“This mother has a dense situation with her husband, in a relationship of foolish need to be close to her son, not to accept his growth and idealize the bond,” says Cecilia Roth about his character in “The mother”, of Florian Zellerwhich closes the trilogy that began with “The father” (here presented in theater with Pepe Soriano and in cinema Anthony Hopkins) and “The son” (in cinema with Hugh Jackman and Vanessa Kirby).
“The mother” opens next Thursday at El Picadero and presents a story that questions what the limits of loneliness, emptiness and sanity are. With general direction of Andrea Garrote (the same director as “Prima facie”, “Pundonor”, “A house full of water”) the cast is completed with Gustavo Garzón, Martín Slipak and Victoria Baldomir. The performances will be from Thursday to Sunday. We talk with Cecilia Roth.
Journalist: In “The Father” the author discusses Alzheimer’s and how the bond with his daughter is affected. In “The Mother”, however, she faces the empty nest and her relationship with her husband, what can you say about it?
Cecilia Roth: Despite being a trilogy and being about the same family because they all have the same name, the three are like spin offs of each of the characters in a life in which some are not there. In “The Mother” Sara, the daughter, is not there, she exists but she left and does not call or appear. The author tells the story with a very particular dramaturgy of going back and forth, repeating, going around the same thing. The mother’s psychotic speech comes and goes, it repeats itself. The same stories are always told, love, death, the empty nest, suicide, romance, the impossible encounter, I think there are 28 dramaturgical possibilities of telling a story.
Q: What questions arise in this instance of your character’s life?
CR: I think what appears in your head is if there is a conspiracy against you, are everyone conspiring so that you are not happy, so that you are not complete, whole, everyone? My son, my husband, my son’s girlfriend, do they all want my pain?
Q.: Andrea Garrote says that the author is a master of structures and makes the audience go from the distant to the depths of their mind, do you agree?
CR: Absolutely, I agree with Andrea, she teaches me a lot, she is a great talent and she has enormous solidity in her knowledge and ability to pour it into art. The work is solid, it goes into the depths, also with humor, because otherwise it would become solemn and I am not interested in solemnity. This particular humor that the author has is compatible with the delirium that happens in the minds of his characters.
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Q: What challenge does playing this character entail?
CR: All the challenges because the stage is not my state of comfort, I leave my place of comfort when I leave a camera, and it has the brutal and wonderful challenge of being live, of having people in front of me who on a set are the camera, because the technicians are as if they were invisible. Here you work to tell a story and the audience listens to it, there is an exchange, the challenge is to live up to the exchange and what the work and Andrea propose. Also the challenge is to have fun, in the meantime.
Q.: In the play the mother is an archetype of a bourgeois family, how does she contrast with mothers from other families or social environments?
CR: I believe that the internal void does not belong to any archetype or social class, to any particular environment. Void is being emptied of emotions, not having empathy, not looking outside and inside. I don’t think I’m any different from other mothers and families. The resolution of the events is different, here a situation is maintained in eternum and in other environments it may be modified and ended in another way, perhaps with a shot, legal separation, return of a love through an agreement between the couple, continuing with a lie There are many ways not to solve, I don’t know which way is. In the work it is the human soul, the woman, not the environment.
Q: How do you see culture in general and theater in particular today?
CR: I see creativity and talent but it is unfortunate when the leaf is torn from a tree or it withers because they do not give it water, I have that feeling, both culture, health, science, education, are being emptied and the worst thing is that this way of doing it seems like a fact that is done with society agreeing. I don’t think society agrees with what the Government is doing. Society is stunned or shocked by a wild proposal, it seems that we live in a Gothic city where anything is possible. And any delirium is applauded. That would have to be analyzed, the way out of the pandemic towards this was never analyzed, those who governed in a pandemic here or in the world. Many possibilities open up to analyze and debate this post-pandemic. Everything it produces, this sweep of a time that does not want to be seen or remembered. This is happening in the world: the exponential growth of what was politically incorrect for a long time.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
