“Enthusiasm”: From Malasaña to Sanchinaro…and what next? | Babelia

Pablo Lemmon wrote in a forum published last year: Baberia Uncle Vania is “a character with a sense of having been deceived (…) The deception is ultimately a fraud of time. Time slips away from Vania.” The article concerned the Madrid playwright and director’s most recent very free adaptation of Chekhov’s work, a four-hour production in which Lemmon demonstrated his extraordinary ability to combine classical theatrical themes with modern sensibilities.

new setup, enthusiasm, Let’s get back to fraud. It is a scam that is discovered when the so-called “middle age” arrives. The film literally begins with an advertising plane flying across the sky with the words “They’re deceiving you” written on it. But this time the protagonists live not in a 19th-century Russian dacha, but in the urbanization of Sanchinaro, the epitome of PAU culture in 21st-century Madrid.

They’re very recognizable characters, and Lemon doesn’t have to make any effort for us viewers to connect with them. He offers our lives on a plate. The main characters, a married couple, are seen in a hurry to take their children to school, stressed and disillusioned with work, becoming insomniac and apathetic, longing for the frenzy of youth in the attic and in the gambling dens of the Malasaña district. The male character of the author, who is unable to write his second novel and makes a living as a teacher, may be a transcription of the author. This woman, a journalist working for EL PAÍS, may be the person who signed this review.

All this comes true enthusiasmlike all of Lemmon’s work, is a very entertaining show. But it’s also somewhat obvious. Perhaps that’s precisely because the characters are so easy to identify with. We are missing the point of distance, the dramatic flight, the sparkle that takes us beyond what we already know and experience every day. It also gives the impression that there will come a time when the same thing will happen to the author as it did to the main characters. It gets stuck in clichés, doesn’t know where to go, and ends up being too long. The last 30 minutes add very little.

Beyond that, Lemmon has once again put together a perfectly crafted montage in every aspect: text, direction, and interpretation. The field of writing stands out for its intelligence in presenting situations, ambitious plot structures, and bold combinations of narration, description, and metafiction. This sophisticated combination, combined with the scenography that perfectly translates the dramatic allegory, elevates this production to a level beyond Costumbrismo.

In this work, the author doubles down on his commitment to humor and captivates the audience with gags that use cliches. For example, when the protagonist invites us to imagine her, half a banana in her hand, during one of those endless afternoons spent with other women who are dumbfounded by motherhood. Or when she later speaks wryly of the extremely boring life of urbanization, the golden cage of middle-class women. Meanwhile, her husband is suffering because his second novel has not been published.

But lemon pirouettes require a solvent accomplice on stage. The actors – Francesco Calil, Natalia Hernández, Raul Prieto and Marina Salas – are not just solvent, but jump from one register to another so naturally that we hardly notice the complex structure of the piece.