José Sacristán's "most personal" show arrives at the Romea Theatre

Barcelona"If the writer Delibes taught me to look; the comedian Fernán Gómez to listen. For a few years I had the privilege of being close to him and listening to him". This is how José Sacristán (Chinchón, 1937) introduces the play El hijo de la cómica, which is performed at the Teatre Romea from this Wednesday until October 4th. The Madrid actor, director and protagonist of the play, unfolds a monologue based on El tiempo amarillo 1921-1943, the first volume of Fernando Fernán Gómez's memoirs (1921-2007), but above all on the memory of the conversations they both had for many years. "I've never done anything so personal," assures Sacristán, who was fascinated by the childhood and youth stories shared with him by the director of films like La vida por delante (1958) and plays like La bicicletas son para el verano (1977). "I was left with the feeling that it had to be told," says Sacristán.

The tribute to Fernán Gómez, adds the Madrid actor, is also "a tribute to a time, to a people, to a way of surviving, of understanding life from difficulty, from sacrifice, from effort". The play is "illustrated" with audiovisual materials that provide historical context about "Primo de Rivera's coup d'état, the proclamation of the Republic, the war, the post-war period", a period marked by precariousness, social changes and the difficulty of getting by in professions like that of a comedian. "It was an era that caught us at a time in life that was not easy at all," explains Sacristán, who recalls that the first time he went to the cinema he was just 6 years old. "And I was fascinated by that event," he assures.

The director of the Teatre Romea, Josep Maria Pou, highlights José Sacristán's relationship with Barcelona, where he lived for a season in the early sixties, and his loyalty to the theatre on Carrer Hospital, where he has been present in five of the last six seasons. El hijo de la cómica, says Pou, is "a master paying tribute to another master".