Daniel Anglès is an actor, singer, theatrical and artistic director, the soul behind the upcoming production at Teatre Condal: Blood Brothers. A play quite well-known to the Barcelona audience, at once new and timeless, one of those infallible musicals due to the strength of its plot and the mirror effect it creates.
Anglès talks to us about this play but also about his career, intimately linked to Barcelona and musical theater. Although he confesses that he would like to host a radio show.
--- You come from a long career in musicals, television programs, playing diverse characters and directing very different formats... within this repertoire, what does Blood Brothers mean to you?
--- First, from a personal point of view, Blood Brothers is the first musical for adults in which I worked as a performer. And I saw it as a spectator in '94 when it premiered, in the 94-95 season. Then, when the show went on tour in Catalonia, an actor from the company left and I came in to replace him. Therefore, I have been able to see Blood Brothers from both outside and inside. I turned 19 during that process.
--- And from there...
--- As something I observed and admired from the outside, I was later able to think about being part of it and acting alongside people I admired and still admire very much. That personal connection had to be highlighted. Then, as a professional, I recognize all its virtues as a piece of musical theater, social theater, and a true classic.
--- It deals with themes that are still very relevant.
--- That's why I believe it deserves the epithet of classic: there are old shows that are not classics. Blood Brothers has that ability to transcend time and space because of what it tells. I think it's a very well-written piece and in Catalonia it has a special connection with the audience because of what it meant at the time. Now it's about bringing something that the audience, or a large part of it, knows and places somewhere in their memory, and that also implies a lot of things.
--- But it's not the same to do it in '94 as now.
--- No, everything has changed. Everything has changed. Well, and in many aspects nothing has changed. The show poses an eternal question: our life, why is it the way it is? Why is it written somewhere and determined by a superior force that we do not control, such as the place where we are born, social class, etc.? Or why can we intervene despite all this?
--- That's why they are twins: identical and antagonistic.
--- Exactly. It's the story of two twin brothers whose mother cannot keep both and gives one to a wealthy family. How different are the lives of these two brothers? If it had been the other way around, if the twin who went with the wealthy family had been the other one, would the story be the same? Or would each one's personality also have influenced it? There is no definitive answer.
--- Circumstances condition us, or we condition them.
--- We have it easier or harder depending on where we are born, that's clear. I think that in the times we are living now, when we see what is happening in so many countries around the world, with so many conflicts, we all understand that we are fortunate to live in the country we live in.
--- And, therefore, that has not changed.
--- That has not changed, but how stories are told, how they are received... All that has changed. The author, Willy Russell, when he premiered the show in the late 80s, had a desire for modernity. He wanted that show to be contemporary. And one of the decisions we have made is to try to maintain this contemporaneity, to maintain current culture so that today's audience continues to receive it as something that connects with the present. This is one of the things that makes it not a revival, but a new version of the show.
--- What changes would you highlight?
--- Obviously, the cast is different, but that's not the key piece. These same performers could do the old version of the show. The change is more aesthetic: we have sought abstraction, to place the characters in an environment that is not an exact reproduction of their world. I believe strongly in that. I think that audiovisual usually reproduces the places where characters live, but one of the powers of theater is that it can suggest spaces. The spectator's imagination, just like when you read a book, does the rest. And it is better and more powerful than what you can physically show.
--- What else?
--- First, this abstraction, this contemporaneity, this invitation to imagine with little. Then, we have redone all the musical arrangements. The songs are the same and the public will recognize them, but everything is completely rearranged by us. The way of using the instruments, the electronics for example... In the original version, the narrator was an rocker from the 80s. But today's modern music is something else, it's closer to rap, to hip hop.
--- And the text holds up, then?
--- Of course, but we also do important work reviewing values and readings we make about the themes of the play. Now there is a sensibility that we didn't have 30 years ago, and that we have also worked on a lot, and that makes the characters more human. I think this is a function of good people.
--- Of good people?
