Antonio González Caballero, father. (A reading for the 9th anniversary of his death)

Note: This text was read in its first version, in Puebla, during the first tribute to González Caballero's just days after his death in May 2003. Now I return to it on the ninth anniversary of his death.

Antonio González Caballero (Digital Work Over Photograph. © Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

González Caballero, father. *

The strength of actions in real life can overwhelm us. González Caballero has had a more than decisive influence in all of us and we react to that; don’t let that overwhelm us.  Now that he is dead, let’s not look to chronology to make a good biography... "Enumerarlo, seguir el orden de sus días, me parece imposible; mejor buscar su eternidad, sus repeticiones. Sólo una descripción intemporal, morosa con amor, puede devolvérnoslo." ("To enumerate him, to follow the order of his days, seems impossible to me; let’s search his eternity, his repetitions. Only a timeless description, delinquent with love, you bring him back to us".) writes a young Borges in his text on the life of poet Evaristo Carriego. 

I

To transmit by necessity, due to a continuous work within the tradition of Taoist-Tibetan meditation where you learn to give, to offer yourself completely to others, to the world, beyond fame or recognition ...

Giving was, for González Caballero, the main driving force in his life. He was always, without question, the teacher that gives.

González Caballero gave freely, gave to everyone; he painted and gave, he wrote and gave, he researched an acting technique and gave.I am not talking of the friend ... 

What I can say about what the friend gave?

González Caballero was teacher of three disciplines during his life: the Science of Mental Physics, painting and acting.

He was convinced that drama should not be taught, but that by reading and writing a playwright would evolve; that was a somewhat misleading observation as in each of his classes, in each of his talks, he spoke of what he had read, analyzed it, transformed it, he listened to our writings, he commented them, he scolded us for gross errors. He taught drama too, so, in his very particular style.

From adolescence to his first studies of painting on a commercial level, González Caballero was for others a talented artist full of uncertainties and destructive impulses. In the 50's, after his encountering Tibetan philosophy in the Western version taught in Mexico by Pedro Espinoza de los Monteros, González Caballero experienced a radical change in his life and in his concept of giving. The strength that work gave him and which he shared for nine years led him, among other things, to enter fully into the teaching of painting, to create a learning method based on research that made Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky so famous as teachers during the German Bauhaus in the 20’s. From this method in his first school came out some renowned Mexican painters and cartoonists.

That same practice of giving continued changing his life, he entered with tremendous success in drama and through some accident of fate landed in the actors creativity class of the Andrés Soler School, of the ANDA (Asociación nacional de actores). Being a painter and writer González Caballero did not know the secrets of the art of acting, and with humility, depth and genius he went into it. In 1971 he created his first acting workshop from which his acting technique sprang along with dozens of actors with his stamp; this workshop never stopped until the day of his death, literally.

II

In what I call his unique way of transmitting knowledge, González Caballero was for most of us "a teacher" that, as I said earlier, was always teaching something. We called him just so, the teacher. The person who called him Toño, and that was a special case, did so because he considered him his trusted friend and yet, when visiting him, he didn’t leave without learning something from him, from his work; "Toño", the friend became a teacher too. 

A class with González Caballero was a game, yet one sensed it was something much deeper, sacred at times; there was always humor, a certain ease of manner and abstraction; his prodigious use of imagination was transmitted to the world and one came out of his sessions with a drive to create, as if the imagination of the old man might have infected us so that all we needed was to get home so that in solitude this idea that emerged from his talk, his gestures, his giving, could take form. When González Caballero taught there was truly something from which you could absorb, it was impossible not to; when the teacher spoke, there was something to imagine, and in the end, always, something to create.

I will also be cautious, someone will comment that they did not learn with him, that he was boring or annoying, and they are entitled to say that; but now I can be less cautious and say, surely this wrong perception was because of prejudice against his personality, his way of dressing, his attitude to money.

González Caballero shouted, he shut people up, he hit tables to draw attention forcefully, he cursed, and right after he would smile as if nothing had happened, and just like that he would extend you his five fingers held together in his very original greeting.

In this loving and paced account of my experience as a student I remember how awesome it was for me that a man of his short stature, thanks to his attitude, with a voice strangely both high-pitched and hoarse, became so big in class. For those who worshiped strong personalities, González Caballero was just a scruffy unimportant person, we should picture him now that he’s gone:  he used to closed his eyes when speaking to concentrate; even until the 90’s he smoked his Delicados (a brand of cigarettes) and part of his mustache remained burnt and yellowish from the tobacco, as well as the fingernails on the fingers that handled the cigarettes; his non-existing teeth and yet his normal talking (he took pride in his speech technique, which prevented him from sound senile, I remember): his glasses and the mark that they left on his nose; his broken nose ridge and his finger opening one nostril more than usual to breathe better; the jacket he never stopped wearing (when it rained, he liked wearing it, because he said it got washed that way); also the baggy dirty trousers he wore all the time; his vagabond shoes; his beard unshaven for days... Yes, that personality didn’t receive much respect, and yet, knowing it, he didn’t seeking to impose respect for his person, he did not complain for not getting it, he was there, teaching, he changed our lives in acting, we gave us the weapons to survive in it.

