El entusiasmo

Writer and director’s note

Enthusiasm

From late Latin enthusiasmus, from Greek enthousiasmós; literally ‘divine inspiration or possession’.

1. n. Intense excitement or fervour of the spirit, stirred by something admired or captivating.

2. n. Fervent devotion that drives one to support a cause or undertaking.

3. n. The rapture or frenzy of the sibyls when delivering their oracles.

4. n. Divine inspiration granted to ancient poets and prophets.

1.– Questions at the heart of this play:

To what extent is it possible to change who we are, or are we defined by the choices we’ve made in the past? As we grow older, do our options narrow, or are we better equipped to steer our lives? How much control do we really have over that direction? How much is down to chance? The possible lives we might have lived… are they lost forever, or do they linger within us like ghosts? Ultimately: are we the authors of our lives, or merely characters in them?

2.– In one of the versions of Vania I staged last year, one of the characters, the doctor Astrov, said: “In middle age there is mystery, there is mystification (…) I feel that there has been some (…) wrong turning, but I do not know when it took place and I have no hope of finding it”. These aren’t my words, nor Chekhov’s. They are, in fact, taken from the journals of the American writer John Cheever. A reflection on the crisis, or crises, of middle age that lies at the heart of El entusiasmo.

The characters in this play begin where those in Vania end. In contrast to the apathy and inaction that define the characters in Vania, those in this piece hurl themselves in all sorts of directions: some change careers, others get divorced, one abandons everything to finally write the novel they’ve been meaning to write for twenty years, and another undergoes a sudden religious awakening and joins a sect. The stories and supposed solutions are varied, but the driving force is the same: a desperate attempt to cling to whatever keeps us alive or, in other words, to recover enthusiasm.

3.– In four distinct parts, structured like interlinked novellas, we follow the possible lives of some of these characters. Their lives shift from one part to the next, allowing us to explore the consequences of chance and the choices made. Alternate events lead to alternate lives; the plots and circumstances may change, but the desires and impulses remain.

El entusiasmo proposes a structure of successive beginnings. Each part reads as a new beginning, one that reframes everything we’ve seen up to that point. Some of these parts turn out to be fictions crafted in earlier chapters. The game of fiction is ever-present: the characters narrate or write one another, alternating in their respective reincarnations as narrator/author and character.

4.– The play connects the theme of enthusiasm in the lives of the characters with enthusiasm for narrative and storytelling. Some of these stories focus on the mundane—the world of couples, parenthood and its complexities—while others take on a broader narrative weight, transporting us far in space and time. One section takes the form of a documentary, another plunges unashamedly into fiction… together composing a kaleidoscope of stories and characters.

Ultimately, El entusiasmo seeks to explore—with humour and irony—themes of relationships, parenthood and the midlife crisis, while constructing a theatrical artefact with the playfulness and ambition of a postmodern novel.

Pablo Remón