The war in Ukraine has given an unexpected turn to Arthur Miller's Tots were fills meus, directed by David Selvas at the Teatre Lliure. Little did the director imagine, when he set up the project, which has been delayed by the pandemic, that this drama about war and the few scruples of the liberal economy would become rabidly topical.
If the classics are classics because they are always up-to-date, in the case of Miller's work, current events give even more force to the consequences of the savage economy that tries to profit in any circumstance. One only has to look at the earthquake tragedy in Turkey, Syria and Kurdistan to grasp the devastating effects of cheating in building construction.
In the case of Tots eren fills meus, from 1947, Miller wrote this drama based on a real event in World War II, when factories had to be converted to supply the army.
On the construction site, two partners in an aircraft component factory have made defective parts that have killed American soldiers. But business is business, and the character played by Jordi Bosch makes it clear when he finds himself trapped: "I'm a businessman!" Miller poses the same dilemma as Ibsen in The Wild Duck: live the lie or face the consequences.
When Selvas decided to direct this montage, he thought of Emma Vilarasau for the role of the mother, and Bosch and Eduard Buch were added. The company is completed with Quim Ávila, Clàudia Benito, Eduardo Lloveras, Francesc Marginet, Gemma Martínez, Clara de Ramon and the children Ricard Buján and Ramon Mir, a strong team that "is only possible in a public theater", remarks Vilarasau.
Tots were fills meus is Miller's second work, when it was still not clear if he would dedicate himself to dramaturgy. "Miller, who reinvented the tragedy, was surprised that there were big businessmen who left the theater crying," explains Selvas.
Regarding the message of the work, Vilarasau points out: “We live in a completely capitalist society. There is a phrase from the play that touches me every day: 'War is coins of five and ten'. It's hard to realize that the years have passed after Miller and we're in an even worse world." And Bosch adds: "We have already seen it with the pandemic, that the economy could not be stopped even if people died."
Vilarasau and Bosch, who feel the Teatre Lliure as their home, have worked closely with Selvas. "He is a director and an actor and he knows the little animals he has in his hands," says the actress. I really liked working with it, because it makes you dizzy, dizzy and dizzy, but it doesn't bother you, and it allows you to change everything in each function”.
For the staging, the Fabià Puigserver room has been arranged on four sides, with a garden in the center. "We haven't built the house," points out Selvas. And a new translation by Cristina Genebat is used, instead of the one by Quim Monzó, which premiered directed by Ferran Madico at the Romea theater in 1999. Tots erin filles meus can be seen at the Teatre Lliure de Montjuïc from February 22 to March 26
Catalan version, here
