We are all fractions of ourselves to others, especially to those who enter the circle of our lives with a journey already made, with an age already reached. I think I exchanged the first words with Joan Anton Benach (Vilafranca del Penedès, 1936), who died yesterday Saturday, on the terrace of the missing Bauma, in one of the deliberations of the critics' awards jury. A rookie - he had only been a critic for ABC Catalunya for a year - surrounded by respected people, such as Joan de Sagarra, Marcos Ordóñez, Maria José Ragué, Frederic Roda and Joan-Anton Benach himself. In the more than two decades that we shared the profession, there were more juries, many shared hours in the car to go up to the Estación Alta festival or go down to the ephemeral Entrecultures in Tortosa and countless cordial greetings in the theater lobbies.
Benach, the comrade of Gonzalo Pérez de Olaguer, with whom he shared a love of tennis, urban motorcycles and Gatsby caps. Benach, the master of critics, wise and sarcastic, even-handed but passionate in his reviews, never condescending. Benach, the Navy's companion, who kept more than one personal scar under a coat of fine, almost British disdain. Benach, the democratic and cultural agitator of Barcelona who was waking up from the drowsiness of the dictatorship. In all the time that I was able to know him, some of these traits became familiar, others remained in the chamber of intuition and some more went unnoticed due to his obtuse modesty.
Firmness not to boast that at only 30 years old he was a respected journalist, critic and columnist for El Correo Catalán, a newspaper in which he shared the editorial staff with figures such as Josep Martí Gómez - with whom he would co-write a black chronicle book, Ladies, gentlemen, criminals all- Josep Ramoneda, Jaume Fabre, Huertas Claveria or Rafael Pradas. An uncomfortable voice that was censored by Fraga Iribarne himself, “condemned” to write only about cultural topics. A democratic activism and vindication of the journalistic profession in difficult times that led him to found with other colleagues in 1966 - a few months after the Caputxinada - the Grup Democràtic de Periodistes, the seed of what would later become the College of Journalists of Barcelona.
It took me a while to find out that he was the founder and first director of Barcelona magazine. Metròpolis Mediterrània, a municipal publication that he promoted for two decades since 1986. A reference magazine, especially during the construction period of the Olympic city. Or that he directed the current cultural program Tot Art from the Miramar studios between 1976 and 1979; or that between 1979 and 1983 he directed the cultural services of the Barcelona City Council, with 500 officials under him, managing 23 museums, the municipal band and the new Grec festival, which he reformulated as the city's great summer theatrical event after the collective and self-managed experiment of its first two editions. Thanks to him, and Biel Moll, Peter Brook's company found in the Mercat de les Flors - at that time a dilapidated municipal workshop - the perfect space to perform La tragédie de Carmen. With this milestone in the history of the city's theater landscape he said goodbye to public responsibilities to focus again on journalistic activity and theater criticism.
He also had time for political activism from Comunitat Catalana, especially as director of the magazine Promos; curate exhibitions, such as the great exhibition Catalunya, factory d'Espanya, inaugurated in 1985 in El Born, write fiction (Joan Santamaria award for narration in 1980 for Ball de garces) and biographies, such as the one dedicated to Hernández Pijoan (1973 ); in addition to all his articles in various publications on Catalan theatrical reality since the first democratic town councils.
But for me he will always be the theater critic of La Vanguardia, a responsibility he assumed in these pages in 1985 after the death of another great reference in Catalan criticism: Xavier Fàbregas. He was a critic for La Vanguardia for thirty years. Enough time to establish a professorship. That was mainly for me when he read to him with systematic interest and pleasure when I still didn't know him and when later we shared work from different publications. The other parts of his great biography were never very present in our relationship, which I find difficult to define as friendship, although I believe there was always an implicit mutual esteem.
The wake, for those who want to accompany the family, opens today, Sunday, at 11 a.m. at the Sant Gervasi funeral home. The funeral will be held there tomorrow, Monday at 9:30.