A friend from the theatre company I had back then, Esférica Ludens, days before the teacher died, wrote to me in an e-mail: "I must hurry because I want to absorb González Caballero, his classes are like ground gold to me."  I believe that, I have a some of that gold shining on my hands.

González Caballero was always on time, but that did not mean that he began to talk about the class’s subject on time, everything happened in a simple manner, we entered the subject and the exercises by chatting. His workshop used to begin, for years, whether a Saturday or a Sunday, at eleven o'clock, and the exercises could start at 12 or 1 pm, but you never felt like you were wasting time; in the end, you were near him.

At that time that I remember now, in the late 80's, the sessions were in a large room on the roof of the house of the teacher Roman Calvo, who provided the workshop with a space for several years; there I had my first lessons in dramaturgy, with them two and some colleagues reading my plays after the workshop on Saturdays; they were small gatherings indeed. After lunch at just any restaurant we had to return to the house of the teacher, to listen to whoever was reading a text, to talk, to go to the movies. With González Caballero we had entire weekends of continuous learning and enjoyment.

One went there to learn to act, but you also learned philosophy, film (in this he was an expert), literature, psychology, history, the gossips around that history, freedom, you learned with him to be free. That's why I am convinced that some rejected it, they were afraid their freedom, they couldn’t be free, never more so than him.

Everything went the same way until the end of his life, the headquarters of the workshop changed but the routine of learning and enjoyment remained.

III

With him I learned a new concept of the word rebellion, and it did cost me effort and jobs to learn it: why shout? why break all paradigms in front of others? In your life, in your work, in your simple walking you can be free, that is the greatest rebellion and he taught that with absolutely nothing more, just by living, by being near us, by becoming our friend.

González Caballero always read for his own pleasure, but that continuous reading refreshed his work, his lessons, there was always something new that reinforced his work, and everything was so deep, so elevated, that sometimes we did not realize it; he was a simple, smiling person, simple, very simple. When reading of Taoist Oriental teachers you can get an idea where his mastery came from.

We used to invite people from outside the laboratory, people who had been surprised by our evolution, by our culture, we told them that we owed it to the teacher, and then they wanted to meet him; they certainly used to be excited to meet the teacher, and when they saw or heard him, or even when they read his work, few, very few praised him; most of them thought we were the great ones and that we were obsessed, deluded by him into thinking that he had given us things that we had really learned on our own. Fools, fools, fools!

González Caballero, with the vagabond look he had, is actually the father of a vast generation of actors and artists in this country, he is the father of an acting technique that is used, whether well or badly, by dozens of young actors, he is the father of some playwrights, among which I include myself, he is the father of theater teachers... González Caballero had no biological children but he was an indiscriminate father of artists, he never used a condom to teach, he was a libertine when giving, to everyone, to anyone, he did not respect anything or anyone.

Grotowski was right, we all have an artistic father and we can not dismiss this indisputable fact, González Caballero is ours and like it or not he is in us: "here, in my heart; here, in my mind; here, in my creativity," he, as per the eternal chorus that follows the death of someone, is not dead, he lives in us.

Finally, as I wrote some years ago when I said that we, his students, while the teacher was still alive, had already killed him because we did not accept his paternity nor defended it against the onslaught of the culture moguls of our country, I repeat: I was so many years with him and still am, because González Caballero did what he said, he did not lie; that I have not found anywhere else in my country and maybe that is why I now live thousands of miles away from him and do not suffer in his now eternal physical absence.

It doesn’t matter that Mexican critics take him as one of the worst famous writers of our theater! It doesn’t matter that the directors are so unprepared that they fail to understand his proposals and his colleagues minimised him to such an extent that he just seemed a naive person saying nice things! Of course, nothing further from the truth.

But, let’s remember, González Caballero was not dead in life because of those people who attacked or minimized him, but because of his own students, his disciples and those who called themselves his friends. Before anyone jumps up to say I’ve offended them, I can wash my hands off my "I accuse!" Let me clarify: not everybody.

Surely there are very few here, far fewer at his funeral, who speak of the importance of his creative work, not about him having written several books and that they all should be published, but about the real importance of his art... I didn’t need to have been there to know it. It’s normal, the friend, the man, had died... maybe it wasn’t the right time to talk about that... I don’t know, I have my doubts.

I think that those who buried him alive before that terrible afternoon in May 2003 did not understand that the struggle for recognition of the old man was not for González Caballero or his work but for themselves: once truth has been transmitted it does not belong to the teacher but the students, it’s in their blood, it’s part of it. The open doors became part of their own constitution, of their creative interests, the teacher had placed himself within them. Actually they buried themselves by not giving him the respect he deserved, by not by analysing his texts, by not reading him in depth, by lowering their research, by not developing their own creativity in the light of his teachings. The father's death is inevitably the death of the child.

At the end of this loving and ruthless account let’s not lose that part that he left in us, let’s learn to give as he gave, let’s accept his paternity over us and raise our creation as he did with his own; then, let’s be free.

Like with every artist that disappears, and that is something that González Caballero has unquestionably done, "disappear", let’s try to bring him back to life in a real place in our lives, through his creative work that still runs through our veins.

