Miguel del Arco, playwright: “In this country, there is no political consideration for culture.”

A homosexual conductor facing imminent death, he wants to record Tchaikovsky 's Sixth Symphony beforehand. He is 53 years old, the same age as when the Russian musician Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), author of the Sixth Symphony known as The Pathétique , died. Playwright Miguel del Arco , a neighborhood boy born in Carabanchel (Madrid) who turned 60 last Saturday, returns to the theater scene with The Pathétique , a production he wrote and directed, in which he reflects on death, homosexuality, art versus politics, creation, and the desire for glory. This production, which is being performed at the Valle-Inclán Theater in Madrid until June 22, seems to put an end to the mourning process following the closure six years ago of the Pavón Kamikaze Theater , a collective project that revolutionized the Madrid theater scene. His last theatrical production was Richard III in 2019. In those years, he has directed the opera Rigoletto at the Teatro Real and the television series Las noches de Tefía . Now, after the premiere, all he wants to do is go to the countryside to take care of his trees .

Question: Why this six-year silence on the theater scene?

Answer: I desperately needed to continue mourning the closing of the Pavón Kamikaze Theater , which was devastating for me.

Q. Are you considering the duel over?

A. Yes. If I've been able to overcome the grief of my brother and my father, how could I not be able to do so for a theater? Those were five intense years, fighting against suffocating precariousness for a very intense and beautiful job. I was very happy with that project, but now I also feel very happy. That hasn't changed. I've even surpassed my happiness in the rehearsal room. What I desperately needed was a rehearsal room.

Q. But do you feel homesick?

R. I miss everything, except precariousness.

Q. What is your assessment of that project in six years' time?

A. What I realized is that in this country, there's no political consideration for culture. Everyone told us they couldn't let us fail, that the Ministry of Culture would help us, or the Community of Madrid, or the City Council. Nothing. No institution supported us. They let us fail. We still haven't gotten our hands dirty to create production units independent of politics. Politicians always want to get involved in culture; they manipulate it, and they need it because they know it's a good showcase.

Q. The current government too?

A. Yes , indeed. I've been very critical of the current Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun . We're still awaiting the long-awaited reform of the INAEM (National Institute of Performing Arts and Music). You only have to look at France to see how national drama centers operate. These are independent production units with an assigned budget infinitely higher than in Spain, which can make artistic creation possible. Here, it's becoming more complicated every day.

Q: You haven't directed your own work for eight years.

A. I often say that I have a special relationship with myself as an author. I don't consider myself an author. I write and produce scripts and plays, but I'm not a typical author. In the case of La Patética , I wanted to talk about very specific things, like death and artistic death.

Q. What does listening to Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony suggest to you?

A. The symphony's four movements are absolutely beastly. The first takes you soaring until that blazing thunderclap sounds. The second is like a waltz shot through with desolate music. The third is pure life, and the last is where Tchaikovsky turns symphonic music on its head, with a kind of requiem that conveys a calm yet sad desolation. It has it all. The melody soaks into you and takes you to unexpected places.

Q. And from reading the Russian musician's diaries, what did you discover?

A. His diaries are overwhelming. I found a man with enormous sensitivity, deeply affected by what was happening in the world. A man with a capacity for love that he could never fully realize, with astonishing insecurity, even though he was a musical genius. He lived his homosexuality reasonably freely, much more freely than a homosexual today in Russia.

Q. The work looks death in the face. Do you often think about it?

A. Yes, very much so. I'm not very concerned about my own life; what really matters to me is how to deal with the deterioration, the loss of my faculties. The death of my brother Alberto when I was 40 marked a turning point. It was an insurmountable turning point in my life. The death of my father, four years ago, was terrible because of the month of agony he suffered, and it's very present in my mind, but nothing comparable to that of my brother.

Q. Do you have a living will?

A. Yes, a few years ago. In my family, we talk about death with a certain normality. We talk a lot about Alberto, we celebrate his birthday, we remember him in photos, we cry, and we don't hide anything.

