Fernando: The play is based on a dramatized version of the Russian novel “Crime and Punishment”, written by David Gaitán, Mexican playwright, actor and director. It was one of the first performances when he finished his studies at the National School of Theatre Arts, and between 2009 and 2010 I got to see this play. Later, after finishing my studies I asked him for the rights to perform it in Guadalajara. I think this play is very relevant because besides keeping the axis with the police novel about Raskolnikov, main character accused of killing a usurious woman, what really keeps me reading this novel on a regular basis is the ongoing possibility of a debate. Because today, ten years after seeing the play, I still sometimes defend Raskolnikov's position and sometimes I think he did wrong. And when we bring these problems on stage, the intention is to generate the possibility of a debate, which is something that has been lost in society. Especially in the context of social networks and algorithms that make you believe that everyone thinks like yourself.
Pablo: What new elements do you include in this adaptation?
P: Behind the rehearsals with the actors, there is the Company Teatro Nómada which you founded twelve years ago in Mexico and with whom you have already brought your first international play "Juana Inés de la Cruz" (2017) to Spain. In this new production, what role does Teatro Nómada play?
F: As I am the Artistic Director of the company, I have a certain advantage and privilege of suggesting the projects we will do. On the other hand, there are also company projects in which I am not creatively involved. That means, they are generated, directed and produced without me, naturally. The members of the collective live in Guadalajara and Mexico City, while I have been in London for a year and a half. [...]
[...] When I started working on the play, I talked to the co-artistic director and the producer of the company and I said, I want to do this, how do you see it? As it was a text we had already worked on some time before, my colleagues in Mexico were already familiar with it, they knew what it was about and they liked the idea. Economically, the company does not have the solvency to help financially, but it does have the management resources to seek the necessary support. It is in my interest that the work is brought at first to English-speaking countries where the company has not had access yet because of the language. Many times, although our plays are subtitled in English, it is not in the interest of festivals to bring a play where the public will have to read subtitles.
F: No, in fact the works can be subtitled. But even so, there are works that are not originally designed to travel. But Raskolnikova, in terms of stage production, is conceived and designed to travel. We are currently living in a complete and constant recession that has lasted for more than 30 years. There is less and less money and fewer possibilities. Increasingly fewer of the big productions are travelling. But the fact that there are less structural possibilities of making a large work travel does not mean that a concept cannot continue to travel. The concept travels and the structure can stay at home. And yet, the concept, the meaning and the brutality of a stage production can remain imprinted. So it forces us to rethink the scene and at the same time forces the audience to reinterpret it. Thus we are all compelled to diversify the visual sings in the theatre. It’s what I was saying to my actors, that it's not about telling the story. In that case the spectator could simply buy the book. The play is not built vertically, but rather is like a concept map that branches out in different directions.
P: You've been to Spain before and now you're opening a new piece in London. What do you think of the European stage for theatre?
F: I think Europe is very interesting for its diversity. I say this, coming from such a big country where in two hours you cross a city, while here, during the same time you cross another country where other languages are spoken. That's impressive! That was also one of the elements that motivated this international play. Because when we talk about Dostoyevsky, we are talking about a universal classic. But who catalogues a literary work as universal ? Well, certainly Western culture. Thus, we catalogue something as universal that in reality corresponds to a tiny fraction of the world. So I find it very interesting to perform “Crime and Punishment” with an international cast. I find it very interesting how a woman from Georgia plays death or a feminicide, or how a woman from Australia plays it. It is part of the culture that has both, unfortunately and fortunately, colonized much of the world.
P: Being part of a Latin America that emerges after this colonization, how do you consider this particularity, when it comes to integrating it into this European cultural genre?F: For example, there is a part of the text that talks about the number of deaths in a country. While rehearsing the play, the actors told me that they could not understand what that part of the text referred to, which for me was like a pause. Thus, it was the first time that I saw the Mexican character of the text as unfortunate because of the impunity of the murders. The text says - I paraphrase - to live in a country where the dead accumulate in tens per minute. This is not said by Dostoyevsky, it is said by Gaitán in his rewriting, who asks us: “Is what I did so wrong? I killed this woman who was harming society. I did not start killing people in a country where the dead accumulate by the minute, there is no comparison", and in the face of that, the actors told me that they do not understand it the way I do. And that shocked me. What I live as a Mexican is not the same as someone who lives in Europe.
Interview & Photography by Pablo Hassmann
©Magma