In the spotlight today is Pablo Franchini with The Door (or The Intermittences of Breathing)!
Just like last year, English Theatre Leipzig’s first production of the 2024 / 2025 season is a multi-faceted celebration of fresh talent. This September, three new short plays will be presented during vibrant evenings of culture and community in what we’re delighted to call New Voices 2.0! This year, the over-arching theme for the three shows is ‘Wicked’, which acts as a tantalising link between three very different concepts.
In our previous interviews we have taken a closer look at both @dd_icted and How to Fill an Ashtray, which are the first two short plays that will make up this year’s New Voices 2.0 programme. Today we’re covering our thrilling third show – The Door (or The Intermittences of Breathing); an English-language extract from an original Spanish-language play (TeorÍa de los Portales oder Wie man im Meer Schwimmt, ohne nass zu werden) written by Pablo Franchini. The Door introduces us to siblings Lihuen and Yaku, who live in a world that seems different and yet is not so far removed from our own. The rain came 20 years ago and has not stopped. The Small Continent is ruled by new decadent groups who care very little for those who suffer beneath them. Lihuen and Yaku seek a better life on the Great Continent, but to get there they must pass through a portal controlled by the cynical and uncaring Caronte. In this unstable world, who are the storytellers?
Pablo is an experienced performer who is making his directorial debut with New Voices 2.0. We spoke a little about what audiences can expect from his play, and what the process of making it has been like.
So, we’ve seen a short description of what happens in The Door, but what would you say it is about?
The play is about three big topics: one is immigration, another one is a focus on a dystopian society and there’s also a subtle consideration of climate change. It is also a story about stories. As I say, the play is set in a dystopian world, but it isn’t very far removed from our real world, really. There’s a lot of metaphor in there. For me it was very important to talk about the moment that we are living in right now, and about my own story. In the years since I left my country, I have never wanted to lose sight of where I come from, and also what it is like to move to another country. The play offers a really exciting cinematographic style at certain points, with scenes involving action and with the characters inhabiting a rich world which looks and seems very different to the one we’re living in, but audiences will see the similarities to the real world. This is why we’re using the staging to really immerse audiences in the experience of watching this play. For me it’s important that the audience is really close to the characters, because usually when people engage with a story these days there’s a distance that is forced on you by a screen, usually a phone screen, especially when it’s Instagram or TikTok. It’s vital that people are really close to the action and are able to really feel what the characters are feeling. I want to invite people who watch to listen and feel the sensations that the characters are going through. This is about storytelling, there are stories within stories here.
What were your main inspirations? How did you begin the process of creating what we will see onstage?
I started writing the original text The Door is taken from two years ago, which was a big process for me. I am an actor, and I’ve been involved in theatre for the last 20 years, but I haven’t written anything like this before. At points it was a challenge. To begin with, I’d attended a playwriting workshop, which was really cool as a way to pick up a few techniques, The workshop also contained an exercise where we had to tell everyone about an idea for a play that we’d like to write and put on. In that moment I had a strong feeling that I wanted to write something about the topic of immigration. I’d also seen a video before that of a production from the Ballet National De Marseille in France where the aesthetic and the concept were very dystopian. There was such a lot of energy and strength in the performances, and it really inspired me. I started to think about a story which could combine the theme of immigration with a dystopian concept for a world sightly different to our own. I started to write, and one of the first ideas that came to me was to think about the world of the play being connected by portals. It was really good to see the ideas develop as I wrote.
The play is also based on several other stories from migrants and immigrants, not just taken from my own experience. I have met with a lot of people who have moved to live in another country, and have heard about so many different experiences and viewpoints. I started to understand that my experience as an immigrant is a relatively privileged one. There are people who have to walk vast distances or cross oceans and seas and have no easy way to get across. It’s not just in Europe, people need to cross borders everywhere – there is a lot of movement around the world. We hear about it on the news, but I don’t think the reality is properly understood. This was what inspired me, and the fact that I am an immigrant myself allowed me to really connect with the stories and situations that I heard about from others. I felt the best way to use the strength of feeling I had was to put something on the stage creatively. I knew I had to do more research, and I watched a lot of documentaries and read a lot about the topic, and once I started doing that, the algorithms began to show me even more that could help me gather information. We need to view it critically, as not everything that is out there is necessarily true, but I found what I needed to help me write the play.
This short play is an English-language extract from a longer text which you translated yourself from the original Spanish. How did you find the process of translating it? Do the characters seem very different in English?
