December 31, 1943. Commander Fango and his wife, María Concha, have the pleasure of organizing a New Year’s Eve dinner at the Páramo Palace in Mandrilia, capital of Vandalia. They invited the Chancellor of Teutonia, Gandolfo Hider, and his lover, Helga Bron, as well as the Marshal of Etruria, Bruno Montalvini, and his wife, Bianca Pettani, to join the event. The idea is to introduce them to the very Spanish tradition of saying goodbye to the year by drinking grapes and, in the process, enjoying a dinner without polarization at a time when a world war is shaking Europe. This is the starting point of The big dinnera proposal with Chaplinesque and Lubitschian wickers with which the Arden company and Salle Russafa want to celebrate Christmas and which can be seen from December 18 to January 25.
Written by the playwright Chema Cardeña, The big dinner promises not to neglect anything, against a backdrop of the rise of the extreme right in the world and a date, New Year’s Eve, when any unfortunate comment can transform an evening with friends or family into a dawn rosary. This will happen with the three protagonists of the work, united by fascism at a time when the others were canceled. Between copichuela and sofa, tempers begin to flare and the smallest thing can trigger a tragedy. By the way, whose idea was it to invite a vegan like Hider to dinner with criadilla soup?
Witness to this historic event is the pianist and singer Gilberto Aubán (the multi-faceted Gilbertastic), responsible for giving musical solemnity to the encounter – even if he would rather be elsewhere in the world – and for whom it is suitable since the Irving Berlin classic Cheek to cheek until The reliquary from José Padilla, to Shania Twain and Camela. The rest of the cast is made up of Darío Torrent, Raquel Ortells, Jaime Vicedo, Rosa López, Vicent Pastor and Iolanda Muñoz.
A dystopia from the past
According to the play’s author and director, the starting point is to imagine what the end of 1943 might have been like. “But this celebratory dinner is surely not very different from what happens today, behind the scenes, during certain high-level international meetings.”
“Christmas dinners, lunches and gatherings are the devil’s burden,” adds Cardeña. “I believe that these holidays bring out the best and also the worst in everyone. The year ends and everything that bothered us in others emerges. And, sometimes, accompanied by alcohol, the tongue does not hold back. Resentments, debts and misunderstandings come to the surface. So it is better to lay low and get over it as quickly as possible.”
Maybe the last resort we have left is to laugh at them and cross our fingers that we can never even imagine that guys like these can lead the marches of a nation again.
Now apparently we can’t talk about anything, but back then Castile was wide. “In 1943, in Spain, you could talk about what you wanted if you were loyal to the regime and shared its principles. Otherwise, silence was the most prudent, because even within families there were people who could betray you. In our work, everyone shares ideology and thought; therefore, discussions go in another direction: to see who is the most totalitarian and the most radical,” he emphasizes.
What is a nightmare for some – three dictators dividing Europe between them – is, for others, a wet dream. For the director, “maybe our last resort is to laugh at them and cross our fingers so that we don’t even imagine that guys like these can lead the marches of a nation again. The work is a kind of spell to ward off the desires of certain unconscious people, who are not capable of measuring what the return of fascism would mean.”
And what would happen if, in 50 years, Cardeña was asked to take stock of The big dinner? Who would you invite? “In 50 years, I would use characters from our time who would fit very well into a grotesque theater. For example, Trump, Milei, Orbán, Ayuso, Meloni or the infamous Netanyahu. All of them committed the same crimes and the same corruption to come to power. People end up seeing it, even if sometimes it is too late…”, he concludes.
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