A dead man on stage and the ikurriña that scared Franco's wife | Babelia

Many times Emilio Gutiérrez Caba has given these questions throughout his extensive theatrical life, which we could say that began at the very moment of his birth, in Valladolid 77 years ago. The same thing has been asked so many times since then that it has accumulated quite a few answers. Many found them searching through papers and letters from their relatives. Others arose from the memories of his sisters or his aunts. And he even locked himself in a newspaper library to check dates or fill gaps in family memory. It was inevitable that all of that did not end up in a book. “I've been writing down all the documentation I was finding in a database for 40 years. I always knew that I would end up ordering it and that moment has finally arrived, ”the actor explains to this newspaper.

Let's start at the beginning: Pascual Alba Sors, ​​born on May 12, 1843 in Navajas, province of Castellón. Son of a family of farmers, he lived in that town until his father died in 1855 and moved with his mother to Valencia, where he began to combine a modest job in a printing press with his taste for theater, which he developed in amateur cadres performing "Beards", that is, characters of "character." He was given that facet so well that he ended up being hired by a professional company that paid him more than any of his other jobs. He married Irene Abad in 1865, with whom he moved to Madrid to have more job opportunities. But he was widowed soon, so he soon took his three children to the theater. The two girls, Leocadia and Irene Alba, had no qualms about getting on stage when a child character was needed. Thus began the saga.

Dove's Verbena

At the end of the 19th century the sisters Leocadia and Irene Alba are already renowned singers and actresses, work together with their father until his death in 1895 and participate in milestones as the first representation of The Dove's Verbena, That year he achieved unprecedented success. When Irene died in 1930 while on tour in Barcelona, ​​one of the actresses who performed with them at that premiere, the Catalan Pilar Vidal, offered her burial to the family so that she did not have to move her to Madrid and could be buried. “Pilar Vidal died in 1932 and is also buried there, as is logical. And another interpreter of that premiere, Luisa Campos, also from Barcelona, ​​left this world in 1946 and her body was buried next to those of Pilar and Irene: in the old cemetery of Montjuic a beautiful tomb houses the remains of Mrs. Antonia, the Caste and Susana, ”writes Emilio Gutierrez Caba in his book.

A dead man on stage

After the great-grandfather died, Irene Alba married another actor, Manuel Caba, with whom he moved to work in Buenos Aires. From that time, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba rescues several anecdotes that show what the trade was like in those years. Like the one he remembers the night the public believed that Irene had murdered her co-star in the play The red chiripá, of Enrique García Velloso, who died of a fulminating infarction just at the moment in which the grandmother had a knife with a trickled dagger. “The rumor spread throughout Buenos Aires and my grandparents had to work hard to deny that falsehood. Even the three employees who helped the family at home said goodbye. ”

Mother

In 1915 a new actress was born, Irene Caba Alba, who went to work in the company of her parents. I had no other choice. "My mother never had a real theatrical vocation, she was dragged into that profession because circumstances ruled, because there were many daily expenses at home and some money had to be contributed, because she had finished basic studies and because My grandmother sent, ”writes Emilio Gutierrez Caba, demystifying the trade. The same thing would happen to his aunt Julia five years later. “In those days the silence of women in Spain was evident. They were totally subordinated to parents or husbands and only the very brave, the very intelligent, the very economically independent could meditate on their future and condition, and choose where appropriate. In my family it was not like that. ”

The censorship

“In the summer of 1954, at the end of July, a play by Benavente was performed in the Prince of Madrid theater in the afternoon and I, as usual, tried to help lower the curtain at the end of the show [tenía 12 años]. But that day was special: I attended the performance no less than Carmen Polo [esposa del dictador Franco] accompanied by her court of friends, flatterers and bodyguards. The lady occupied, as always, a silver box and, as always, all the tickets that were made available to her were free, more would be missing, that is to say that to her many virtues she accumulated that of a very careful gorron to which it was necessary to give In addition, with chocolates and flowers, since a couple of days before a letter was received from Franco's civil house suggesting it. Come on, a remarkable shamelessness. The letter also said that in any of the entreactos the lady could require the presence of the first actress to greet her in her box (...) The final applause sounded and the red light bulb that indicated that the curtain should go down; He started to do it, but immediately we noticed something strange, it seemed that something was working right in his middle and hindering his descent (...) I looked through the mouth and glimpsed a strange half-deployed flag that had been hooked in one of the folds of the curtain. The driver shouted at me: ‘Get out of here, run, go to the dressing rooms’ (…) Someone had hung a Basque flag on the curtain as a protest against Franco (…) I think that day I knew what fear was ”.

The scared

The future