Carlos Giménez (born in Córdoba, Argentina, on April 13, 1946, Aries) is the founder and director of the Caracas International Theater Festival, together with María Teresa Castillo, one of the major drivers of culture in
Venezuela, who has not hesitated to support him since 1971, when the first
festival was held, and who then hired him as Art Director for the Caracas
Athenaeum, an institution she has helped create and of which she is the
president.Carlos is also the founder and director of the Rajatabla
Group, with which he has traveled around the world, winning hundreds of
awards, and which put Venezuelan theater at the center of the global theatrical
stage.
Working
as a director since he was a teen, in 1965 he participated in the First
Nancy Theater Festival with his group El Juglar. He was
19 years old and he achieved something impossible at the time: without any
previous performances in Buenos Aires, he gained international exposure
directly from Córdoba to Europe. After that, they traveled to Poland, where the
group shared the Honorable Mention with East Germany in Warsaw
and received the First Prize in Krakow. Back in Argentina he
faced the indifference of the capital's theatrical world towards his
achievements in Europe. In response, Carlos created in Córdoba the First
National Theater Festival, but was excluded from its organization in 1967,
when political repression was starting in his country. This event decided him
to abandon his home country.
This
interview took place in the context of the Pirandello Festival, which is held in every auditorium and every
space within the Caracas Athenaeum, and which he is in charge of organizing.
According to Carlos Giménez, the “main idea for organizing the Festival
comes from the need to connect theater as a social event within the community
it is inserted in”—in this case, the significant Italian immigrant
population—, to involve private business in cultural activities, to take
culture to all social classes, all aspects in which Venezuelan theater has
stayed a bit on the sidelines. With this purpose, the Caracas Athenaeum plans
to organize annual festivals about other important figures in world
theater.
If you
had to create a minimal autobiography, what aspects of your life would you
choose?
My
arrival to Venezuela in November 1969. Because this defines a lot, not only
professional aspects in my life, but also personal aspects, that is, what I was
going to do with my life and my career.
Then, as
this event divided my life in two, going back to my experiences in Argentina,
one of the most important moments was my high school graduation in 1964 and my
departure to Europe. There I discovered a world that was completely unknown to
me and I was dazzled by it, which meant, at least for me, that I was not going
to stay locked within the parameters set by the city or the country I was born
in. I realized there was a mismatch between what I wanted and what my
environment, my habitat, gave me.
During
that time, I met Jack Lang, who is the director of the World Theater Festival
in Nancy, and now Minister of Culture in France, so that was how in 1964 I came
into contact with international festivals, which was going to be really
important, because Jack Lang invited us to participate in 1965 in the First
World Festival in Nancy. This invitation also extended to the group of people
who at that time were in Europe without having constituted the El Juglar group
yet - the creation of which is another important moment in my life, even though
El Juglar never had neither the influence nor the impact that Rajatabla has had
in Latin America. This participation was extremely important if we consider
that this group that went to the Nancy World Festival and to festivals in
Warsaw and Krakow, Poland, in 1965, was a provincial theatrical group that had
not left Córdoba to go to Buenos Aires, but to participate in these really
important events.
Moreover,
1965 was the year when all the movements which would have a huge impact in the
theatrical world started all at the same time, like Nancy, Grotowski, Eugenio
Barba, Jack Lang, Els Joglars from Barcelona and La Comuna from Portugal. In
Poland, we presented a play which won one of the awards of the International
Theatre Institute (ITI-UNESCO), called “El Otro Judas” (The Other Judas) from
Abelardo Castillo, one of the most eminent Argentine intellectuals from that
time and director of “El Escarabajo de Oro”. With this play that I directed we
won the Honorable Mention together with East Germany in Warsaw and, in Krakow,
we received the First Prize.
How important
was your success in Europe for your career?
It was
crucial. That moment and then the cold reception we had in Argentina when we
presented the same play decided me to leave my country.
And did
you come directly to Venezuela?
No, I
started in 1968 with what would be another fundamental event in my life: a tour
by land from Córdoba to Caracas, which took us 3 months. We went to the
main mining centers in Bolivia, where we presented our shows. I vividly
remember the experience we had in Chorolque, a peak that is 5,000 meters
above sea level and has the highest tin mine in the world. There, since there
was no electricity, we performed using the miners' lights - that is, surrounded
by 40 miners who provided us light with their helmets while we performed a
children's play. This tour meant a terrifying discovery of Latin America, not
just skin-deep. We came into contact with utter poverty in Latin America. We
also performed in fishing centers in Peru, we did a wonderful tour around Peru,
we performed in Colombia and in 1968 we arrived at the Manizales Festival. In
this festival, we presented a play called “La Querida Familia” (The Dear
Family), a baroque anthology by Ionesco, and the jury formed by Ernesto Sábato,
Pablo Neruda, Jack Lang, Miguel Ángel Asturias, awarded us the prize. However,
we still couldn't get to Venezuela - we only managed to do that after
participating in the Second Manizales Theater Festival in 1969, where we met
Omar Arrieche, Director of the Barquisimeto Educational Experimental Theater,
who got us a visa to enter by land.