Greetings to all from Beirut, where thanks to God not much theatre is done.

Gustavo Thomas

Beirut, Lebanon

June 2003
(Reworked in Toronto, Canada. May 2012)

* Translation from Spanish by Tadeo Berjon.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

*

If you read in Spanish might be interested in reading my book about 
González Caballero's Acting Method:

The Book is only on sale in two sites: Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Actuación-Antonio-González-Caballero-Spanish/dp/1466261919 CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/3677417

Antonio González Caballero Photographed in 1999

Antonio González Caballero, 1999

(By Alejandro Yustiaza)

Some days ago Alejandro Yustiaza, a former member of Esférica Ludens, sent to me a whole set of photographs of Antonio González Caballero at his home (and work place) in 1999.

There is something interesting in this set, aside of presenting more images of González Caballero the man, they show to us another González Caballero's home, the last one, in 20 de Noviembre Avenue, very close to the other one, both in México City Historic Downtown. We can see some of his paintings on the background of almost all the photographs of the set, and also we can get a glance of the last place he used to work at, giving lessons and transmitting his Acting Method. 

At that moment González Caballero's body was very weak after suffering several complicated surgeries, and we see him thin and tired; his hands, under the skin, are almost bones and veins, very impressive.

In this post I only share those photographs showing González Caballero alone, next week I will post more, he having a conversation with me and giving lessons.

You will notice that there are some images a little bit dirty or with some scratches, that's because of the time and problems with the digitalization. Be kind.

Slideshow of Photographs of González Caballero (1999)

"Atmósfera de lugar." Antonio González Caballero's apartment in 1996.

On Wednesday February 11th 2009 I received an email from Ángeles León, a student at Antonio González Caballero's workshop during the nineties, in response to my post of February 10th 2009 about the apartment where González Caballero had lived for over 50 years and its mural paintings inside. This is the Ángeles León's mail (with the Spanish  original):

"Hi Gustavo,

Greetings.

I'm Ángeles León. I studied under González Caballero from 1992-1996. I experienced the teacher's moving from Pino Suárez Avenue to 20 de Noviembre Avenue. I have a video with all the murals of the apartment at Pino Suárez.

I do not know if someone's already written to you about this, but the murals were destroyed by the building's owner. He even told that to the teacher personally, his words were "it gave us so much pleasure to destroy them, we threw paint, crap and more on them." Whether this is true or not, we were with our teacher in those days and we took it for true that the murals were destroyed. The teacher was depressed for several days. Then he started painting black and white pictures, where some of the faces were similar to those in the murals and the teacher himself said that they represented the suffering of the murals at the time of being destroyed. They were very expressive faces, grotesque and large. He made several paintings in that style.

The building was being renovated inside to turn it into a place to rent offices. Even the master used to greet the workers, until the turn to remodel his apartment arrived and that was when they took him out. After that, everything stopped, as you can imagine.

That's it. I send you a big hug.

Sincerely

Ángeles León

And it was not until a few weeks ago, nearly a year and a half later, that I received a new email from her announcing the digitization of the video she had mentioned before, and with that news the possibility to edit it and publish it on the Internet.

Why do I think this video is so important?

First of all it is a personal matter: González Caballero was my teacher and friend, and in many ways he also was a father to me. Furthermore, his apartment at 36th Pino Suárez Avenue was where I was educated in theatre for 9 years, it was the place where I learned acting, and the place where I decided to start writing and then to develop my own concepts of stage direction and my interest in researching about performing arts. What is impressive, I am sure, is that I was not the only one that experienced big changes there: generations of actors, playwrights and directors who passed by his acting workshop did, as well as friends and strangers seeking help in their professional work.

González Caballero's apartment was as peculiar as a place where an artist, a painter, a writer and a teacher has lived can be: a place that becomes home, meeting room, rehearsal room, painting and sculpture studio, art school, etc. Its rooms were galleries of paintings by González Caballero as well of paintings by his mother, who in the last 20 odd  years of her life was entirely devoted to painting; he also had a small collection of original prehispanic pieces and paintings by other artists of his generation. In his dinning room there was a mural painting on two entire walls showing images that would be identified with the best of the so-called Mexican school of painting (Escuela mexicana de pintura), of which he was an heir. Other paintings had been done on the wall of the main hall too.

As it was explained in the mail from Ángeles León, those murals were destroyed; once González Caballero left that place, all that remained of them was scattered memories and some photographs.

For several years I have tried to gather visual information on all of Gonzalez Caballero's paintings, including those lost murals, and I have been able to publish a series of photographs in some sites like Picasa and Flickr, and I wrote a post in this Blog about the murals with photos by Lis Valadés, also a student at the acting workshop during the 90s.

So far there had been no more, till now.

"Atmósfera de lugar. El departamento de Antonio González Caballero en 1996" (Atmosphere of a place. Antonio González Caballero's apartment in 1996) is the name I have given to the edited version I made from the original video (digitized from a VHS) that Ángeles León gave to me. "Atmósfera de lugar" is also the name of one of the  acting technique "Apoyos" that was taught in that apartment, and anyone that knows about it recognizes that there exists a world with the physical space we live or work in, as well as a history with the place that changes depending on the experiences with the place itself. The video, from my point of view, seeks to recreate the feeling the apartment left in all of those who were educated there, that somehow lived there, and that maintain an inner atmosphere of the place that made it so special.

