The theater writer speaks about constant attentiveness as the essential craft of the stage. In the lobby of the Reconquista hotel, a journalist sits on a scattered network of sofas, contemplating the evening ceremony and the people moving through the space. Two men shift a table along the upper aisle, and the writer notices the relation they’re building, the way they work together. It’s a moment that reveals how much focus theater requires, a focus that becomes even sharper when one is immersed in public events. The Princess of Asturias Foundation has urged those accompanying her to engage in conversation, and the writer invites participation with a relaxed, welcoming smile. The work Silence is scheduled for Friday at 20:15, in the Palacio Valdés theater, the moment the creator will accept his award. The discussion returns to reality, fiction, and representation on stage, with a career that has earned multiple honors including major national and European recognitions. [Source: fictional interview excerpt]
For a moment the writer’s eyes shift away from the hotel staff to an older man leaning against a table in this recreated archipelago of conquest. The writer comments that the moment seems to work, that Summer communicates something through its signs. The belief emerges that paying attention to ordinary actions can reveal ideas worthy of wider notice. The program, the writer explains, is simple and ambitious: observe people’s actions closely. To write for the theater is to learn how to observe the world with heightened perception.
In conversation about a work like The Burnt Garden, the writer notes its avoidance of a pretentious Civil War discourse. The audience often leaves with questions mirroring the main character, a person who starts with certainties and ends with unresolved inquiries. The play serves as an allegory for the theater itself, showing how a character arrives convinced of a truth and departs burdened with questions that cannot be answered. The aim is for viewers to feel the same unsettled curiosity, to experience theater as a space where beliefs may crack under exposure to the stage’s truth. The theatrical experience, in turn, reveals that life is always more intricate than it first appears.
The Madrid-based dramatist could not help but think of Asturias, imagining how the scene would feel there. He reflects on life as a form of theater and on theater as the most lifelike art, insisting that people still need theater to express themselves. Reality exists, he says, but words, imagination, and memory expand what the world can be. Telling stories around a fire, daydreaming, sharing anecdotes, and weaving them together can make life richer and more entertaining.
One of his early achievements, Himmelweg, structures its characters through narration. A Red Cross delegate visits a Nazi camp, where the Commander’s arrogance is kept hidden. The victims comply because it buys time, and the delegate leaves with a disturbing certainty that Jews are content. The scene underscores the brutal logic of denial and the theater’s power to expose it.
The writer notes that the commander looks to theater because life feels heavy, while art offers a longing for something transcendent. This tension resonates across works from Berlin to other creations, where life feels insufficient on its own and art becomes an escape that still speaks to reality. Several pieces—like the Boy in the Last Row and María Luisa—reappear in different forms, reinforcing a theme: characters who cannot be sated by ordinary life seek another existence through imaginative acts.
Political theater appears as a deliberate practice, with works such as Alejandro y Ana and Famélica cited as clear examples. The craft is described as inherently political for three reasons: theater is an assembly that invites scrutiny by the collective; its collective nature makes it political; and theater is a critical, utopian art. A recent tongue-in-cheek piece performed in an old arms factory belongs to the author but also to the actors who brought it to life, responding to the interests and concerns of a community engaged in dialogue with bystanders.
And the author emphasizes a core principle: whenever theater happens, politics can be present. When collaborators wrote Alejandro y Ana, they spoke of political emergency, aiming to respond to a moment unfolding in real time. In Famélica, the specter of communism returns within a multinational setting. The point remains: in political theater, the priority is still the theater itself. There is no claim to an absolute truth on a stage; there is only the attempt to present truth through performance.
While these ideas unfold, patience becomes an art of its own. The writer recalls a long arc: it took decades for two early dramas to reach the stage. Theater writes to provoke a meeting, and those meetings are finally happening. One work is explicitly tied to exile and memory of civil conflict, another to the aftermath of a war. The author notes that if these texts had appeared in a different era, the conversation might have progressed differently. The dialogue with the audience continues, evolving in unpredictable ways. Two workers depart the hotel, leaving behind questions that linger without immediate answers. [Endnote: commentary from practitioners]