wipes themselves. the feet. Questions come from everywhere, and in the midst of those creative battles you begin to question many of your own decisions,” he points out. “And at that moment is where you understand that directing is also being humble, directing is hearing and seeing what is happening around you so that you consider other possibilities, it is also leaving your own discourse because you understand that there is not only one path to reach the same place,” he concludes.

For the director from Malaga, who has not only participated in musicals in his theater, but also in others on American billboardsthe true magic comes when you begin to know how to use the energy and wisdom of your collaborators: “When you shake hands with them, when just a look is enough, when you feel that you are traveling in the same boat and heading to the same port. Then a miracle ends up happening, because your work comes back to you,” he points out. Something similar happens to him when he observes in the middle of a performance that both he, those on stage, and the audience in the stalls enter, even if only for a few seconds, into a strange collective communion and he says to himself “ “Now we are all on the same journey together.” He states that for those rare moments he does theater. And also because he is clear that only in the theater is the truth.

Banderas is clear that this work is especially linked to current times. “Rose’s character seeks success at any price and If we look at the phenomenon of social networks They are also involved in the pathology of success, it is the reign of egoism, of narcissism, of focus at the expense of whatever…”, and he adds, “we have turned the planet into a great stage where everyone acts, where everything “The world retouches its body, its face, its teeth… where the only priority is to succeed, as Rose wants, but her daughter puts her feet on the ground and triumphs in the most unusual place.”

The truth is that both Banderas and his entire team face the challenge of putting together a work that is clearly very complicated: “That’s right, both from a technical and artistic point of view, but they make it so that when the public sees it, everything seems easy and light”. The actor and director, happy to have premiered, launches into new projects, to the dream of launching Sweeney Toddby Sondheim, and the adventure of starring in some classic, perhaps Cyrano de Bergeracby Rostand. The truth is that this Banderas adventure comes out at a loss. But he doesn’t regret it. “This costs 180,000 euros per week. That’s why I make movies… but if I’m going to die and I can’t take anything with me, it’s a way of giving me satisfaction in life.”