Rushing the hours to meet the public. The actor from Córdoba Fernando Tejero, together with Dani Muriel and Mabel del Pozo, will raise the curtain this Friday at the Gran Teatro de Córdoba for the absolute premiere of the first performance in Spain of Camino al zoo, a joint text divided into two acts, which combines the two works written by Edward Albee with the same characters. Directed by Juan Carlos Rubio and with the text adapted by Bernabé Rico, the entire cast is already in the city to prepare the general rehearsal prior to the premiere and this morning they met with the media to tell their impressions of the play.
“How to go to the psychologist every day”
Fernando Tejero, protagonist of the play and undisputed attraction for spectators, with double attraction in Córdoba, where all the tickets were sold as soon as it went on sale, has explained the difficulties he has felt to put himself in the shoes of Peter, his character, that has stirred him inside and has served him in some way to provide therapy for his own ghosts. “For me “This work has been like going to the psychologist every day, when I rehearse I ask myself, damn it, but what am I doing here, and going to the psychologist every day is a bitch,” He assured, “it is very difficult to face your fears and this work has a lot of impact on my life, there are moments like Dani’s monologue and the dog that destroy me because what it tells is what I have experienced in my flesh.”
According to Tejero, who has said loud and clear that for him “returning to the theater is always an orgasm”, Peter has faced a “tough process because he has confronted me with situations of lack of communication, loneliness, reflection on how important and how difficult human relationships sometimes are”, something that he has assumed as part of the job, since “Theatre is to tell things that leave no one indifferent and this play has that, and I hope that the spectators who come to see us let themselves be touched and enter the performance.”
For the actor from Córdoba, “the three characters are in terrible shape.” Jerry, played by Dani Muriel, is the one who opens Peter’s eyes “by talking to him about the sadness of the world, about how sometimes we love badly because it is the only way we know, about isolation… but leaving in the end a halo of hope,” explained the actor who brings the character to life, for whom “the texts of Camino del Zoo are very deep and have many different layers.”
“The theater should be the mirror where we look at ourselves”
Anne, played by Mabel del Pozo, completes the triangle by showing the empty well she faces in her relationship with Peter in a kind of prequel titled Homelife written by the author 50 years after Zoo Story in which he completes the main character. “There is a lot of influence from the theater of the absurd,” he assured, before assessing the need to bet on works of great significance like this one “because “The theater should be the mirror where we look at ourselves, the place where we look at ourselves and feel catharsis about the problems of society.”. Along these lines, Fernando Tejero has assured that “functions like these are very important to move consciences and to talk about things like how important love is and how it is failing at this moment and that this lack of love is behind wars.” and the lack of empathy with the other”.
Tejero, unlike other artists from Córdoba, such as Vicente Amigo, who always says that performing in Córdoba paralyzes him in some way due to the pressure he feels, assures that performing before the people of his homeland causes him nerves that are a mixture of enthusiasm and responsibility, “a stimulus, like when you fall in love and have butterflies in your stomach.”
Everyone has agreed to highlight the opportunity of the work and the weight of Juan Carlos Rubio, who was not able to attend, as director of this production at a time of complete validity, despite the fact that it was written at the end of the fifties of last year. According to Bernabé Rico, “it was written that we had to premiere the work in Córdoba because Historia del zoo was a very present text in Cristina Rota’s school, where Fernando Tejero and I were trained and also the final text was created here between Juan Carlos Rubio and I, who finished writing the work in a bar in the city. Producer and co-author of the work, he has highlighted that Camino del zoo “It has everything that I like to have in a work, a lot of depth, comedy and a theme such as the need to communicate”.
Although at the moment, only one performance has been scheduled at the Gran Teatro, they do not rule out returning to Córdoba as the closing of the tour that will begin after Christmas and that, for now, will take them to Malaga, Zaragoza and soon to Madrid.