When was
Rajatabla founded?
On
February 28, 1971, when “Tu país está feliz” (Your country is happy) was
premiered. At that moment we expressed our desire to form a group with a
regular cast, a permanent producer, our own auditorium for the long-term, which
would allow us to evolve our aesthetics and have a very unique repertoire based
on the needs of the group. All of these expectations were surpassed by the
reality of our work. At that time, some important things happened, like the
Caracas International Theater Festival.
Was
Rajatabla already part of the Athenaeum at that time?
Rajatabla
has always been dependent on the Athenaeum in a rather informal way, but with
the success we achieved with our performances—“Tu país está feliz”, “Don Mendo”
(Mr. Mendo)—and finally after presenting the first show we prepared with the
name of Rajatabla, which was “Venezuela tuya” (Your Venezuela) by Luis Britto
García, we became the regular cast in the Caracas Athenaeum.
How
important is the Caracas International Theater Festival considered in
Venezuela?
I
personally believe it is of critical importance, because it consolidates a
whole perspective and a philosophy regarding theater. However, this is a relatively
misunderstood fact in the Venezuelan context, because of the investment it
implies. It's true that it would be really beneficial for the country if the
government invested that money in other important priorities, such as creating
a National Theater School, a National Theater Company, but we know that's not
going to happen. Our country is the empire of consummated facts, of de facto
culture. Furthermore, I believe that this Festival projects and creates an
international relationship for Venezuelan theater, it opens up new structures,
it raises the level of reflection, it powers and qualifies the work of our
creators and it means opening up to incorporate an enormous class to theatrical
activity, especially young people.
We
remember that in 1979 you suffered a serious accident. What did it mean for
you?
That was
another fundamental event in my life. Because through that accident and through
the response and support I got, people's emotional attachment, I established an
important connection with the country.
This year
you're going to direct “Chuo Gil” in the United States. How are you preparing
for this new experience?
With
great enthusiasm, because it means entering the United States professional
theater, with a very important cast, within a different framework and with a
huge production team and an almost mechanical production. It means entering a
state in my profession that is perhaps less human but very interesting to go
through.
What do
you think are the most important values in your theatrical work?
Firstly,
I'm getting more and more terrified of formulas. I find it hard to rationalize
my work method. I can use 4 or 5 of Stanislavsky's concepts, introduce elements
from Brecht's technique, but I'm not an educator, I'm not a teacher.
But are there
specific formulas you reject?
No,
that's something I did at the beginning, but I'm rejecting less and less.
There's an already trodden path that you need to travel sooner or later. What's
wonderful about theater is that inapprehensible sense that you never know
what's going to happen, that intangible element for which an actor might
perform in a completely different way than on the previous day. There are some
topics that I'm invariably interested in, such as timelessness - theater is not
a video, it's not a movie, it's something absolutely temporary in essence. When
the curtain comes down, we know that we've seen a performance that will not be
repeated ever again. Another fundamental topic is that of space and time, and
the reaction to these two elements from the director, the actor and the
spectator. That is why I have paid special attention to staging and to keeping
away, as I believe great creators have done, from acting mechanically, from
reading the text in a literal way. For example, Stanislavski, who made a
comprehensive analysis of actors, did not dissociate the work of the actor
himself from external elements, for example smell - he said he wished smell
would come from the stage. And that is what I call paying attention to reading
plays non-literally.
Why have
you decided to set up “Tu país está feliz” again?
Because
my aesthetical proposition is not dissociated from my ideological proposition.
I want to set up not only that play but also the 20 shows I did there once
again. To perform a kind of live dive to see what happened with everything that
has been done before. Reflecting from a long distance allows you to see things
much more deeply, and personally it allows me to discover what hidden territory
I can tread on to make a new recreation. I've been accused of being reiterative
and it's true - I am a kind of Manichaean who has enclosed himself within a
series of personal codes and I will not be free until I have exhausted them.
They are like the ghosts I accept I'll have until I get free of them.
Note by VMI:
Although all articles about Carlos Giménez say he was born in Rosario, which is
true, when we interviewed him Carlos was very busy organizing the Pirandello
Festival, so he asked us to leave him the questions saying he would answer them
in writing.. He loved writing and he did it very well. And he wrote:
“Carlos Giménez (born in Córdoba, Argentina, on April
13, 1946, Aries).”
People are not from where they were born but
from where they feel they were born. And he
is as Cordovan as he is Venezuelan.
-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 andnever left again, although his detractors
never calmed down and even after his death they continue to attack him.
Argentine President Dr. Illia, left, Anita Giménez and his side and Carlos Giménez, right, at the Casa Rosada, Buenos Aires, 1965
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 bookRajatabla 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 herfor 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.
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.
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.”
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 underdictatorship:
"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."
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 toMaria 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.
.
-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.
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.
In 1984, Carlos wrote an article about Moliere that
seemed like a premonition of what was going to happen to him: “ It is
the rite of horror. Why so much hatred? (…) His enemies pursue him after his
death (…) 'Moliere, nothing would be lacking in your glory, if
among the defects that you so clearly discovered, you had included such
black ingratitude.'”
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).
“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).
“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).
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