Nineteen years after its premiere at the TNC's Sala Tallers, this September El mètode Grönholm returns to the Poliorama theater, where it has performed for several seasons. Premiered in 2003 with Jordi Boixaderas, Lluís Soler, Roser Batalla and Jordi Díaz, now Enric Cambray, Marc Rodríguez, Mar Ulldemolins and David Verdaguer take over, in a production that was interrupted by the pandemic and that, like the first, It is directed by Sergi Belbel. Meanwhile, the work has been performed and is being performed in theaters around the world. The playwright Jordi Galceran (Barcelona, 1964) reviews the reason for the worldwide success of this comedy, and refers to some curiosities.
The Grönholm mètode returns to do season in Barcelona. Does this montage vary much from the previous one?
Not much. Perhaps now it is more for comedy and changes the way each actor interprets, but since the director is also Belbel, it is very similar. The only time I've been an actor was with Paco Morán, and he always said: “When a comedy works, you don't even have to change the carpet”.
In these nineteen years, have you made any changes? If only in regards to technology, like the eye that watches the performers.
The scenery is new and it is true that, in some productions, instead of the envelopes that the actors open, they have changed them for tablets or mobile phones. But for me the click is not as nice as the act of opening an envelope and taking out a piece of paper. I have also retouched some phrases, when you see that a joke doesn't quite work. And little else.
Has the character who wants to change the sex changed in these years?
There is a character who says that he wants to change his sex and there is another who makes fun of him very cruelly. That, twenty years ago, did not cause any comments and now it does. Someone has told me that it is a transphobic work, something that I do not understand or share, but the work is like that and I have not changed it.
Is it the fruit of a moment?
Yes, but now it's the same. The character who makes fun of the other could also make fun of him because he is fat or because he is bald. He is a character who laughs at all the others: at this one because he wants to change his sex, at the woman because she is a woman and at the third because he is a pushover. The transsexual character defends himself quite well and says the things he has to say, and he's done. Yes, they have asked me if he could change something about that character, but I said no, that the work was like that and that's it.
Do you mean that you have had some pressure to make it more politically correct?
Yes, here and outside. Especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, where these things are even more sensitive than here. In London it premiered as it is and, although the critics were good, they said that there were a series of transphobic words that were politically incorrect, and here it is over, it had no more run. The play had to go to a bigger theater, and it was no longer done.
Did the politically correct element stop the Anglo-Saxon path of the work?
It was an impediment there, but it continues to be done everywhere. I am also not very aware of whether things are changed in the productions of other countries, because I do not follow it. This August it is re-opened in Buenos Aires, with a good cast; it is being done in Brazil; in Germany there are several productions underway...
And it has been represented in half the world.
In sixty countries. The Grönholm mètode has had a very good run.
Have you seen all the productions?
Nope! At first, I did see seven or eight, and I went to some places that I liked to go, like Reykjavik, Caracas, Moscow, Sofia...
Which of these montages has surprised you the most?
Moscow always comes to mind. Russian actors are exaggeratedly good. Also, the show was directed very differently, from the drama, but it was laughable. They've performed it for ten years, although in Russia it works differently because it's repertory theater, that is, they do it twice a month. And they program it in many cities. But now I have withdrawn the authorization of all my works due to the conflict with Ukraine. It didn't matter to me that the Russians were laughing at my jokes and invading Ukraine at the same time.
Is there anyone who has not finished liking something?
The Grönholm mètode is the only work I have written that, however you do it, works. You may like it more or less, but the machine has been so well closed that it works everywhere. I've seen it done with four chairs, with a spectacular stage, with amateur actors, with super good actors, and the machine always works. On the other hand, with other works of mine that does not happen. If it's done wrong, the text falls like it's nothing.
What is the secret of such a perfect machine?
If I knew, I would have done more. I've found a mechanism and characters that work well, but I don't know. I always think that what has made it work the most is that everyone understands what happens to those characters, because we have all had to go through selection processes in life: from school, that you have to pass exams; when you flirt, that you have to be chosen and try to give an image of yourself that looks like you can get somewhere; when you're looking for a job... The comedy of the play lies in the fact that the characters don't know what they have to do to please those who have to select them. That is why they are constantly testing things: perhaps they would like it to be softer or harder, without knowing what is expected of them.
Does the audience empathize with any of the characters?
Not necessarily, but everyone does feel identified at some point. Not so much because of the anecdote or something concrete, but emotionally, what the characters feel you have felt at some time. If you meet a girl for the first time, you don't know how to act. You don't know if she expects you to be very outspoken and fun, or she expects you to be more restrained; if he expects you to pay or that we pay half... And all the time you are playing. If the girl asks you if you are religious, now what do I tell her! What do you expect her to say? That's what happens to those characters and what everyone understands.
Gronhölm's mètode has been adapted twice for film. The first, in such a free way that it ended up calling only The method. It seems that he was not very happy with that version.
That's why I insisted that after a while another one be made, with the same actors from the first theatrical cast. Of the plays, what remains afterward is the film. How is Twelve Angry Men remembered over the years? Well, for the movie. It happens with all the theater that is adapted to the cinema.
Of the other works that you have premiered, is there a favorite that you would have liked to have worked better?
I think Cancun is the best comedy I've written and it's the one I like the most. In Barcelona it happened without pain or glory and in Madrid it has been represented more. Also in other places, like St. Petersburg, where it has been done for ten years, with a beautiful montage. But he hasn't finished having the success of Burundanga, El mètode and I feel bad about it. We were about to make the movie and in the end it didn't come out.
Now that you mention Burundanga, how did you come up with the idea of writing a comedy with ETA members?
Finding a good idea is the hardest thing for me, and that's what my life consists of, finding a good idea to write a comedy, one that is minimally special, that the viewer says is different. In the case of Burundanga, I saw that a comedy had never been made with ETA members and I jumped in, although many people were surprised, because when I wrote it, ETA was still there.
And it worked.
She was here for seven weeks and in Madrid they have been representing her every day in the world for eleven years. Why didn't it work in Barcelona and in Madrid has it been one of the most successful comedies in history? We will never know.
Where did you get the idea to write El mètode Grönholm?
Two things are mixed. On the one hand, a game that we played with Belbel and other friends from the theater called the wolves. It's like a town where each player receives a letter, so that some are neighbors and the others are wolves, and speaking they have to discover the wolves and eliminate them. And that intersected with a story about a journalist who found some personnel selection sheets for supermarket cashiers in a container that someone had thrown away. On those sheets, the person in charge of the interviews had written down things like: “Not this one, by the way”; “She is moraca”; "She doesn't even know how to shake hands"... It was all very insulting, but I found it very theatrical: the person who needs the job and the person who has the power to give it to them or not give them to them.
Catalan version, here
