Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, one of our great men of interpretation, arrives, at the wonderful age of 83, at the Fernán Gómez Theater in Madrid as director of the play ‘Los duelistas’, an adaptation of the tale ‘El Duelo’ by Conrad. And we take the opportunity to discuss … he. Sins, as they should be.
-I forgive you a sin.
-Timidity.
-For sin, I have to tell you that it is a very original model.
-More than original, in the times we live in, it is a serious capital sin for our society.
-Would this then be a modern sin?
– Certainly not one of the old ones. But the deadly sins are a bit outdated. This list is very outdated.
-We can formulate a new one. Should we add others, as well as shyness?
-I would add modesty.
I would say that shyness is disabling for someone who has to go on stage and work with hundreds of eyes on him.
-This is the contradiction. The human contradiction is there. These many eyes on you make you not yourself. It’s not you who goes on stage, it’s someone else.
–Could this divide be caused by the daily struggle against one’s capital sin, shyness?
-Well, more or less, that would be it, yes.
–And what sin do you most easily excuse in others?
-Lack of understanding.
-Another modern sin. Can you explain it to me?
-Well, the world is a misunderstanding. Our inability to understand others is the cause of most conflicts and misunderstandings. That’s why I can understand and forgive someone who falls into this and doesn’t understand others.
“The human contradiction is there. All these eyes fixed on you mean that you are not yourself. “It’s not you who goes on stage, it’s someone else.”
-And the one who has the most difficulty in forgiving?
-Pride. In this case, I’m going for one of the classics.
–With a job like yours, I suppose you have to deal with it quite often.
-No, no, what’s going on. Pride lies in powerful people, those with money and politicians. They are arrogant people. Our profession, like artistic professions in general, is rather vanity. There may be some isolated cases of arrogance, but very rare.
–Could this then be the sin that you do not allow yourself to commit under any circumstances?
-Well, I may have had a proud moment at times, we are all human. But I’m not extreme, that is to say that we can’t stand being arrogant by profession in life. But what I can’t stand is arrogance.
“The human being is a bit like the earth, we have a fiery central core. It is a question, with education and culture, of trying to keep this inflamed central core under control. “That we can control it and not let it control us.”
–So we have a fourth modern sin.
-The human being is a bit like the earth, we have a fiery central core. It is a question, with education and culture, of trying to keep this inflamed central core under control. That we can control it and not that it controls us. In this sense, the wisdom that the years give is precisely this: learning to keep under control this burning core that we all have.
–That of my admired Wenceslao Fernández Flórez, that the deadly sins are nothing other than the great human passions, those that move the world, out of control.
-That’s exactly it. Fernández Flórez was absolutely right.
–But I liked that it was explained with its metaphor of the burning core. I think I’ll use it someday, with your permission.
-We are the reflection of the earth, don’t you think? Hence the fiery core.
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