In the eyes of a stranger unrelated to the work or to the person of González Caballero, this is a curious-eye walk through a unique place, and certainly an aid to those who want to venture into the knowledge of the life and work of this Mexican artist .

The music I used for editing the video is the work of "Bosques de mi mente" (www.bosquesdemimente.com), who very kindly accepted the invitation for his music inclusion. His musical pieces really fit into my idea of that atmosphere that is created in our physical and mental recall, and in conjunction with the video the images acquired great strength and depth.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

ATMóSFERA DE LUGAR El departamento de Antonio González Caballero en 1996 

from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

An Interview with Guadalupe Durón (Part 2): Element Air, an exercise.

Guadalupe Durón (México, 2008)

Second post on the interview I conducted with Guadalupe Durón in Mexico City’s Historic Center on December 28th, 2008 (See introduction to the interview at the post published on 02/02/2009).

I do not transcribe my questions to Durón (they were simply invitations to speak about the method and about his experience with the teachings of Antonio González Caballero), I preferred to present only the actor’s words. I consider these words as a testimony and a raw document; therefore, I did not edit the video nor looked for adding coherence to it. Beyond Duron’s colloquial speech and his unique way of using grammar, there is his personal experience as an actor, and in the swirl of phrases we can find some "keys" to understanding the González Caballero’s Acting Method.

Durón, with his peculiar style of narrating his experiences, brought back with memories of exercises with the "Elements" at González Caballero’s laboratory, this time narrating an exercise of the “Air Element” (Elemento Aire). The "Element" is one of the main (or basic) supports (apoyos) within the acting method.

Video: Guadalupe Durón, an experience during an exercise with Element Air (in Spanish).

Since Durón speaks in Spanish, Tadeo Berjón helped me to make a free translation of Duron's speech to English:

"I remember his exercises (referring to Gonzalez Caballero), one people criticised me a lot for because… I was fascinated by it, because it was about an element I liked a lot, Air ... Because it is very volatile, because even if it runs into a wall it goes up or down and spreads to the sides, and whatever.

"So, he guided us, … First, he used to say ...: -" Come on, concentrate "- blah, blah blah blah. And then he would start feeding us: -" OK, let's make this element "- Of course! at that time they were... we were, like, beginners, because those were pure elements (basic), and after then they were mixed, and blah blah blah.

"So, er, that time, I remember he gave us Air (the element). (He laughs) And then something very curious happened, I started feeling very agile; yes, and I don't know how, don't ask me. I was walking and moving all over the place because... it was an old house, where we did the exercises - we had had many working spaces, blah blah blah. And that time it was an old house, from the 20s or 30s maybe. - And then there was a big staircase, - well, when you compare it with what the make nowadays.

"Then, I remember I started to feel very very light, and the teacher says: -" OK, now the wind in the desert; OK, now the wind is in the mountains; OK, now the wind is in a field, in the plains,... No it's like this, now it's like that..." - then we would respond to these impulses (indications) that he would give, so I ended up crazy afterwards, and I and I don't know ... There was a little column at the base of the stairs, very small, about 30 centimetres tall, whatever. To follow the banister then ... don't ask me how but suddenly I was... as it no longer had ... these stairs, how do you call it?, (these) little columns used to have a lamp, a carved figure on top, and there were none. Well, I ended up on those thirty centimetres, standing, pretending to be a statue, and it felt wonderful.

"Afterwards ... (he laughs) ... er..., I had fun because they said: -" Ah, ah, ah, that's what you always do! You want to be very volatile, you this and you that ..."- But no, personal volatility is one, that is, yes, I can, you know, run or walk or feel or do, but me, me! When you are given an element on purpose to work with, then no. The body's position changes, the mind changes, you do things that ... Like that with the little column, I mean, me, when! I have always suffered from (bad) balance, I mean, I can not play like the children on the rails of the railways or on the borders of ... of partitions. I've always been very awkward at doing that, and I was wondering: (he smiles) - "How the hell did I get onto those thirty centimeters and I didn't fall, if I have a lousy balance?" - Now, they say that having a lousy balance on scene is fantastic, as you can do what you want to.

"But I was surprised to have ended up on that small space and not fall, why? because the quality of the element, whichever they may be, fire, earth, air, water... it encourages imagination and you are something else; you're not... er... what you normally are! you change!, through the power of imagination, I mean, because it's a stimulus that although we are made from all the elements, when one of them predominates then you become someone else. That's that, as simple as that. "

Guadalupe Durón's original speech in Spanish:

"Recuerdo sobre sus ejercicios (en referencia a González Caballero) uno que me fue muy criticado porque a mí me fascinaba mucho, porque era sobre un elemento que a mí me gusta mucho, el aire, ...porque es muy volátil, porque aunque encuentre un muro sube o baja y se dispersa a los lados, y quien sabe qué.

