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| Carlos Gimenez, Caracas, by Miguel Gracia |
Viviana Marcela Iriart (1958) is an
Argentine-Venezuelan writer, author of two books on Carlos Giménez: CarlosGiménez the irreverent genius and Bravo Carlos Giménez! and
compiler of the volume María Teresa Castillo-Carlos Giménez-FITC1973-1992.
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| Viviana Marcela Iriart, 2024, by Graciela Roth |
-I understand that Carlos Giménez arrived in Venezuela
very young. What was your previous experience in the world of theatre? Where did
he trained? Why Venezuela?
Yes, he was only 23 years old, but he had the theatrical and managerial experience of a 60-year-old. Because Carlos Giménez was a genius whom we did not know how to see or understand, he began his career very early. At the age of 10, he created his first theatre group, El Club de los Corazones Unidos , but he was not a child playing at theatre: he was a child becoming a professional. Carlos directed, adapted, acted, designed the scenery, lighting, production, and promotion. And he also edited a cultural newspaper. I suppose that his mother, Carmen Gallardo, had an enormous influence on his early love for theatre because she had been an actress and travelling with her own theatre company. His mother was his first costume designer and his sister Anita was the founder, actress and producer of his second group, El Juglar. Both were fundamental figures in Carlos' life until his death.
At the age of 17, he graduated from the Córdoba Theatre Seminar in Argentina, created the group El Juglar and went on his first European tour, with such success that in France, Jack Lang, president of the Nancy Theatre Festival, invited him to participate in the festival the following year.
In just 6 years, Carlos had a dizzying career: 2 European tours and 2 awards from the ITI-UNESCO; 2 Latin American tours and 1 award in Medellín; twice invited by the Nancy Theatre Festival; 23 directed plays; he created the First National Theatre Festival of Argentina and various theatre events; he had his own sala theatre; he directed the Comedia Nacional de Nicaragua in Managua and the Comedia Cordobesa in Argentina; he takes theatre courses in Spain and in Italy he organizes a tribute to Miguel Ángel Asturias. In addition to being a director, he was an actor, playwright, producer, promoter, and teacher.
About his first European tour Carlos
said:
“There I come into contact with a completely unknown world and there is a dazzlement that means that, at least I am, not going to remain confined within the parameters of either the city or the country where I was born. I realized that there is a gap between what I want and what my environment, my habitat, gives me.”
At 19, invited by France, Carlos needs to get the money to make his second European tour. His family is not well off, so what does he do? He writes a letter to the president of Argentina, Dr. Arturo Illia, asking for help. And the president answers yes! And he receives him at the Casa Rosada! This is how Carlos tours Europe for 3 months with his group El Juglar and the play La Querida Familia. And he wins his first two international prizes in Poland.
At the age of twenty he has his first confrontation with power, when the military staged a coup d'état and they raid their theater in the middle of the performance:
“…The play ended with some whores saying ‘girls, girls, the police…’. And it was a real event (…) The first thing the police did was to destroy the theatre, mistreat the audience and arrest me. I was in prison for three days. It was not so terrible, but it was a shocking experience.”
At the age of 22 he made his first South American tour: “… a tour by land (…) I vividly remember the experience we had at Chorolque, a peak that is 5,000 meters above sea level and is the highest tin mine in the world. There, as there was no light, we performed illuminated by the miners’ spotlights, that is, surrounded by 40 miners who illuminated us with their helmets (…) This tour meant a terrifying discovery of Latin America, which goes beyond the epidermal. We came into contact with the total misery of Latin America (…) we went to the Manizales Festival (…) and the jury made up of Ernesto Sábato, Jack Lang and Miguel Ángel Asturias awarded us a prize.”
Not to make a long story, Nelson, when Carlos
arrived in Venezuela, he was already a phenomenon that had conquered Europe and
Latin America.
