“Women who laugh out loud are still dangerous.” She groundbreaking then and now. After four successful years, having brought “Magnani Aperta” to Rome and New York, the show had to be canceled on March 7, 2020 due to the pandemic. Now returns to say goodbye definitively, the House of “la Magnani” in Madrid has been sold and the creator and actress of this theatrical gem, Arantxa de Juandoes not want to leave without offering, for the last time, the opportunity to relive this experience.
The work could be considered an immersive experience, since the viewer is inside Magnani’s own house, breathing her tragedies, feeling her fears and sharing her reflections. “Magnani Aperta” recounts the last moments of Anna Magnani in her house before going to the hospital, where she died a few days later. Authentic, without mincing words and eccentric. This was the actress to whom Arantxa de Juan gives life. And if something is clear from the moment the work begins, it is her love for Rome. She did not like airplanes nor did she show up to collect her Oscar, she preferred to celebrate it in her eternal city.
It’s tragedy, it’s poetry, it’s love, sometimes humor, and it’s an ode to survival, living together in that apartment that he loved and tormented at the same time, always surrounded by what it cost him so much to endure: the press. In the work appear authors and directors of his time such as Passolini, Visconti, Fellini or Tennessee Williams; as well as producers and Hollywood partners with whom he had to deal in the 1950s because of the gender gap. With Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster or Anthony Quinn, Anna Magnani was already fighting wage difference battles.
John’s Arantxawho decides to take this risk with the same intensity and love for work, has told LA RAZÓN how he has experienced this trip that, certainly, should not have left him indifferent.
– How did you come across this project?
There are things in which fate intervenes. I have studied acting in New York and in 1988 I did a scene from “La Rosa Tatuada” at school. My teacher, who had known Tennessee Williams, told me that it was a shame Tennessee Williams couldn’t see me because I was the new Anna Magnani. Many years later, in 2013, I went back to New York to study acting and my teacher Susan Batson, coach of Nicole Kidman, Juliette Binoche and Oprah Winfrey or Lady Gaga, told me that I would have to play Anna Magnani. When she repeated it to me, I felt something that encouraged me to investigate the life of this woman and I found it fascinating. A ground-breaking, brave, honest woman… In addition, I found many similarities in myself with her when it came to understanding work and facing the industry, fleeing from glamor and advocating for honesty in the sector.
– What did you know about Magnani? In Spain she is not very well known, specifically for the youngest
I am an acting teacher and there are students who do not know Marlon Brando. As Italians they know Sophia Loren and why she still exists. In general, of course not all, but young people feed little on the history of culture. Even so, it is true that Anna Magnani is not a very prominent figure in Spain, but if you go to Rome her face continues to appear in jewelry stores and on the streets, because today she is still Rome.
– Was she an advanced woman in her time? Maybe that caused him a lot of trouble
Completely. Especially in a time of Greta Garbo, where everything was glamour, she appeared as a woman of the people. That was precisely the attraction of her, the strength, cleanliness, honesty and energy of her that she Anna transmitted.
– Where does all the documentation of the work come from?
From biographies written in Italian. I had to learn the language to read about it because there was no information in Spanish. I bought all her biographies and with Google I dedicated myself to reading, watching her films and documenting myself to the maximum.
– What is known about your relationship with your son and family?
The relationship with his son was never fixed. The son grew up in Switzerland and when he came on vacation he would meet that exaggerated and excessive “Italian mamma”, who hugged him and kissed him effusively and he, however, never understood his mother. In fact, at the tomb, the son’s dedication was: “To my mother, who taught me what prudence was.” The exact opposite of what she was. She caught my attention and I got very angry with the son (laughs). How dare he put this epitaph on her? On the other hand, when I did the show in Rome, I managed to locate the family and speak to her granddaughter, Olivia Magnani, and she said that they didn’t want to know anything about “la nonna”. Her family shies away from her, even though she left her son a millionaire, with a lot of buildings in Rome.
– How was the experience of interpreting the work in Rome and New York?
In Rome it was a dream. We agreed with the Spanish consulate in Rome and the Spanish Academy in Rome and we managed to take the show there. Opening the balcony in San Pietro in Montorio and seeing the city, I can’t explain what it was like for me, I burst into tears because Anna was inside me. She had a very strong bond with Rome, she felt at home. In her case, she was a very uprooted person, with a broken family. Her mother abandoned her with her grandmother and she went to Egypt three months after she was born, and her father did not know him. Therefore, he found her home in Rome.
In New York it was very special because it was a thank you to my teacher Susan Batson for recommending me to do this character. I was able to do the play in a house in New York and Susan Batson could see it, and I also performed it in English. She was extremely excited, saying that this story had to be told and that she was not at all surprised by her success in Spain. It was certainly a challenge.
– What have you learned from this trip?
It has given me courage, being honest with myself and knowing how to make decisions based on what I felt. With this role I tried to work with two writers and ended up firing them; I tried to collaborate with two directors and I also fired them, because I subconsciously knew what I wanted to tell. And when I tried to work with people they hindered me instead of facilitating my desire. If I keep doing this show with this character who is so real, I have to do the same, I told myself. He has given me a lot of strength. I also connected a lot with her with her sense of humor, she was unpredictable, every time she goes into pain she comes out with a laugh, a joke or irony. She knows how to laugh at herself. When she fell apart she didn’t get up and her resource was anger, that’s why she always said: I have a lot to thank my anger for.
– Given your profession as a teacher at Central de Cine, how do you see the current Spanish theater scene?
The first thing is that they have just approved the Artist’s Statute, which is extremely important to us. It is a struggle for a long time and no one valued our intermittent work when it came to being unemployed. It is a crucial step for those of us who are part of the sector. As for the national scene, it is complicated, people are doing a different function every day of the week, it is very torn. And, in addition, in some way they look for headliners who are television faces, before there was more theater meat. The theater is the great survivor and I am positive, you have to find the chestnuts of the fire and get ahead.
We would love to give thanks to the author of this short article for this remarkable material
The life, the house and the heart of Anna Magnani in Madrid