Marta Marco: Why do you not look at each other in the eyes?
Actress and mother of Roc, 14 years old. She has worked on the series 'Merlí', 'Cites', 'Ventdelplà' and in the theatrical productions of 'La trena', 'Els irresponsables', '53 diumenges' or 'La reina de la bellesa de Leenane'. On September 22nd she premieres 'No miris' at the La Biblioteca theatre by the company La Perla 29, with Pep Cruz and Gemma Martínez; direction by Joan Arqué and dramaturgy by the Cultura i Conflicte collective. In it she plays a university professor, daughter of parents who were victims of the Pinochet dictatorship and niece of a torturer.
My character is a real person, Verónica Estay. As an actress, playing someone real is quite a challenge. When she saw my work, she was very happy. She told me that there were moments when she felt that I was more her than she was herself.
It is a tough family story.
— What struck me most is Verónica's loneliness, as she discovers her parents' entire history because they never wanted to talk about it. They did not want to share with her all the pain experienced in Chile. She lived through these silences in a very painful way, which caused her a great wound.
In families, one stays silent so as not to hurt, but silence also hurts.
— We all carry backpacks. Sometimes these backpacks have been emptied to ask ourselves why we carry this or that. But there are also cases where parents do not do the work of emptying these backpacks and they end up weighing like a slab on their children's lives.
When you think about it, it's scary.
— In the work, Verónica mentions a concept which is post-memory. It is the trace that remains in children and grandchildren of traumatic events experienced by their parents. There is scientific evidence that some traumas can be transmitted genetically.
Are you aware of your backpack?
— My parents have also dragged their own backpacks, but I was very curious as a child and always asked what had happened in my family. I was very interested in family stories. And many stories were told to me. Now, surely there were others that I did not intuit and that they did not explain to me. I am a separated mother and I carry inside my backpack a feeling of guilt that is the adult decision I made with my son's father. That decision greatly affected his life. All this weighs.
Tell me what it's like to be the mother of a teenager.
— It is an experience with constant ups and downs, with very beautiful things and others that are very frustrating. There are also surprising ones. Their life is marked by a dance of hormones that ends up affecting the parents. I have the feeling of always having a no in my mouth. "Stop doing that". "Don't do that". "You can't do that".
What works for you?
— Knowing how to keep a certain distance, a bit far, without interfering, but also letting them know that, if something happens, I am there. There are things that I like a lot. For example, one day they told me: "Mom, for me, having a friend stay over, whether a boy or a girl, is the same. Gender doesn't matter. Don't make differences. If a girl friend stays over, don't tell me she has to sleep in another room".
What are you worried about?
— Our children can access a lot of information through screens, they can have many aspirations and desires that go beyond the place where they live. But I think they let themselves be carried away by what others tell them. They find it hard to be critical and think for themselves. They are too easily influenced. I tell them: "You all dress the same, you all wear your hair the same, what is happening to you?" I don't like this kind of communication. The other day I was talking about this with my son. I told him that when he is with his friends and they don't know what to say to each other, they all start looking at their phones. And why don't you look each other in the eyes?
You are an actress and the daughter of an actor. Will you be the mother of an actor?
— He has always liked sports a lot and has a knack for them. But this last year, something that has brought us together is watching series and, lately, he has let it slip that he would like to be an actor. At first, I thought it was better not to, but I suppose my father must have thought the same thing when he found out I wanted to be an actress. In any case, I try to convey to him that it is a vocational job where passion is very important.
Tell me about a surprising moment.
— As a separated mother, every other week my son is not with me, and that has been very hard. When he is not with me, we talk often on the phone. When I am having a bad day I call him and hearing his voice makes me happy. A couple of times, just upon picking up, my son has asked me: "Mother, what happened to you? You've been crying, haven't you?" That gives me goosebumps. I don't know how he can guess it. I am an actress and we actors know how to control our voices very well. But he has known. And that makes me feel that an invisible thread unites us, and it seems very beautiful to me.