And when he died in Caracas at the age of just 46, on March 28, 1993, he had directed 101 works in 7 countries: Argentina, Venezuela, Spain, the United States, Nicaragua, Mexico and Peru; co-produced with the United States, Spain and Italy; toured 36 countries in America, Asia, Europe and Oceania; received around 100 awards and/or decorations in Argentina, Venezuela, Italy, Mexico, Colombia; had directed in New York, in English, invited by Broadway producer Joseph Papp ( Hair, The Chorus Line, etc ); had created 22 theatrical institutions and/or festivals; directed and adapted 100 theatrical plays for television. He had had invitations from Giorgio Strehler to direct in Italy, from the Satyricon group to direct in Moscow and from Joseph Papp to direct again in New York.
In just 29 years, Carlos accomplished what would have taken any other human being two or three lifetimes. And the enormous number of works that were an enormous success both in Venezuela and abroad is impressive.
Why Venezuela? Carlos says that ever since he read Lanzas
Coloradas by Uslar Pietri, he has been fascinated by the country. And when
he met the country, he fell completely in love, and Venezuela also fell in love
with him, because he opened its doors to her and immediately became a
phenomenon, the public went crazy with his productions.
But his detractors also emerged. That is why in 1974
he left the country, due to a xenophobic and homophobic campaign against him. He
went to Europe, where he won the Dionisio de Plata Prize in Italy. However, his
love for Venezuela was so great that he returned in 1975 and never left again, although his detractors
never calmed down and even after his death they continue to attack him.
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| Argentine President Dr. Illia, left, Anita Giménez and his side and Carlos Giménez, right, at the Casa Rosada, Buenos Aires, 1965 |
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| France, 1965 |
-What did you do when you arrived in Venezuela? How
did you get involved in the theatrical movement?
Upon arrival, something extraordinary happened to him:
he met María Teresa Castillo, the president of the Ateneo de Caracas. And that
was like the meeting of two kindred spirits, although Carlos was 23 years old
and María Teresa was 61. Carlos's imagination in creating projects knew no
bounds, and neither did María Teresa's audacity in supporting, believing in and
working on those projects.
Maria Teresa hired him to direct The Orgy of Buenaventura. And Miguel Otero Silva hired him to direct his version of Don Mendo. And when Horacio Petterson resigned from the Ateneo, Maria Teresa offered him her position, with a symbolic salary because the Ateneo had very few financial resources.
Carlos wrote in the book Rajatabla 20 years : “María Teresa Castillo,
President for Life of all our projects and our ambitions. Mother and companion.
Rajatabla more than anyone. Passion and criticism of an adventure that would
not have been possible without her”.
And María Teresa said in an interview: “When Carlos arrived here, he surprised us, he immediately mobilized everyone, the youth mobilized around him and naturally the doors of the Ateneo opened wide for him. Carlos moved me a lot. He invented the most unusual things, he was extraordinary. He made Venezuelan theater travel all over the world , I traveled with them a lot, even to the Soviet Union from top to bottom. I have visited the entire world with the Rajatabla group.”
The Orgy, released in 1970, caused a
profound impact and was banned five days later:
“In the end, when the old woman is killed – because
the beggars killed her for being stingy
and miserable – the old woman appears as the symbol of a country that died
because of its stinginess towards its own people. The waiters came in with
wreaths of flowers that said, “Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, “Academy of
Culture”, “Academy of History” and they put it in front of the old woman. The
play is considered a milestone in the development of political theatre. It
meant such a big discussion within Venezuelan culture that it opened up a new
perspective for me to participate within the country.”
And despite censorship, Carlos won her first
Venezuelan award: the Juana Sujo.
From these works Carlos bursts onto the Venezuelan
scene like a volcano erupting, but a volcano of creative, not destructive,
lava. And this will be the case until his death.
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| Porte Acero, María Teresa Castillo and Carlos Giménez, Caracas, 1970 |
-Could you summarize the history of the Rajatabla Group, founded by Carlos Giménez?
Rajatabla was founded on February 28, 1971, as the
Theater Workshop of the Ateneo de Caracas. Members: Carlos, director, lighting
designer, set designer, playwright, manager and general producer, guru and
mentor who will lead the group to national and international glory; Mariel
Jaime Maza, Juan Pages, Francisco Alfaro, Jose Tejera, Gustavo Gutierrez,
Leopoldo Renault, Jose Ramon Ortiz and Enrique Serrano, Xulio Formoso, Juan
Gomez and Antonio Miranda.
