In reviewing large, successful
musicals put on in Spain over the last several decades, one would
find lots of Spanish versions of foreign productions. Indeed, with
the exception of the occasional "jukebox" - musical shows that
squeeze an artist's repertory and wrap a story around it like in
the case of Mecano, Sabina, etc, - there have been very few new and
unique musicals with their own stamp. Exceptions are those
experimental pieces made in Catalonia such as Dagoll Dagom's "Mar i
cel" or the commercial fiasco of Jordi Galcerán's "Gaudí". It is
logical though, because creating a new play from scratch is an
enormous undertaking, above all in financial terms. Such ventures
require courageous producers willing to face the big risks
involved. Entrepreneurs like Andrés Vicente Gómez have done it
before, albeit until now only in the world of cinema. The veteran
producer, who has won and lost so many times - sometimes by
knock-out like the best of boxers - is now reinventing himself with
his first theatrical experience. And he is doing so with nothing
less than a large-scale musical with international ambitions, "El
último jinete" (The Last Horseman) which premieres in Madrid next
week.
Adventure classics
With an initial budget of 9 million
euros, a script written by novelist Ray Loriga, music by English
pop music icon Albert Hammond, composer John Cameron, choreography
by Broadway heavy-weight Karen Bruce («Footloose», «Fame»,
«Oliver!» and «Saturday Night Fever»), wardrobe design by recent
prize-winner Yvonne Blake, «The Last Horseman» is to premiere in
the Canal Theaters, where it will play for five weeks.
Inspired by epic adventure stories, The Last Horseman tells the
story of Tiradh, a young Bedouin with little more than a dream: to
find an exceptional horse and to achieve glory with it. With the
help of an immortal poetess, Al Khansa, Tiradh will travel at the
end of the 19th century through Arabia until he reaches Egypt,
dominated at the time by war and tribal conflicts. Along his way,
he will meet an English high society woman, Lady Laura.
The story behind the musical is not
accidental: it originated as a result of a trip made by Andrés
Vicente Gómez to the Middle East: «I went over to Qatar, the United
Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia seeking finance to make an animated
film... One of the powerful people I met proposed that I make a
musical», explains the producer who then asked himself: «Why not do
a musical about the reconstruction of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia
taking up where "Lawrence de Arabia?" left off?». In fact, he
explains, the protagonist is distantly based on King Abdelaziz bin
Saud (1876-1953), the first monarch of Saudi Arabia. The next step
was to get Ray Loriga on board. Loriga, while on a brief trip to
Tokyo to interview Murakami for unrelated reasons, wrote a first
draft of the script that delighted Gómez. Others followed, and at
this point, there have been at least 16 or 17 drafts of the script,
they estimate.
«For me, the theater and more
specifically the musical represent a new genre which I like, though
not openly because within certain intellectual circles, it is
frowned upon to watch such performances as "The Sound of Music" or
"The Wizard of Oz," explains Ray Loriga. "But whenever I traveled
to London or New York, I would see one of those musicals». And he
adds reassuringly: «This show is a fable based on some very
important points in the history of Saudi Arabia and, above all, the
country's poetry». A country, he notes, «about which the news that
reach us are usually distorted».
On stage there'll be a large cast
and orchestra, with three well-known names in the world of musicals
in Spain: Miquel Fernández («Hoy no me puedo levantar»), Marta
Ribera («Chicago») and Julia Möller («Beauty and the Beast»). As
head of the project, Gómez is working with a seasoned director with
known successes under his belt in this genre. Resorting to very
little -two actors and a few blankets so to speak- Víctor Conde
turned the small-scale musical «Pegados» into a success in Madrid.
With a little more -well, actually, quite a lot more-, he proved
with «Les Miserables» that he could also handle commercial
products. As regards this new musical, Conde assures us that there
is «humor, adventure and romance, and poetry» in this story. And
regarding Loriga's script: «The actors would say to me: how
beautiful our dialogue is. It's as if we were performing a
Shakespearean play». Mind you, some «theatrical carpentry» was
missing. And that has been his job: «We are almost doing an
adventures movie from the 1980s: our reference points are films
like "The Princess Bride", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and the
classics of the 1930s of Errol Flynn... Once we had that clear, it
was very easy to pursue our target along the lines of the formulae
we selected». Although, of course, the horses won't be real ones:
«We knew from the beginning that we didn't want that. I have worked
with real horses before... and I know the way the stage smells when
you do», the director jokes. «We are doing theater here... and in a
musical format».
They won't be resorting either to a huge puppet like in the case
of «War Horse» in London. That was too obvious. Conde has opted
instead for a «human horse» made of two male dancers. «We never
intended for the horse to be real, and the actors know it. We
present it with the music», the director explains. And Loriga
underscores: «We needed something that belonged to the realm of
dreams».
In the same way, the set design
will not be grandiose nor will it change as the story unfolds from
the Arab markets and the desert to Victorian London in the second
part of the musical. Instead, it will be evocative, relying on a
palace-like though open atmosphere.
MIGUEL AYANZ