"Entonces el guiaba,... primero nos ponía: -”A ver, concéntrense”-, blah, blah blah blah. Y luego nos empezaba a alimentar: -”A ver, vamos a hacer este elemento”- ¡Claro!, en aquél tiempo eran..., como éramos principiantes, pues eran elementos puros (básicos), luego ya se mezclan, y blah blah blah.

"Entonces, eh, esa vez, me acuerdo que nos dió el (elemento) Aire. (Ríe) Y entonces se dió algo muy curioso, yo me empecé a sentir muy ágil; sí, y no sé cómo, no me pregunten. Anduve desplazándome por todo el lugar, porque... Era una casa antigua donde hacíamos los ejercicios, -porque tuvimos varias sedes, blah, blah, blah. Y esa vez me tocó en una casa que era vieja, de los 20s o 30s quizá.- Y entonces había una escalera muy grande, -bueno, grande en base a las que se hacen ahora-.

"Entonces, recuerdo que empecé a sentirme ligero, ligero, ligero, y el maestro: -”A ver, el viento ahora está en el desierto; a ver, ahora el viento está en la montaña; a ver, ahora el viento está en un campo, en un llano,... Ahora está así y asá.”- Entonces iba uno repondiendo a esos impulsos (indicaciones) que él le daba a uno, de tal manera que yo terminé enloquecido después, y no sé,... Había una columnita en la base de la escalera, muy pequeña, como de unos 30 centímetros, y no se qué. Para seguir por el barandal entonces..., no me pregunten cómo pero de repente yo estaba... como ya no tenía..., Estas escaleras, ¿cómo se llama?, (estas) columnitas solían tener una lámpara, una figura esculpida ahí encima, y aquí no había. Pues yo terminé en esos treinta centímetros, parado, haciéndola de estatuita, y me sentía maravillosamente.

"Después... (Ríe) este..., me divertía mucho porque decían: -"Ah, ah, ah, ¡eso es lo que haces siempre! Tú quieres ser muy volatil, tú quien sabe que...”- Pero no, la volatilidad personal es una, o sea, sí, yo puedo, yo que sé, caminar o correr o sentirme o hacer, pero yo, ¡yo! Cuando le dan a propósito un elemento que debe trabajar, entonces no. La posición del cuerpo cambia, la mente cambia, hace uno cosas que... Como eso de la columnita, o sea, yo ¿cuándo? Yo siempre he padecido de (mal) equilibrio, o sea yo no puedo estar como juegan los niñitos, en los rieles de los ferrocarriles o en las orillitas de los... de los tabiques. Yo siempre he sido muy torpe para eso; y yo me preguntaba: (sonríe) -“¿cómo rayos llegué a estos treinta centímetros y no me caí, si tengo un pésimo equlibro?”- Ahora dicen que eso de tener un pésimo equilibro en escena es fantástico, como puedes hacer lo que se te de la gana.

"Pero yo sí me asombraba de haber terminado en ese espacio tan pequeño y no caerme, ¿por qué? Porque la cualidad del elemento, cualquiera que ellos sean, el fuego, la tierra, el aire, el agua,... estimula la imaginación y uno es otra cosa; no es... eh... ¡lo que uno es normalmente!, ¡cambia!, por el poder de la imaginación, o sea, porque es un estímulo que si bien estamos formados por todos los elementos, cuando predomina uno entonces uno se vuelve otro. Eso es, así de simple."

Video en Vimeo.com: Guadalupe Durón habland0 sobre un ejercicio del elemento Aire.

A Walk Through Basho's Garden... and his Haiku.

閑かさや岩にしみ入る蝉の声
shizukasa ya iwa ni shimiiru semi no koe

oh in the quietude
seeping into the rock
the voices of cicadas

The first time I heard of Haiku was by feeling it.

During an exercise guided by my acting teacher, Antonio González Caballero (1), he was constantly repeating a few sentences translated from Japanese poetry. The immediate response within me, perhaps an explosive one (if explosions were so slow as powerful), was the opening of a door leading to the unknown; the inner self of my sensibility had an entry (perhaps it has more) and I had discovered it that day.

The teacher's words were listened to and repeated after a while by me, with my voice, ever lower, as wanting them to enter me; then I heard them in silence, I heard them traveling through my body, inside my body, and I started to feel.

The feeling brought tears to my eyes, but they were not tears of pain or sadness tears, or at least they were of a kind of pain and sorrow so big that they seemed near infinite, therefore intangible, and therefore neither sad nor painful, and they were only in me, and tears flowed as in a river, only because.

My body became more relaxed, my eyes were clouded by tears while listening to the poem.

Already on the ground and in a period of time without memory, that afternoon, I was enjoying all this, looking at the sky and laughing while the tears still came. It was all, It was much, and it was of such extreme softness!

My teacher’s voice and mine had long faded, but I was still listening to the poem in me. It was the first time I could say I felt a soul, that thing so intangible that only becomes tangible through poetry.

Since that exercise each time I hear the word "Haiku", I feel it through my body (and soul) and identify it with my experience as an actor, and each time I hear the name of "Basho" I identify it with the creator of that experience.

