The millenary stones of the Roman theater of Mérida still burned by the heat accumulated during the day when Lluís Homar appeared on stage. There were already a quarter to night, official starting time of the representations of the classical theater festival that is held every summer in the historic enclosure, where on Wednesday the actor premiered an adaptation of Adriano memories, one of the summits of the historical novel of the twentieth century. It is the work that gave Marguerite Yourcenen not only literary prestige, but also fame and popular success, because it is one of the most translated and sold titles since its publication in 1951. So much devotion arouses that it has inspired numerous creations in different formats, including an opera of Rufus Wainwright.
But the structure of the text, which is presented as a fictitious letter of the Roman Emperor Adriano (76-138 d. C.) to his young successor Marco Aurelio, makes it especially appropriate for his adaptation to theater, since it becomes a kind of inner monologue in which Adriano reviews his life while reflecting on power, politics, art, philosophy, love and death. A torrent of thoughts, confessions, frustrations, desires and fears tremendously sweet to an actor, but not available to anyone. There are many tables, presence and diction to sustain it alone without losing the public’s attention, in addition to “hours and hours of memorization”, as Homar confessed after the premiere.
The Barcelona interpreter demonstrated the 2,000 spectators who attended the premiere in Mérida who has all that and something else: at 68, he accumulates not only professional experience but also a vital perspective to put on the skin of Adriano just at the time when I radiographs Yourcenar: “That age in which life is an accepted defeat.”
Homar is on stage every moment of the hour and a half that lasts the function and the only voice that is heard is his. But it is not always alone. A choir of five performers accompany him in most scenes to evoke situations or characters referred to by the emperor. Trajan and his wife, Plotina; his political enemies, Celso and still; Advisors, teachers, tutors, friends and especially his young anti -noto lover, embodied with great expressive force by dancer Álvar Nahuel, who stars with Homar one of the most intimate moments of the show. It is also one of the best: it enhances the contrast with the Adriano avid of power and sometimes, although the reflective and critical Adriano is also manifested with himself.
But this is not an Adriano with Roman Toga as also seen in Mérida in 1998, played by Pepe Sancho with a staging of Maurizio Scaparro. The Roman director had released Adriano memories In 1989 in the ruins of Villa Adriana in Tivoli, where the emperor spent his last years, with Italian cast and version of Rafael Azcona. The success of that adventure encouraged him to resume it nine years later with Pepe Sancho and other Spanish interpreters, which was later seen in the Grec in Barcelona and Almagro.
The production now released is very faithful to the canonical translation that Julio Cortázar made of the your novel by Yourcenar, with cuts very measured by the playwright Brenda Escobedo. But the scenic proposal takes off from the literalness of the text to hook with the contemporary viewer, according to the director of the assembly, Beatriz Jaén, after the premiere in Mérida: “I see in Adriano a today’s leader with a lot of power. A kind of president of the United States.” Jaén, 37, is an emerging figure in the current Spanish scene and last year he stood up for the National Dramatic Center to adapt the adaptation of Nothing, by Carmen LaForet, another emblematic novel.
That is why the scenography does not evoke a Roman villa, but plays with the past and the present as your your own made in the novel: in the background, always present, the imposing Corinthian columns of the Theater of Mérida; While on the stage it is recreated what could be the office of the president of a country in the present time, oval like that of the United States. The costume follows the same pattern: contemporary clothing and executive suit to which in some scenes a toga is added on the left side. Television screens, cameras, microphones, electronic music, cables and video projections that amplify gestures or suggest emotional states.
At the start of the show, all this artillery is shocking and causes too much scenic noise. But as Homar is taken possession of the character and gets carried away by the poetics of Yourcenar, the voice of Adriano is heard and the author’s words are better tasted. It is in the most intimate moments where the Adriano who set out to dissect when writing the novel is glimpsed. I explained it by citing a phrase that he read in a letter from Flaubert: “When the gods no longer existed and Christ had not yet appeared, there was a unique moment, from Cicero to Marco Aurelio, in which only man was.”
After its premiere in Mérida, where it will be represented until Sunday, these new Adriano memories They will be at the Marquina Theater in Madrid from September 19 to October 12. Then they will undertake a tour of Spain until they make season at the Romea of Barcelona in spring.