Gabriel Calderón: "There are older people who say that artificial intelligence understands them better than a child."

BarcelonaThe Uruguayan playwright and director Gabriel Calderón (Montevideo, 1982) has become a recurring name on the Catalan theater scene in recent years. He has achieved this by bringing shows from his native country and, above all, by creating new productions with Spanish companies. In 2018 he premiered Let the actors be destroyed at the National Theatre of Catalonia, in 2021 he promoted the brilliant and successful Story of a wild boar and now works in Oh! Misery will make us happyThe play, which premieres on November 28th at Temporada Alta and can be seen from December 4th at the Teatre Lliure, features robots acting as actors. dream team Starring: Pere Arquillué, Laura Conejero, Joan Carreras, and Daniela Brown.

This show concludes a pentalogy that began twenty years ago. It does so with a work that blends theater, comedy, and artificial intelligence. Where does this cocktail come from?

— The play takes place in a time when artificial intelligence has already supplanted all the roles of the theater. People prefer to watch robots act, robots that don't make mistakes and perform the play without rehearsal. The former actors have been relegated to a council chamber. Now they are assistants and use each machine performance to reminisce about the plays they used to perform.

The actor Roger Coma he told us a few days ago that the public only goes to the theater to see the actors suffer, to overcome the possibility they have of making mistakes.

— The theater is the place where things are most likely to go wrong. But you have to try to do it right. People don't come to see if you act badly, or what mistakes you make. That would be childish. The audience comes to see an attempt to do it right in the least guaranteed discipline. When someone records an album, films a movie, or paints a picture, they always choose the best part. In theater, you can't choose, and nothing lasts forever. It's the quintessential art of striving for perfection, knowing you have almost no tools to work with. It's very similar to life. We always try to be the best version of ourselves, but most of the time we don't succeed. And yet we don't give up; we keep trying. It's a profoundly human exercise that sets us apart from machines.

How does it relate to artificial intelligence?

— I don't ask myself whether it will replace us or not. I take it for granted that it's imminent and that it will happen. What does this tell us about ourselves? Where does it place us? At one point in the show, a character recalls that when they were performing, they were applauded, but they were also criticized. They realize that what they miss might not have been so great after all. Humanity always finds a way to prevail and, on the downside, always finds a way to ruin things. From today's perspective, there's a voice inside me that tells me that we humans have had our chances, and perhaps we haven't done very well with them. Artificial intelligence comes to remind us how badly we do things. For example, it now has the ability to converse with people. I don't know if these conversations actually work, but it's clear that this arises because humans used to talk to each other. There are elderly people who say that artificial intelligence understands them better than a child, people on the verge of suicide who find artificial pseudo-psychologists and are convinced not to go through with it. These intelligences manage to converse in a way that we have already abandoned. We can't spend 40 minutes or three hours talking to a person on the phone. Artificial intelligence can, and it doesn't get tired, and it's always friendly.

How did he come into contact with Catalonia?

— In 2004 I came to Barcelona on a scholarship as a student at the Sala Beckett, but, in reality, the first time I worked there has a name and surname: Xavier Albertí. He directed the performing arts branch of the Institut Ramon Llull and in 2005 he saw one of my shows. My little dollIn Uruguay. He brought me to Catalonia for Temporada Alta, and from then on we maintained a stable relationship. Later, I made a number of Catalan friends who, over the years, have formed a kind of inner circle and have helped things happen: Josep Maria Miró, Sergi Belbel, Lluïsa Cunillé. In the end, I live in Uruguay, which is very far away, and I have young children. To be able to come here, there's a whole network of arrangements I have to make.

And despite the distance, she decides to keep coming back. What does Barcelona offer her?

— Absolutely. On the one hand, there's this network of people I admire and who are my friends. I met them all first through their work and then through their lives. On the other hand, working in Catalonia, and especially with Bitò, is a privilege. They offer me a professional system that doesn't exist in Uruguay. I'm not just referring to financial matters, but also to professional security. Here, we work eight hours a day; in Uruguay, everything is done more loosely. The commitment is professional, but we have to work other jobs to be able to do theater.

Last year it achieved a milestone for Catalan theatre: take to the Avignon Festival, one of the most important in the world, the first work entirely in our language, Story of a wild boarWhat did it mean to you?

— In this regard, I always try to proceed with caution, because I know I'm talking about something very painful for Catalans: their language, their independence, and their relationship with Spain. But beyond positions, I believe that if something wants to exist and express itself, it must be able to exist and express itself. That a language can be expressed for the first time at a festival is a joy for me. I was merely a circumstantial vehicle, and that only makes me prouder. The work had also been performed in Spanish in Madrid, and at the time I was asked in which language I wanted to perform it in Avignon. What made the most sense was to follow the path of the show itself, which was directed and premiered in Catalan.