I’ve crossed paths with Basho (Bashō) several times in my life, since that day at González Caballero’s workshop and till now, when he crossed my path during a trip to Tokyo in January 2008. I was looking for a Sumo stadium, I wanted to see huge men in a ritual fight, instead I found this Japanese poet, I found his house museum that held me for a few minutes.

The house was almost destroyed by time and bombardments, there was nothing left of it, a new building replaced the original house with a small museum, and over there a garden which even in Winter remained alive.

I strolled around the garden and recorded some images, they are more beautiful for what they mean that for what they are. Showing them is a joy and reading his poems while watching them is a pleasure.

Trips are pretexts that lead to wisdom.

A Walk Through Basho's Garden

Basho Museum. Tokyo, Japan. (January 2008)

Basho Museum. Tokyo, Japan. (January 2008)

Basho Museum. Tokyo, Japan. (January 2008)

(1) Under González Caballero’s Acting Method this exercise is part of "Naturalismo chejoviano" (Chekhovian Naturalism), and the exploration work was precisely "Apoyo Haikú". There is a Blog I'm writing (in Spanish) called: El Método de actuación de A. González Caballero.

An Interview with Guadalupe Durón (Part 1): "How González Caballero's Acting Method influenced my actor career"

Guadalupe Durón (México, D.F. Dic. 2008)

A quick trip to Mexico (and an 18 hour flight) last Christmas forced me to think about how to maximize energy and information and use them for the improving of the González Caballero’s Acting Method Blog (1) (2) I have been writing in Spanish on the Internet since January 2007. I remembered that the main objective of that Blog was giving a first-hand testimony about the experience of the method, displaying it as it was, leading to a healthy discussion. The transcripts of the recordings I made of González Caballero during the 80s and 90s of the last century have been the real corpus of the Blog, but now I believed it was important to add the voice of those who helped to form this method and who were prepared by him, by González Caballero.

The plan then was to add some interviews with González Caballero’s direct students, and in such interviews to narrate, remember and bring back to life their experiences as actors, talking about the method, the exercises, the guide and about how they used to receive what was known as “la técnica”.

I thought Guadalupe Durón was the most indicated to start with these interviews because he was a very close friend of González Caballero (and mine) and a partner at González Caballero’s workshops.

Guadalupe Durón was considered by González Caballero as one of his real students, as an actor who worked with his acting technique, but also considered him as a rebel, an actor who was opposed to rules and structure; González Caballero said that Durón was using his method but always did what he wanted, with his own interpretation. This comments, strangely, are not against Durón, nor the method or Durón’s capacity on the scene; González Caballero gave an important role to freedom and creative interpretation, and Durón was his best example; he loved his work, his force and his projection on scene. Nobody denied nor denies that he was prepared with González Caballero’s acting method and many of his accomplishments are due to that preparation. González Caballero was his teacher in the whole sense of the word and both held each other in high esteem.

Guadalupe Durón performing "La Cura" (1998)

I decided to start this series of videos of Guadalupe Durón's interview with a description of how González Caballero’s method influenced Duron’s career. In this part Durón talked with his personal form of expression, his experience and feelings about building a character with the “Apoyos”. There is no analysis by me, I wanted to go directly to that recording as a testimony. I think in any case it would be interesting to compare the experience of this actor with the transcripts of González Caballero’s words I have published in the Method’s Blog.

The video is (of course!) in Spanish, but I made a free English translation from the video’s transcript (3):


"To begin... how did the master’s technique influence me? It was little by little. Er ... I remember that it was hard to build a character, but when he taught me there were Pesos, Introversion, that the characters could have a religion, that according to their Age they would walk, that they had a character (of the character), whether they were Introverted or not, and all that, I found a new world, a new world in which naturally he must have had more talented students than I, students who understood things better than me. Then I took two or three “Apoyos”, no more because I felt that it had become confusing, because they were many, many (Apoyos), which obviously I worked through but felt unable to use them all at once. So I used to choose just two or three (Apoyos): an Elemento, a part of the character ... and that gave me a different consistency than I had thought of a character, their attitude changed, blah, blah, blah.

"The sad thing about it is that the teacher didn’t leave a version of the method written by himself, in handwriting. Why? ... Because he had everything clear in his mind. And sometimes I wonder, why didn’t he write it down? if it was very important? And I realized that it is one thing to know what they say and applying it is something else ... Sure! That could apply to myself too. I mean, well, I'm putting into practice what he taught me. Sometimes I questioned myself - are you really using what he taught you? -

"Sometimes I write in my scripts, he has this element, it is blah, blah, blah ... and this and this and so on. As an artistic worker I have always this question: -Am I doing things right? - Well! I do not know whether people are fooling me or if it is because I am good! Or whatever! Once someone approached me and said, "Hey, I saw your work, it is different to what I had seen, I did not think that someone could make this kind of work, I did not know anyone”.