This is a really interesting question. When I started writing it was in Spanish, but of course in all the countries where they speak Spanish there are many different ways of speaking the language. There are slight differences depending on where you are, and it isn’t just the accents, it’s also the words and expressions. We can communicate with each other despite these differences, but the play was originally written in my native Uruguayan Spanish. I developed the characters in Spanish, but latterly I asked a friend of mine who is originally from Uruguay as well, she’s an English teacher, to help me translate the language in a way that allowed it to stay as close as possible to the original meaning and characterisation. For sure, the first time when I read the play in English, or when my actors did a read-through, it felt like a totally different play at times. I think this is because a language isn’t just words, it’s also a way of thinking. We organise our worlds and our perception of things using language. It was difficult at times, but I think that the translation has worked. In some ways, it feels very much like a new play, but I do think that it has kept the spirit of the original.
What has surprised or excited you the most about the production process of The Door, and of New Voices 2.0 as a whole?
So, we joined the process of New Voices 2.0 a bit later than the other plays, and one of the biggest surprises was just how short a time we had to put the show together. I’ve been really impressed by my cast and crew, who have put in a lot of energy and have just been so willing to try things and throw themselves into the process of making. It’s been an organic process, not just when I’ve been working with the energy and ideas of my cast, but also when it comes to costume design, lighting and sound, and with all the individuals who have joined the process since we began. It’s been really cool to engage with this process, and to be able to show this play alongside the other two plays. It’s a really exciting opportunity for new writers and new directors to be able to present their ideas on stage in this way.
How would you say the over-arching theme of ‘Wicked’ can be observed in your play?
In this play we can see the theme of ‘Wicked’ primarily in the character of Caronte. He is the man who illicitly has control over some of the portals. He is abusing the people who need to use the portals and is exploiting them, taking as much he can to benefit from his position. His character is an allegory for people who exploit immigrants in the real world, for instance like those criminals who take money from people who wish to migrate across the sea, only to put them in terrible danger in tiny boats. Audiences will see in the dialogue just how little Caronte cares about Lihuen or for any other person who comes to him for help.
What do you hope audiences will take away from watching The Door?
I hope that the audiences will be able to immerse themselves in the story and reflect on what they see. I don’t want to say that I hope people will change something about themselves after seeing the play, but I do hope they have the chance to reflect a little bit more on how the themes of the play can be seen in the real world. I want people to understand that immigrant stories aren’t just on news updates on their phones – this stuff is really happening. I know that people know this in theory, but I guess my expectation is that audiences will really feel what these characters feel and be moved by their story.
Why did you want to work with ETL on this project? What has your experience of working with ETL been like?
I started working with ETL three or four years ago, performing and acting in shows. I feel comfortable with these people and this company, as in ETL you meet both amateurs and professionals working together. I also really like the fact that it is a really international space, and there aren’t very many of these in the Leipzig theatre scene. When you come here to start with and you can’t speak German very well, it’s important to have a space where you can be creative and make theatre in English. This is true even for people who don’t have English as their native language. Even though I have a strong accent as a Latin American person, I feel really comfortable with people in ETL, who are always open to working with me and other international people. It is for these reasons that I decided to bring this play to ETL and New Voices 2.0. ETL already knew me and I knew the theatre, and also it was a great opportunity to learn new skills and develop my confidence in the new role as a director. I’m learning a lot of new and different things, and I feel like I’ve been supported in this process.
New Voices 2.0 will premiere on 5th September at Neues Schauspiel Leipzig. Further performances will take place on the 6th, 7th, 13th and 14th of September. All performances begin at 20.00.
Tickets: https://tickethome.neuesschauspielleipzig.de/kuenstler/english-theatre-leipzig-nsl-present
About Pablo: Pablo Franchini is a professional actor and theatre-maker originally from Uruguay. In 2013, he began his initial acting studies at the Escuela Multidisciplinaria de Artes Escénicas de Montevideo which he completed in 2017. During his training, he explored different theatrical styles such as physical theatre, Commedia dell’arte, Spanish verse, masks and clowning. Also in 2017, he further deepened his learning by combining his previous experience with studies in Performing Arts and Social Action at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona.
Professionally, he has worked as an actor in various artistic projects, from clowning and free theatre to Opera and commercials. He has also worked as a social pedagogue, carrying out educational and artistic activities with children and young people in various educational centres. In Leipzig he completed a course in physical theatre (Etage Leipzig) and participated in several theatre projects with ETL. Furthermore, he conducted workshops at Opernstudio and e.V. Bäckerei on theatre, performance and mask creation.
In 2023 he attended the workshop Sul Teatro della Carezza at the renowned Compania Finzi Pasca. In the same year, he participated in an artist residency in Bochum (Desvío Süd), where he collaborated with other Latin American artists living in Germany.
About the Interviewer: Sam Roberts has been working with ETL since moving to Leipzig in March last year, and has been an active member since September 2023, when he directed What I learned from my time in the Fridge as part of the first New Voices project. He has been integral to planning and running ETL workshops and has been privileged to work as Creative Lead on the New Voices 2.0 project this year.