That day, the play Tu país está feliz, by Antonio Miranda, premieres. Carlos directs,
designs the scenery, lights and promotes it because he didn't have the money to
hire professionals. It's a total success; the audience goes crazy and he has to
do two or three shows a day. There is also a scandal, because there were scenes
with full frontal nudity. But nothing stops this whirlwind: tours in the
interior of the country; tours in Latin America; recording an album with songs
from the play...
From this work onwards, Carlos and Rajatabla became a
national and global phenomenon. Every year he premieres two or three works and
goes on international tours, receiving impressive reviews. At the same time,
Carlos is extremely interested in teaching, supporting the new generations,
uniting Venezuelan groups, and so he creates different institutions, meetings
and/or festivals year after year.
For Carlos, it was very important that the theatre
reach all strata of society, especially the poorest and those far from cultural
centers, and that is why from the beginning he always took his works to the
working-class neighbourhoods and the tours within the country were as important
as those abroad: “We are doing theatre in schoolyards, in museums, in basements
and warehouses, showing that imagination belongs to us.”
Carlos had an impressive number of successes, both national and international. His greatest success, perhaps, was García Márquez's No One Writes to the Colonel, adapted and directed by Carlos, co-produced with the New York Latin Festival and the Festival of the Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, in 1989, a work with which he made countless successful international tours until his death in 1993.
Other successful plays: Venezuela Yours, The Tempest, Mr. President, The Death of Garcia Lorca, Bolivar, La Celestina, La Charité de Vallejo, The Mask in Front of the Mirror, The Honest Person of Shechuan, Story of a Horse, Memory, Mozart the Angel Amadeus, Peer Gynt, The Field, Spring Awakening…
Carlos's importance was so great that there is talk of a before and after Carlos Giménez in Venezuelan theatre.
And in Mexico, where Carlos worked just a few months before being deported, the essayist and theater director Rodolfo Obregón says in an essay published by UNAM in 2016: “ Mexican Theater: A before and after Carlos Giménez (….) Giménez was the one who made theater people aware that the dictatorial structures they had to overcome were those that governed their own community."
Carlos said: “If the country were like Rajatabla, the
country could survive. Rajatabla is a multi-class project. Our group brings
together people from all walks of life, and racial differences do not exist. I
think that people should always talk, avoiding violent confrontations of words.
(...) We believe that the world can be improved and with our philosophy we have
changed the lives of many people. A simple example: two of our group mates used
to sleep on the benches in Plaza Miranda, and we brought them to Rajatabla. We
gave them time to resolve their situation, and we offered them to live in the
dressing rooms of our theatre.”
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| Carlos Giménez and Giorgio Strehler, Italy, 1989. |
- In the story of Rajatabla, Giménez's interest in unravelling power seems evident. It is said that his theatre was ethical and aesthetic. But at the same time, he had a knack for approaching power and moving behind its scenes. Could you comment on this?
Yes, thanks for asking me that question because it allows me to say that it was not true, that it was one of the many infamies invented by your detractors. Because look: Carlos was persecuted by Argentina's right-wing dictatorship; prohibited for many years by communist dictatorships; arrested, tortured and deported by the "revolutionary" leftist government of Mexico; censored in Venezuela and other democratic countries. Carlos was attacked by right and left, as well as by democracies, so what relationship with power is speaking?
The only relationship with the power that Carlos had was with former president Carlos Andrés Pérez, and that was because they became friends. And Carlos used that relationship to favor the entire Venezuelan culture, by proposing to CAP to create subsidies for all arts. And Carlos Andrés did. But in the first 10 years in Caracas Carlos had to work on television to earn money, he could not live with what he earned in theater.
And with the other presidents, Carlos had to fight like all the other groups to get the CONAC`s subsidy, even to get the funds for the FITC.
No, Carlos did not get along with the power he
denounced: he got along well with his friends and whether they had power or
not, that did not matter to him.
What happened, I think, is that Carlos was terribly
intelligent, talented, seductive, charismatic, handsome, full of enthusiasm and
ideas, and with an ease of word that I have never seen again in my life. And so
many powerful men and women fell at his feet, not only in Venezuela, but
throughout the world. And not only powerful people. Carlos generated devotion in
most people
That we had the joy of working with him: it was like a rock star.
