Says Tito Asorey (Ourense, 1977) That the Galicians are tired of every movie and TV show about their land that talks about drug trafficking. “But it’s a story that needs to be told,” she assumes. The playwright manages the adaptation. ‘Farina’ to the theater. Nacho Carretero’s story touches him: He hallucinated while reading and played lawyer Pedro Ventura in the TV series of the same name. On stage, the hero is a whole town. “We had to tell it our way,” he explains, “with our humor and our temper.”
He played the drug traffickers’ lawyer Pedro Ventura in the series. ‘Farina’. Have you already thought about taking her to the theater?
Not there. It is true that when I read Nacho Carretero’s book, I thought there was a game in it. But there it was. came after his call. [Xosé Antonio] Touriñán, the architect of this adventure, is when it all started and we made it happen. He has the ability to turn ideas into reality.
So, what did that intermediate step on television bring you?
He gave me a lot. As soon as they offered me to take part in the series as an actor, I started researching a lot more. I knew the history, but then you were completely immersed in the world. semolina. This documentary background helped me a lot while directing the game. I was also very clear about what was being told in the show, and it helped me decide to tell the story from another place, another way.
Undoubtedly, the most important change is that Galicia is the main character.
Yes, we were clear that it had to be a work without individual heroes, as in the series starring Sito Miñanco. We wanted to do something more scenic. The heroes are the people, the geography and the economy of Galicia. Thus, we think that we can better benefit from the dynamics that the theater offers you. What matters to us is the breeding ground for this drug phenomenon to become reality.
They also cared about telling the story from Galicia.
The whole team is in Galician. Lighting designer Laura Iturralde, set designer, all the actors… yes, it seemed vital to us. That’s what happened in the show. This is basic. We had to tell it in our own way, with our humor and our habits.
Why are there only five actors to bring to life over 50 characters?
There are five but they look like 15. They sing, they dance, they play instruments… It’s a pleasure. This rhythm is one of the strong points of the montage. There are five because five is a sight. Four are two couples and five are a sight. It shows how difficult it is to start a project with more than five people, which seems minimally profitable. I wish they were 15 but those are the numbers. In any case, I don’t think there’s ever been a shortage of more players.
Do you think the rise of streaming platforms has spurred us in Spain to explain phenomena like ETA or corruption through fiction?
We live in a time where fiction is everywhere. For many years I have devoted myself to documenting the theatre, the theater that has a real foundation. Based on that, we created the show. I think there’s so much fiction in everything that surrounds us right now that people go to the theater for a reality shoot where they went for a edit shot before. I think it’s important to play with that line. For example, players go by their own names no matter how many characters they play. We see clearly that reality is often a way of telling a story.
There is so much fiction in everything that surrounds us that people go to the theater to take a picture of the truth.”
When this is not just a story about the past, does this real foundation become indispensable?
Clear. We wouldn’t be interested in making a piece that only tells part of our story. Besides dedicating myself to theatre, I have studied History and I support Benedetto Croce’s statement that all history is contemporary history. Everything we count counts for us. Each trailer serves to inform us. Fariña speaks to us openly about our present, starting from how we got here, how our economic, social and even mental structure was structured from that past. We cannot ignore all of Galicia in the ’80s and ’90s, when this seemed to solve an economic problem. And we see that it still exists. It seems that everything is resolved with the Nécora operation, but no, everything continues to enter Galicia.
Now it is not known exactly who the drug traffickers are.
No, and this is more dangerous. We all know who Charlines is or who Oubiña is. The vanity they have… for example, you can see a Ferrari in Cambados… you don’t see it anymore. These narcos were very present. They helped the community in their own way. I guess they’ll be in tax havens now. Even that money does not stay here. It is a metaphor for the world. Globalization means that even money from drug trafficking does not stay where it is produced.
Globalization no longer respects drug trafficking.
Nerd [ríe]. If there is any deregulated market without any State competition, which is the wet dream of any anarcho-capitalist or neoliberal, it is the cocaine market. And look, it’s not even that.
You say that the parliament should look like a party because of the atmosphere in Galicia. Is it the hangover from that party or another party that you are experiencing right now?
We live in the drunkenness of many parties. I wrote an article exactly like this in 2017. Hangover. He talked about how an entire generation has lived in this state, the hangover of a party that hasn’t lived. We had to struggle with this way of being. We took ibuprofen but did not drink gin and tonic.
Journalist Martín Caparrós says the greatest tragedy of this generation is its inability to think about the future.
I hope there is a Galicia without drug trafficking, authoritarianism and self-hatred. This last one, I think we’re improving. Openly semolina It helped. We are fed up with the fact that the TV series and movies shot here are about drug trafficking, but it is an issue that needs to be told. We are trying to make a theater that has a political and social position within our means. This is a project with a commercial aspect, there are more than 250 functions we do. But we’re trying to make sure that doesn’t surprise us and that this theater doesn’t stop asking questions and talking about us. I think the work is controversial precisely because of its seemingly pointless approach, but I think that makes the blow to the lost generation all the more impressive.