PARIS – La comédie-Française, France’s moast esteemed theatrical institution, is set to host a dramatized reading of I die as I don’t die (Teresa’s double life). This play, penned by Spanish playwright Paco Bezerra, faced censorship three years ago when it was removed from the program of the teatros del Canal by the Popular Party, under the direction of Blanca li.

Actress Françoise Gillard will perform the reading, with dramaturgy and staging by director Aristeo Tordesillas, at the Vieux Colombier Theater. “I have never been in that theater. It is indeed a place that I never thought I could reach, but I think it puts the work where he deserves, that he gives him the value he has, that takes away all that patina of a work that could have been written with provocative eagerness without a support of artistic quality.That doubt, for which he has not read it, is absolutely clear about what the comedie-française means To Spain, where no one is willing to represent it,” said Bezerra. La Comédie-Française annually features three texts in its foreign writings cycle. This season,Paco Bezerra,Chinese author Pat to Yan,and Russian author Natalia Lizorkina have been selected.

This reading at the “Temple of French theater” marks the culmination of a challenging period for Paco Bezerra, who won the National Prize for Dramatic Literature in 2009 for Inside the earth. The ordeal began in July 2022 when Bezerra was informed that his play I die because I don’t die would not be included in the 22/23 season of the Teatros del Canal, despite assurances from then-artistic director Blanca Li, citing budgetary constraints.

The play centers on Teresa de Jesus, resurrected in modern Spain, piecing together her dismembered body over 500 years after her death. The text, which received the SGAE Award from Jardiel Poncela Theater in November 2021, was to be directed by Matías Umpiérrez and star Belén Cuesta. The decision to withdraw I die because not dead was made by the Board of Directors of Madrid of Culture and Tourism, without Blanca Li’s presence, but with the attendance of Marta Rivera de la Cruz, then Minister of Culture and current Delegate of Culture, Tourism and Sports of the City of Madrid.

“In the theater there is a speech full of concepts such as solidarity, honesty or commitment and that, in practice, is absolutely the opposite.”

Nearly three years later, Paco Bezerra says he feels renewed. “I do not feel defeated, I feel renewed thanks to the cinema,” he stated. Since the censorship of I die because I don’t die, he has received no offers from Spanish theaters, has not premiered any plays, and has not written any theatrical texts. His first publicly-attended play was in 2011 with The School of Disobedience, directed by Luis Luque.

Following this, in 2012, came Grooming, which premiered at the Theater of Abbey in Madrid, directed by José Luis Gómez, starring Antonio de la Torre and Nausicaa Bonnín. Until July 2022, Paco Bezerra consistently had his works (such as Mr. and loved the dragons, the little pony, the heart of Fedra, the maids, and Oedipus through the flames) featured in major public and private theaters, including the National Dramatic Center, the Spanish Theater, the ships of the Slaughterhouse, the international Festival of Classical Theater of Mérida, and theaters worldwide.

“life continues, people forget and many of those with whom you had a professional treatment begin to move away. My life does not resemble what I had then,” Bezerra explained. He had a strong professional relationship with Luis Luque, premiering nine plays together, the last being Oedipus, through the flames. “This comes to demonstrate that in the theater there is a speech full of concepts such as solidarity, honesty or commitment and that, in practice, it is absolutely the opposite. In the theater and,specifically,in the Madrid,a speech is sold that is then not put into practice. And I say it with all the pain and disappointment of the world, and also with all the experience, because I am seeing it with my own eyes. Use only to get money. Sánchez-Gijón, Julieta Serrano and others, have put their voices and their commitment in the dramatized readings that have been made in several Spanish cities and some foreigners.

Pedro Almodóvar remarked at the first reading in Madrid in November 2022: “I never imagined that I was going to attend an act against censorship today.”

Bezerra has found a professional haven in audiovisual projects, having written chapter 5 of the series Superstar, premiering on Netflix in July, produced by the Javis (Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi) and directed by Nacho Vigalondo.He is also writing a film script for actor Pedro Alonso, among other projects. “I live today thanks to cinema. I have been removed from writing theater. I don’t want to continue working in such a hypocritical place,” Bezerra stated,while affirming his artistic commitment: “We don’t know everything good in how bad it happens to us.”