--- The starting point of all the characters is their personal reality, but there isn't a good and a bad by nature or from the start. In certain circumstances they can do things looking out for themselves, or for what they feel, that can harm others... but they don't have a predetermined good or bad. They make correct or erroneous decisions, but it's important that all interpreters can understand why their character does what they do.
--- And the choreography?
--- A very important contribution, obviously, is the work we are doing with Ariadna Peya. Germans de Sang is a piece that normally has had very little choreographic presence; in fact, in the original production of '94 in Barcelona, Coco Comin structured the two most choreographic numbers until they were beautiful. But here I wanted the physical work to be part of the dramaturgy, to stage what surrounds the characters, which is not in the original play. To stage that social pressure and that environment of the protagonists, and also to capture that bad omen, that superstition, that apparently inevitable destiny. That is the choreographic work that Ariadna Peya is doing with the entire company. That conditions them, pressures them, gives a power, a quantity of emotional decibels to the story that I think is very impactful.
--- And on a technological level?
--- We have dared with a system called SACTRAC, a system for tracking actors on stage that positions them and sends information to both sound and lighting, to make the experience even finer, more precise, more surgical at a technical level.
"Musical theater in Catalonia is better today than yesterday and worse than tomorrow"--- And you? Besides not stopping: you look back, and what do you see?
--- I've been lucky enough to touch many keys, there are always many different things I like to do. I'm passionate about pedagogy and teaching, I have a school that I run, I love teaching... I like directing theater; so far I've directed a lot of musicals, but I'm also starting to direct text theater, which is something I've taken a long time to start doing and which excites me... But I also really like acting, I love singing, I'm passionate about singing. Being on stage is something I try to do whenever I can.
--- And television.
--- Look: yes, television, and Eufòria, of course... but I'll confess something I've never said: my great passion is radio.
--- How?
--- What I'd like to do is a radio show. I've been on Catalunya Cultura, on Catalunya Ràdio, I even did a daily 4-hour magazine from Monday to Friday, Òmnibus. And now I've been collaborating with Toni Clapés for four seasons, which for me is the best radio show in history. The world of radio fascinates me, I'm a great listener, it's a medium where everything takes on an enormous dimension. In theater there's a lot of team, but everyone is there, in one place, and television is like a monster with a life of its own. I feel very fortunate for the experiences I've had, because I've always been in the world of talent. I've been on Operación Triunfo, I was a judge on Oh Happy Day, which for me was an extension of my work as a casting director... And when Eufòria appeared it was something else: it was about staging songs in a different way, with a different personality; as artistic director I was very happy (although it was very absorbing). However: I wouldn't leave everything for TV, but I would leave everything for radio.
--- And the role of performer?
--- I don't want to lose it in any way, of course: because as an artistic director I enjoy it a lot, but it's also good to be directed and told what to do from time to time. Even if it's what for me involves a greater effort on an emotional and energetic level. My soul is more exposed.
--- How do you see the panorama of musical theater in Barcelona or in Catalonia?
--- Musical theater in Catalonia is better today than yesterday and worse than tomorrow. We have done more, we have lived more and, therefore, the public knows more. Journalists know more, professionals know more and we have learned from what has worked and what has not. My vision is always optimistic for the future. I am a little concerned about the language issue: we have a problem with the natural use of our language and we have to incorporate a whole population that does not feel sufficiently addressed. From Grup Focus we have been very forceful with that. In fact, Golfus de Roma was a turning point for many people: it can be done well, big, with quality and in Catalan.
--- See you at Germans de Sang, then.
--- And remember that the play begins with a spoiler: both are dead, and yet you spend the whole play wishing nothing happens to them. That is the power of theater, and especially of a good text. Destiny? We make our own destiny, that's clear. Yours, mine and everyone's. The story we tell you is not given to you finished, no matter how much it seems so: you have to live it, and your imagination completes it. It's what we said: everything is the same as before, and everything is completely different.