The Collective of Actors and Actresses Black denounced the “invisibility” and “lack of ethics of the theatre”

“The actors black can not settle with paper folk or with Othello, they have to aspire to a Hamlet”, claimed director David Selvas

“Belize is a black man, openly gay, who likes cross-dressing (dressing as women) and who also works as a nurse… it is extremely liberal in its politics.” Thus describes Tony Kushner one of the main characters of Angels in America, the nurse who is in charge of Roy M. Cohn, the lawyer, arch-conservative that he was the right hand of senator McCarthy, Nixon, and Reagan, homosexual confessed, with a double life and ended up dying of AIDS in 1986 (although he said that it was a disease of the liver). For Belize, black and gay shemale, attends to Roy Cohn, who goes on a wheelchair. However, in the version that premiered last Thursday at the Teatre Lliure, Belize is played by an actor white, Quim Àvila. And the Collective of Actors and Actresses Black Barcelona complaint “whitening” of the character and the “invisible” racial in a video that has already gone viral.

In his open letter published on YouTube, the group of actors he regrets the “lack of ethical responsibility” of the Teatre Lliure, which is not in the template of your Kompanyia Jove to any actor not caucasian. “The actors and actresses are not white hardly have space in the fictions if not for these roles [of ethnic minorities], in which they put specifically that the actor or actress should be black, gypsy, moorish…”, criticized in his manifesto. And that is the debate that the play’s director, David Selvas, has wanted to highlight with its mount. “We knew there would be controversy, although maybe not so much. But it is good to happen to ponder why a company of a public theatre, in the year 2018, it has no actor racialized” says Jungles.

The director has never wanted to make invisible to the collective, rather it has been revealed that deficiency. In his staging, when it appears the actor Quim Àvila as Belize, is exposed to the public the lack of interpreters in african-americans: “In the Kompanyia there is no black actor. The theatre has to be a reflection of the society. We will work so that this does not re-pass”. And is made on a screen of seven by five metres.

When Quim Avila you were offered the role of Belize expressed its discomfort with interpreting a character black. “I proposed to do a casting and I said I would do but I would choose the actor who best could interpret the character, off white, black, or pakistani,” explains Rainforests, that from the beginning was clear that it would put the focus on the lack of an interpreter on the color of the company.

“I have a daughter with black. And I am well aware of the racism that we still have in this society. It is funny but at the press conference and in all the interviews that I have done, no journalist (which, by the way, they were all white), I have wondered why an actor, white played the role of a black. Sometimes we have racism inside without realizing it. And the actors black can not settle with paper folk or with Othello, because the rest will be for whites. They have to aspire to a Hamlet or an Ophelia,” claims Forests.

Josep Maria Flotats in an essay from 1996 with the actor Alexis Valdés.

the controversy of The 96 with Josep Maria Flotats

In 1996, Angels in America, also generated a strong controversy at Barcelona, although for quite different purposes. The director Josep Maria Flotats decided to launch the National Theatre of Catalonia (TNC) with a radical work of Braodway, which dealt with contemporary issues and then even more thorny and critical. But from the Catalan conservative and the pujol was not seen with good eyes to pick that one piece and not a classic Catalan (that were scheduled throughout the year). Or, at the very least, a work of authorship Catalan. By the way, then it was the cuban Alexis Valdes who played in Belize.

the worst time of The Lliure

Since the resignation of Lluís Pasqual, the Teatre Lliure passes through one of its worst moments. If nothing changes, the project of the Kompanyia Jove will end this season. Its continuity depends mainly on the sponsorship of the Banc Sabadell and the will of the new director or principal who quit chosen the public tender is expected in the first half of 2019. In this period of interim, the assistant director Clara Rodriguez, and the deputy to the artistic direction of Aurora Rosales are responsible for ensuring the continuity of the programming.

The members of the Kompanyia will make the roles of ‘Angels of America’ until the month of December and will return in may of 2019 for the replacement ‘The temps that estiguem junts’, as it was scheduled. But already do not prepare any new work. When you submit your resignation, Pasqual cancelled the work which he himself was going to direct ‘The dream of life’ and that it was going to be interpreted by members of the Kompanyia. The work itself can be seen at the Spanish Theatre (there Pasqual has not cancelled the engagement), but with a cast formed by actors not linked to the Lliure, among which stand out Esther Bellver, Antonio Medina or Emma Vilarasau.

The Lliure is going through a period of re-foundation, in which to reformulate their statutes and the composition of the Board of trustees. A Working Committee is preparing a report to analyze how should be the theater in the next decade.

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