"There was once a man who stopped me on the street, and said, -"Hey, I've seen theater in Europe, I've seen theater in the United States, I've seen theater in Mexico, but this is just different from everything I have seen.”- That pleased me, but I always questioned myself about that, -Are you really using what you were taught you? ... As ... I used to take some notes at the beginning of my study, especially when I was with him (with González Caballero), then I had some reference; when I was in doubt I came back to those notes and solved the problem, but one day there was a flood in my home and it ruined all my notes, and blah, blah, blah... Since then I've done things as I remember, so I’ve always questioned myself: Am I right? "

Video of an Interview with Guadalupe Durón (Part 1)

The same video on Vimeo.com

Guadalupe Durón: De cómo influyó la técnica de González Caballero en mi actuación. from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

(1) http://agcmetodo.blogspot.com There is a plan to translate the whole Blog to English.
(2) Antonio González Caballero was known in Mexico as a playwright since 1960 and as teacher of acting since 1967. Until the year of his death, 2003, he had prepared hundreds of acting students and had a reduced number of disciples. Besides his first successful plays, "Señoritas a Disgusto' and "El Medio Pelo", he explored one acting method to help the young actor to reach "a total character" ("un personaje total") for the commercial acting field in theatre, cinema and television. The development of this exploration was too far from its first objective and gave as a result the discovery of the "Apoyos", a new way to take control of the different features of a character. 35 years of exploration gave around 50 Apoyos and one comprehensive review of the different needs of the players from the XIX century to the end of the XX century.
(3) Original text in Spanish:

“Empezar, ¿de cómo al técnica del maestro influyó en mí?, pues fue poco a poco. Eh..., yo recuerdo que pasaba muchos trabajos para armar personajes, pero cuando él me enseñó que había Pesos, que había Introversiones, que los personajes podían tener una religión, que según su Edad caminarían, que su Carácter, que si era Introvertido o no, y pues todo eso, me planteó un mundo nuevo, un mundo nuevo en el que naturalmente debe haber (habido) alumnos más talentosos que yo y (que) entendían mejor las cosas Y entonces yo tomaba dos o tres apoyos, no más, porque sentía que me enredaba, porque eran muchos muchos, que funcionaban evidentemente pero yo me sentia incapaz de usarlos todos a un tiempo. Entonces por eso nomás elegía dos o tres: un Elemento, una parte del Carácter,... y eso me daba una consistencia distinta de lo que había pensado de un personaje; cambiaba de actitud, blah, blah, blah.

“Lo lamentable de todo ésto es que el maestro no haya dejado de su puño y letra el método. ¿Por qué razón? ...Porque él lo tenía claro, o a veces me pregunto, ¿por qué no lo hizo, si era muy importante? Y me he dado cuenta que una cosa es lo que dicen saber y otra cosa lo que aplican... ¡Claro!, eso podría tambén aplicarse a mí mismo. Yo digo -bueno, yo estoy poniendo en práctica lo que él me enseño-. Yo a veces me cuestiono -¿de veras estás empleando lo que él te enseñó?-

“Yo pongo a veces en mis libretos, éste tiene tal Elemento, éste tiene blah, blah, blah,... y tiene tal Peso y ésto y otro. A uno como trabajador artístico siempre le quedará la duda, -¿estoy haciendo las cosas bien?- ¡Claro!, ahí, no sé si porque la gente se deje engañar o porque uno es bueno, ¡o por lo que sea!, alguien se le acerca a uno y dice, -Oiga, vi su trabajo, es distinto a lo que yo había visto, no pensé que pudieran realizar tal clase de trabajo, es más, yo no lo conocía-.

“Hubo una vez un señor que me detuvo en la calle, bueno, y me dice, -Oiga, yo he visto teatro en Europa, he visto teatro en Estados Unidos, he visto teatro aquí en México, pero ésto que acabo de ver está fuera de todo lo que he visto.- Eso me satisface, pero siempre me cuestiona eso de que -¿de veras estás usando lo que se te enseñó-... Como,... Yo tenía unos apuntes que fui tomando allá por los inicios de la carrera, sobre todo cuando estuve con él (con González Caballero), entonces tenía cierta referencia; cuando yo tenía alguna duda pues recurría a ellos, pero un día sufrí una inundación en casa, se echaron a perder lo apuntes, y blah, blah, blah,... Y desde entonces he hecho las cosas como me acuerdo, por eso siempre me cuestiono: ¿estaré bien?”

Images from "La Maraña" performance In Mexico City

La maraña. A Esférica Ludens production. (June, 2008)

As I reported last May 2008 (1), Esférica Ludens came back to life with the production of La Maraña (text by Antonio González Caballero) during the national homage to A. González Caballero; a few weeks later they sent to me some photographs and videos from one of their performances.

Of course I'm not able to criticizes their work (they are friends, collagues, and, of course, I have not seen the performance...), but I can say that it is my hope that the new Esférica Ludens keeps working and making new productions.

La Maraña was directed by Francisco Camacho, have no idea about stage design (which seems very simple) and about music, I only can say that the musical piece you listen to is created especially for this production.

So, I edited one video and one slideshow to share...

Introductory video of La Maraña


Photo Slideshow of La Maraña

The same videos on Vimeo.com:

Introductory video of La Maraña

Photo slideshow of La Maraña




(1) Post of 5/12/08: La Maraña. Esférica Ludens is back.

Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda died last Wednesday July the 30th.

Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda

Not long ago I decided to write an entry about Emilio Carballido, and today my heart feels the duty of writing about Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda.