American journalist Jeff Levis writes what I consider to be the best definition of Carlos: “Who directs with the unique mentality of a Fellini , plans with the patience of a Kissinger , combines art and commercialism with the cunning of a Joe Papp and lives in Caracas after having risen from the dead? Carlos Giménez .”
Returning to power, Carlos said in an interview in Argentina, still under dictatorship: "Art must be against the State, it must be able to point out the evils or defects of a State (…) Art must be independent. Where art must be identified with the State, art is dead."
And in another interview, in Spain: "We have
never clustered, we have not lowered our pants before any government, and if
necessary, we shit in the minister on duty."
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| Joseph Papp, José Antonio Rial and Carlos Giménez, New York, 1988 |
-Among the many achievements of Carlos Giménez, there is one that deserves special mention: The Caracas International Theatre Festival (FITC), created and projected together with María Teresa Castillo. Could you tell us about the emergence of this initiative and how it came to fruition?
That story is magical to me. Because Carlos returned to Caracas in March 1973, after being deported from Mexico, and said to Maria Teresa to do the festival, she said yes ... And in just 4 months they organized the first Fitc! With the participation of 15 groups from Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Venezuela.
Miguel Henrique Otero, son of Maria Teresa and witness to that event, says : “…they did not have a penny, nor the necessary international connections, nor were the professionals who could form the production teams at hand, nor was it clear whether the theatres available in Caracas had the technical resources to meet the needs of foreign groups, nor did they know how international groups would react to an invitation from a city that, until that moment, did not have a consolidated reputation as a cultural capital (as Buenos Aires or Mexico City).”
But in a short time, the FITC was considered one of the best festivals in the world.
The FITC was a party, a banquet, a table where
everyone shared without differences of race, class, religion, sexual
orientation, sex, nationality… for 15 days, the FITC made us equal. For 15
days, Caracas stopped being an unsafe city and the nights were filled with art
and people running from one theater to another to see the shows. And something
important: The FITC was funded by the State, private companies and the
embassies of the participating countries.
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-What are the main conclusions of a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the FITC, while Carlos directed it?
Qualitative: We could see the best shows in theater,
dance, mima, music, ballet, etc., from around the world; we could take
workshops with great masters from the world stage. Exceptional artists visited
us: Peter Brook, Pina Bausch, Tadeusz Kantor, Nuria Espert, Vittorio Gassman,
Vanessa Redgrave, Berliner Ensemble, Gary Oldman, Franca Rame, Giorgio
Strehler, Norma Aleandro, Peter Stein, La Mamma, Lindsay Kemp, Ellen Stewart,
Kazuo Ohno, Dacia Mariani, Eugenio Barba, Darío Fo, Els Joglars, Andrezj Wajda,
Carbone 14, Odin Teatret, the Peking Opera, Philippe Genty...
I will not appoint any group of Venezuela so that no
one feels forgotten, but the best artists and groups throughout the country
participated.
Quantitative: between 1973 and 1992, 9 editions were
held in Caracas and 9 cities in the interior of the country. Participants
included: 150 groups and artists from Venezuela; 273 groups and artists from
abroad; 55 countries from 5 continents: Africa, America, Asia, Europe and
Oceania.The FITC also gave jobs to a lot of people, refurbished the theatres
and boosted the economy due to the large number of people who visited us.
-Although Giménez was essentially an artist, he also stood out as a creator of institutions. What were those institutions? What remains of them today?
Very little: Rajatabla and the National Theatre
Workshop (TNT). Also, the University Theatre Institute, but they changed its
name and do not recognize Carlos as its founder.
Some of the institutions created by Carlos, in
addition to those already named, were Caracas International Theatre Festival,
Center for Directors for New Theatre, National Youth Theatre of Venezuela,
Rajatabla Danza, ASSITEJ, Venezuelan Assembly of Independent Theatres, February
28 Experimental Dramatic Nucleus, Artists for Life Foundation.
He also created the First National Exhibition of the
Venezuelan Assembly of Independent Theatres, the Pirandello Festival, the
Shakespeare Experience Festival, the Goldoni Festival, the Festival of
Directors for New Theatre, and the First Singular. And the María Teresa
Castillo award, sponsored by the British Encyclopedia, which has now
disappeared, and the Marco Antonio ettedgui award, which still exists.