Q. Do you think we live in a society that turns its back on death?

A. Absolutely. My family is an exception.

Q. Why do you think there is a tendency to make death invisible?

A. Because we don't want to accept that we are finite. There's something about living in a completely capitalist society that distracts us from the thought of knowing we are finite and forces us to consume, consume, and consume.

Q. Is there a lot of you in this work?

A. Yes, but like in all my plays. I only direct texts that speak to me personally. I'm incredibly fortunate that my vocation is my way of life.

Q. Another theme the play directly addresses is homosexuality. Is normalized homosexuality still a dream?

A. Yes. In Madrid, there's a bubble, and even more so in our profession, and we think it's normalized everywhere, but it isn't. A plumber came to our house in the countryside one day and, in tears, asked us, in front of my husband and me, for advice on what he could do with his 21-year-old homosexual son, who had tried to commit suicide twice. I'll never forget that. There's no normalization. I've been with Jose, my partner, for 40 years, whom I married in 2014, and I don't hold his hand in the street because it's not an intimate act like the one you [tells the journalist] can do with your husband in the street. It's considered a political act and draws a lot of attention. It's true that many things are becoming normalized, but we still label things.

Q. Do you think the rights of the LGTBIQ community are in danger?

A. Radically, yes, but also the rights of feminism. Everything that represents the will to maintain an egalitarian and free society is in danger. The far right is only out to defend their rights and make money. What is Trump doing, if not radically destroying all minorities? But not just Trump, Milei, Meloni, and Abascal, if they let him. Many say that can't happen in Spain, but I'm not so confident.

Q. How can we confront the rise of the far right?

A. By being very militant in defending ideas and creating role models. It's horrifying to me to appear on the list of 50 homosexual Spaniards. Not because I was ashamed, but because of the fact that such a list even had to exist. I have a homosexual nephew, and he once told me that he felt enormously proud when he saw me on that list. Well, it's good for something, I tell myself.

Q. Do you think Europe is up to the task of current events?

A. Not at all. The European machinery is extremely slow when it comes to making decisions. I'm horrified that they don't openly oppose the genocide in Gaza . There's a guilt complex, inherited from the Second World War , but what they're tolerating from Israel is unacceptable.

Q. In your play, you face the dilemma of whether or not to perform in dictatorial and murderous countries. Would you now go to Russia or Israel with your plays?

A. No, under no circumstances.

Q. The other day, Almodóvar confessed his hesitation about traveling to the United States because of Trump's presence . He ended up attending and giving a speech against the American president's policies. In critical times like the present, is art a lifeline?

A. Yes, because it's a voice that must resonate. I reject the politics of insults. I reject all the politicians who are normalizing insults and disregarding the common good or the victims. I reject a leftist government that continues to say no to the genocide in Gaza, but at the same time continues to collaborate with Israel. Art is also there to speak out about what's happening, with a very clear voice. Almodóvar has been very brave because he also risks affecting the distribution of his films, but it's not the same thing going to Russia today as a homosexual and denouncing it because there you risk your life.

P. Tchaikovsky: 'You read bad reviews sitting on the toilet.' Do you do that?

A. No, I don't read them directly, neither the good ones nor the bad ones. That was Núria Espert 's advice.

Q. What is left of that boy from the Carabanchel neighborhood ?

A. The proletarian scent never goes away. And I'm still from the neighborhood, although I left it early. I don't keep many friends because the breakup came early. At 14, I found my first theater group and my first homosexual love. It was a total breakup. I left without warning. Recently, I entered my neighborhood's neighborhood in Carabanchel, and the first thought that struck me was: how is it possible that I have the slightest taste for beauty after growing up so surrounded by ugliness? But despite this ugliness, my childhood was absolutely happy. In the end, the beauty was in that: my siblings, my friends, and the gigantic courtyard with hundreds of children, all on the street.

Q. What legacy would you like to leave as a playwright?

A. None. Theater is an ephemeral art.