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.

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?”