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| Carlos Giménez and Rajatabla, Paris 1977, by Miguel Gracia |
-Is Carlos Giménez remembered in Venezuela? Are his
contributions studied? Were his contributions recognized during his lifetime?
Did Giménez feel that Venezuela was his country?
Unfortunately, no. Neither alive nor dead his contributions have been recognized. There is not even a theatre with his name.
When Carlos died, he received many tributes . The
government declared three days of national mourning; Caracas did the same. The
president went to the funeral home Schola Cantorum sang in the cemetery the
favorite song of Carlos. Dozens of wonderful articles were written highlighting
his personality and achievements. The Centro Cultural Consolidado, the Simón
Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Assitej and Venezolana de Televisión paid tribute
to him. The actress and teacher Myriam Pareja created the Gimeniana
Cathedra , which she taught for several years. Afterwards...oblivion.
But at the same time, there are many people who
transmit his legacy orally to the new generations. And in the United States and
Latin America there are many current theatrical essays where they mention him.
But Carlos didn't have a website, his legacy wasn't on
the Internet. That's why I created the blog, Facebook page and YouTube channel Carlos Giménez Creador Teatral and I'm very happy to say that today an average
of 30 thousand people a month visit the blog. The interest in Carlos is
enormous!
I also wrote three books: Bravo, Carlos Giménez!, Carlos Giménez the Irreverent Genius and María Teresa Castillo-Carlos Giménez-FITC 1973-1992. To make them I had the invaluable support of many people from all over the world, who sent me material about Carlos and the FITC , agreed to be interviewed and wrote articles. I would especially like to highlight the collaboration of the poet José Pulido, the visual artists Rolando Peña and José Augusto Paradisi Rangel, the creative director Karla Gómez, the photographer Roland Streuli, the graphic designer Jairo Carthy, the producers Carmen Carmona and Armando Africano, who gave me their work and talent for free. There is still much to be done, but without subsidies and private donations the task becomes more difficult.
And his legacy was not completely lost because he himself took charge of preserving it with the publication of the book Rajatabla 20 años, by Blanca Sánchez and David Rojas, and with the inclusion of the FITC Report in the 1992 FITC catalogue, the last one he directed. This material is extremely valuable, along with the book by E.A. Moreno Uribe Carlos Giménez Tiempo y Espacio.
In recent years I have tried, without success, to produce a documentary about his life. But I'll give you a scoop: producer Carmen Carmona, who was director of culture for the Chacao City Hall and president of the Culture Institute of Edo. Miranda, who works now for the Telemundo television network in Miami, has joined this dream, and the documentary is in the works!
About your question if Carlos felt Venezuelan, the answer is yes. Carlos always felt deeply Venezuelan without denying his Argentine citizenship: in the programs of his works abroad, he wrote: "Venezuelan citizen born in Argentina." When democracy returned to Argentina, many agencies offered work to Carlos, with impressive salaries, all he wanted, but Carlos stayed in Venezuela because he was already Venezuelan, not because he had been nationalized by a decree but because his heart was.
BOUQUET OF PRAISE
“And the direction by Mr. Gimenez, not to mention his painterly use of lighting, should tell anyone why this man, who is not yet 40 years old, is considered the greatest director in Venezuela. His command of the audience’s emotions in this revolutionary work is complete.” The New York Times , 1985 (Bolívar)
"The director, Carlos Gimenez, delivers a drama
of such burning eroticism that it is hard to tell whether the smell of fire in
the auditorium comes from braziers on stage or the bodies of the actors.
Characteristically, Mr. Gimenez creates a spectacle with the sweep and
chromatic grandeur of a Gericault painting and sends his characters spinning around it in a
hypnotic dance.” The New York Times, 1987
(La
Celestina).
“And Carlos Giménez’s direction makes the complicated
plot admirably clear as the story moves in and out of the memories of the
different characters.” The New York Times , 1987 (El
Reñidero).