Once more, memories pile up in my mind.

When “el grupo de los doce” (the Group of Twelve) (1) was formed in the mid-eighties, with Mexican playwrights who were part of the old and new Mexican dramaturgy (from the sixties as well as from the seventies), González Caballero would tell me how pleasant one of the new playwrights was, that he supposedly was a “banker” (in fact, he really was one, Rascón Banda was an important employee at a banking enterprise), that he seemed sincere and that he had some interesting dramaturgical work (2).

I sensed the beginning of a fruitful friendship between them both, a friendship that Rascón Banda knew how to handle diplomatically during the times González Caballero was minimised by other Mexican playwrights. Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda maintained his friendship with González Caballero until Gonzalez’s death and even beyond; he was one of the few playwrights present at the last homage made to González Caballero at the Mexico City’s Teatro Hidalgo.

Rascón Banda was looking to quit banking at some point and dedicate himself fully to writing, and when the opportunity came, he became a full time writer. Using his administrative skills he landed a job where he could be of most use to his fellow playwrights, the SOGEM.

The first time I saw Rascón Banda was at a lunch he invited González Caballero to, at a French restaurant within the former Lion’s Desert Convent; as González Caballero used to do, he invited me to go with him and, of course, I accepted. It was the eighties, I was an adolescent in search of his way, meeting the people who managed the stage business in Mexico was always a tempting opportunity. Rascón Banda picked us up at some place in the city centre, in what I considered was a big and luxurious car (González Caballero agreed with me). Rascón Banda was tall, handsome, well-dressed and didn’t look much like the Mexican playwright stereotype; I still remember his deep, clear and confident voice.

González Caballero was impressed by Rascón Banda’s ability to be a “banker”, to have style and to dedicate himself to dramaturgy. Rascón Banda admired my teacher, he was honest and very responsible. Even though he talked about theatre with clarity and knowledge (he was a well travelled man), he had a pleasant conversation, he didn’t try to argue and looked for a sincere exchange.

Victor Hugo Rascón Banda’s plays are among Mexican theatre’s many successes (particularly during the nineties), and great Mexican actors took part in them. Even though he’s known by other plays, the one I treasure the most is the one that got me close to him, Tina Modotti, because it was one of the first plays I read that came from the hands of a Mexican playwright, with a supple dramatical structure (3). He got involved with cinema, theattre, and everything with a dialogue, a story, characters and a performing space.

Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda's texts

Víctor Hugo Rascón knew well how to move the influences on his theatre and to adpat them to his personal style. I remember how Chekhov and his Cherry Garden ran subtly in the background of Playa Azul (Blue Beach), with characters from the PRI era that were losing power and territory (literally), losing their old way of life. He became a master of the realist-naturalist atmosphere, his plays echoed the times and got fused in a clear and direct character study.


I remember him as someone always close to independent groups, close to power too, and close to those who looked for a push to continue in the theatrical world; always approachable, at times, at very few times, when unable to offer all the aid that was required, the sorrow of impotence showed on his face, and yet a solution would arrive.


I didn’t know he was afflicted with cancer until I left Mexico. My colleagues would tell me how he would keep working, even when weak because of his illness. To talk about him always involved talking about a man who was admirable for his human side. Now, at the news of his passing away, I feel somewhat perplexed, and I see time pass by, how I prefer to remember González Caballero when he had dreams and plans, when at the source of his creativity he dedicated himself fully to theatre, I want to keep seeing him during his moments of success.

The losses will continue, there is no way of stopping them, we will have to find a way to preserve Rascón Banda’s work in the theatrical memory of Mexico.





(1) In my hands I hold an ediition of “Doce a las Doce, Teatro Breve” (Twelve at Twelve, Short Plays), the book that gathered those twelve playwrights in a beautiful anthological way where each published a short play that referred to (or took as starting point) one of the 12 hours of a day. The group’s members were: Alejandro Licona, Willebaldo López, Pilar Campesino, Tomás Urtusástegui, Miguel Angel Tenorio, Antonio González Caballero, Tomás Espinosa, Dante del Castillo, Pablo Salinas, Norma Román Calvo, Marcela del Río y Vìctor Hugo Rascón Banda.
(2) At the time, 1989, Rascón Banda was already known by some scandalous premieres. His polemic, relevant and well written plays offered him a place not only in theatre but, some time later, in cinema and television.
(3) The play was part of a theatre volume by Rascón Banda, part of the mythical collection of books edited and republished by the Public Education Ministry in the eighties, called “Lecturas Mexicanas” (Mexican Readings).

Photographs from the Antonio González Caballero's Nacional Homage (2008)

I've just received some pictures from the homage which started this May 12th, 2008:

During the opening ceremony, the re-unveiling of "La Cosecha", mural painted by Antonio González Caballero:

Homenaje Naciona a Antonio González Caballero (2008)

The same day at Teatro Hidalgo, the cast of "La Maraña":

Elenco de "La Maraña"

Some picture of the special course about González Caballero's Acting Method (as part of homage events):

Clase muestra del método de A. González Caballero

Clase muestra del método de A. González Caballero

Clase muestra del método de A. González Caballero