Mario Gas: “The correspondence between Casares and Camus was written with an earthquake-proof love”

It is the most and best emotional story written in the 20th century. To explain The passion that sent the great actress of Spanish origin, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, into exile in FranceDaughter of the former president of the republic, Santiago Casares Quiroga. They lived while the world war raged around them. As a threat that endangers Europe.

Gas directed this adaptation of the letters, which will be published in Catalan. Teatre Lliure It is possible that the show, which will be held in Barcelona until January 21, will be staged in Madrid and other cities later. For now, she is still in Barcelona, ​​and here Mario Gas, the director of the theatrical version of such an impressive correspondence between the Nobel Prize winner of Algerian origin and the most important actress, talks about that overwhelming emotional relationship. Galicia was the birthplace of France.

Q. All the letters talk about love. It is a long and always loud correspondence.

A. There is no love relationship that is not a miracle. But sometimes every day counts as something, it happens, people love each other and say goodbye. Many coincidences occur in this relationship. There is a reading of a play by Picasso, María goes and meets Albert, who awkwardly reads the stage directions for the play. They then see each other and like each other. They begin an affair, which ends with him telling her he needs to meet his wife. Four years later, in 1948, they met by chance on the Boulevard Saint Germain, and thus was born a relationship that would last until Camus’s accidental death. It was a difficult but very deep relationship; It can be said that it is not equal in today’s conditions, or at least it is toxic. He has other relationships, but he is lonely, and he does not give up his family structure or his regular lovers. What I find wonderful about this story is the inevitability of the encounter, the passion, the love. A bombproof union: they need each other, they seek each other, they desire each other, they may go through dark moments of reproach, but they are there. First of all, they have a relationship. A maximum of three letters are written per day. An unbreakable and fantastic love. Fantastic things in life are often the result of miracles or luck.

Question: It was a moment of tremendous uncertainty in Paris, in Europe, and they were talking about love.

A. And he joins the Resistance, he runs a secret newspaper, around him there is this general massacre, and also they are devoted to the highest expression of physical, mental and spiritual love. But it is not just an obvious, brutal and primary passion, they also have a deep sense of love for each other. Each is necessary to the other and they truly build a place of love in this world of barbarism.

S. In the booklet reflecting the letters [preparado por la actriz Rosa Renom] In your theatrical adaptation, you emphasize that this relationship began on June 6, 1944, when the war reached its peak.

A. The first time they made love… The day when Europe was falling apart, the Allied troops were advancing and there was complete carnage, and they finally managed to build a bridge to the beach. On the continent, these two beings glorify human history and make love.

Question: You were born in Uruguay, four years after that scene took place… And here you are, raising them up where they belong: in the cinemas. What do both characters mean to you?

R. Remember that when I was about to turn thirteen, I heard the news of Camus’ death on Spanish National Radio. I remember it very clearly. On the straight road, he trips over a tree, falls, crashes, dies… I didn’t really know who he was, but he was a popular man in my family’s theater circles, especially in theatre. Caligula, for his theater work and his relationship with existentialism and Jean Paul Sartre. Then I read, Foreign Sisyphus, A lot further things…Caligula This was my dazzle; I staged it in the theater, it continues to fascinate me, it is one of the most understandable texts of the 20th century. I followed his career, his relationship with the Communist Party, his discussions with Sartre, and his sentence: “Between the revolution and my mother, I choose my mother.”. You have to be very brave to say that at that moment. So when I received Rosa Renom’s offer to make a montage with these letters, I immediately accepted. The situation is very different when it comes to María Casares. In my house he was a theater legend, a Spanish actor who was more French than the French, his name reached me everywhere. Our time with Nuria Espert Doña Rosita single We went to see him on stage in Paris, he had a very strong personality. Later, we had dinner together at Barceloneta in Barcelona. She was a very funny, impressive-looking, very intelligent and very passionate woman, I had the opportunity to talk to her from a short distance. She was charming with a harsh voice, a constant smoker, an extraordinary actress and a very strong woman.

Question: There are not only words of love in the letters. He talks about his father, he talks about his mother…

A. He came from his mother’s hometown, Mahón, and his father was Algerian-French. She was the daughter of the former head of the government of the Spanish Republic… In our version of the letter, she says that she would go bankrupt by giving so much money to the Spanish republicans. But it’s true: The two care about each other’s surviving relatives. And it’s interesting to see how they talk about their world, their theater and their literature. The Algerian tells him that it is easier to talk to theater people than to talk to intellectuals. What happens in the theater is more lively, more spontaneous, and in front of intellectuals, they need to be forgiven.

Q. No there inside the correspondence arrogance some…

A. And it can be have, Absolutely, because they are two great. But they do their job, they need love, they need each other. They just talk about themselves, about that shared love, and that somehow makes them grow. I’m sure they took direct action when they encountered it, whereas letters were often words spoken at the most intimate levels.

Question: There are many appeals to fear, not just the fear caused by war.

R. However, in case their love goes bad… He is a man in love who protects his family relationships. He is lonely, he is more understandable, he wants him, he misses him, he finds a material and spiritual space for himself when he is not there, he complains, he makes excuses. It is said that it mixes less and I disagree. The correspondence between María Casares and Albert Camus is an earthquake-proof love story.

Question: It is possible that those who say they were not involved in the incident did not read the letters…

A. It is very possible. And there may be people who read the letters and still think the same thing. In a way, this Casares-Camus relationship can be considered a toxic relationship. But it also becomes a singular, unique relationship, that of two characters expressing an enormous amount of love. There is so much love there, and at the same time, it is unchangeable.

Q. When you won the Nobel Prize [1957] In one telegram he shouts at her: “Nobel Prize! What a party, what a young winner, what a party!” On December 30, 1959, on the eve of the accident that cost him his life, as he prepares for their reunion, he writes to her: “… Until Tuesday, when I will start again… I will no longer have a reason to deprive myself of you. “From laughter, neither from our sails, nor from my country.”

C. There is love in all letters. He is said to have written three similar ones for different women. But this does not take away the deep quality of love that María has in what they write to each other.