Pablo Gutiérrez teams up with Cyrano de Bergerac to win over young people

Madrid, Mar 19 (EFE) .- "Hanging from Cyrano", this is how the writer Pablo Gutiérrez acknowledges being from a young age for this character and that is why it is not surprising that in his youth novel "Bergerac syndrome" what he wants to convey this Professor of Literature at the IES Juan Sebastián Elcano from Sanlúcar de Barrameda is "the need to do things."

Because for Gutiérrez (Huelva, 1978), according to what he tells Efe, this is what this "bully with a broken heart" created by Edmond Rostand, a character who "represents adolescent thinking" and who also gives name to the Bergerac syndrome, is represented. suffered by people who, due to their lack of confidence or the distorted perception of their image, make them want to be in a third plane or, if possible, go unnoticed.

Something that this writer recognizes in his role as a teacher in those students who prefer to be silent or become invisible out of fear and whom he takes the stage to perform plays at his institute.

And this is exactly what he wants to show in this novel, whose germ is in the theatrical version of this play that he did in 2019 and in which he brought inexperienced young people on stage, some more shy than others.

"It was an experience of personal growth and that of my students and the feeling of loss and orphanhood during confinement, a very dark time, was what led me to recover that enthusiasm and positive energy from Cyrano", Gutiérrez recalls about the point of Departure from this fiction book with a real base published by Edebé, in which many of those students who participated in the play are identified in it.

"Professor, that's me, right?", He recalls with laughter some of the questions that have been asked.

Specifically, "The Bergerac syndrome. A heroic comedy" tells how Lupe, a professor of World Literature, takes some students, among whom is Velia, a self-absorbed adolescent and armored in the shelter of books, to mount a adaptation of the play "Cyrano de Bergerac". And from there the plot grows and rises like the sword of the long-nosed character.

Precisely, he confesses, "probably" behind this character is one of his students, "a charming girl" aged 16 whose cheeks would "light up" every time she had to speak in class, but who overcame this fear when he had to give life to the narrator of his teacher's theatrical version.

"In a society where the image and our physical appearance is saying and marks everything, the figure of Cyrano seems very interesting to me because we do not live our image", a message that transmits in this novel whose message could be summarized in a "dare" because "Against adversity you can do things."

But in these pages its characters also convey a basic rule of theater and life: "If the theater reveals something to us, it is that your talent is useless if the partner does not return the phrases to you at the right time, and there you discover the work of collaborative work, "he says.

So, this lover of Jerez wines emphatically adds, this is what he has tried to capture in these lines, that "fears" can be overcome with teamwork.

Now, this professor regrets that the pandemic does not allow him to stage plays in his institute, but even so he does not stop his efforts and continues to teach literature and other more arduous subjects, such as syntax, to generate that love for letters.

A "very big word" points out about the concept of "literature", in which "it fits from Buero Vallejo to C. Tangana", that is why it is the teacher who "has to go looking for the way" to get them on the train of stories .

"The kids who participated in that Cyrano play are already 19 years old and almost all of them are in college. I don't know if Cyrano will accompany them, but two girls are doing Hispanic Philology and the boy who represented Cyrano is doing journalism," he concludes proud. By Pilar Martin