“In Caracas there is a young director who has found the essence of Brecht’s epic style and the elements of Peter Brook’s working methods, in isolation from the European masters. The director is Carlos Giménez .” Glenn Loney , University of Cambridge , 1986
“Just as Salvador Dalí in his most unlikely paintings
combines the academic mastery of drawing with the ability to create reality, so
too, Carlos Giménez in the most fantastic and singular deformations of his
images, manages to create something real, undoubtedly emotionally
true…” V. Silunas , Globo Teatral, Moscow, 1988 (Bolívar)
“Absolutely thrilling (…) I really didn’t expect it to
be so thrilling, so moving for me and I have the impression that it was for the
audience too because I realized that everyone was in suspense from the first
word to the last. You couldn’t hear a fly fly, you couldn’t hear anyone
breathing. It’s really thrilling.” Gabriel García Márquez , Mexico, 1989 (No
One Writes to the Colonel).
“When Mr. Gimenez first read Mr. Garcia Marquez's novella, ''it read to me like the saga of a tragic personage, like King Lear'', he said. In translating the story to the stage, he has emphasized that tragic aspect with a set he describes as “permanently immersed in a climate of rain''. As time passes and the colonel's quest seems further and further from fulfillment, the walls of his house crumble and his sadness at the death of his son grows into hallucination. This proud man, who refuses to wear a hat because ''that way I don't have to take it off to anyone,'' is even forced to exchange greetings with his son's murderer, who continues to roam the streets unpunished.
''This is a tragedy about daily life, about the common
human being who believes that happiness and joy are possible in the midst of a
social landscape as terrible as ours,'' Mr. Gimenez said. ''When things happen
to us in Latin America, it is never by halves. There is no equilibrium, so when
it rains, towns get inundated and disappear, and when we have a revolution,
half the population dies”. The
New York Times, 1989 (No
One Writes to the Colonel).
“Even when the rain machine is not in action, there is an aura of dank, sweaty despair in the air, Rotting humidity seems to be everywhere as characters swat the mosquitoes that buzz around them and drench themselves in cold water in order to avoid the paralyzing heat. (….) The overriding atmosphere of the production is that of a dream, a stylized panorama in which an angel of death, bearing an umbrella against the rain, becomes a recurrent symbol. (…) It`s a dream landscape, pierced by church bells and illuminated by bursts of lightning, that contracts and expands through the corrugated partitions that are silently swiveled about by the actors in order to enclose a room in the colonel`s home or open up the whole stage. It is not a somber or boring stage piece thanks to the theatrical imagination of Carlos Giménez. One doesn`t need a translation to appreciate the inventiveness of the staging…” Chicago Tribune , 1992 (No One Writes to the Colonel).
"The dance of love and death that Carlos Giménez
has created on one of the monuments of our language is, in my opinion, one of
the great spectacles of Spanish-language theatre. Exposed on the salt grid, at
the sea gates of Marsala, its carnal storm caused shivers.” Moises Pérez Coterillo El Público, Spain, 1988 (La
Celestina).
.jpg)
“I had not taken into account the brilliance of
director and adapter Carlos Giménez, whose version had a huge impact on me.
Carlos Giménez’s brilliant production is destined to be one of the most
spectacular of the Festival.” The Guardian, London, 1991 1992 (No
One Writes to the Colonel).
"A Venezuelan Marat Sade". Tommaso Chiaretti , Rome, 1977 (Señor
Presidente).
“It is worth highlighting, above all, the direction
work, which involves work bordering on perfection.” ABC , Madrid, 1982 (Señor
Presidente).
.
“Carlos Giménez creates a ritual, dark, suffocating,
monumental production that emanates a power that cannot be escaped and that not
even the Spanish language can express.” Der Tagesspiegel , Berlin, 1982 (Bolívar).
“It is truly an exceptional work. Those who vibrate;
those who feel; those who yearn; those who dream; those who seek; those who
aspire; will identify with it. (…) I would never have forgiven myself for not
having seen it.” Miriam Fletcher . El Mundo, Caracas, 3/29/71 /(Tu
país está feliz).
©Nelson Rivera, El
Nacional, Literary Paper, Sunday, March 2, 2024
