The enigmatic Stefan Zweig relives the last hour before his suicide in a play directed by Carlos Ycaza, at Estudio Paulsen

have worked with Carlos Ycazawhen it was magazine editor at El Universo newspaper (a position he held for 20 years), made many of us aware of his gravitation towards the history of Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), a popular Jewish Austrian writer upset by the destruction of european culture in both World Wars, ultimately leading him to commit suicide together with his wife in a villa of Petropolis (Brazil)his last residence after a life marked by the exile traumas.

Stefan Zweig: The writer who dreamed of a world without borders

Ycaza dedicated a cover of Magazine to the forgotten European author with a voluminous but perhaps ignored production, and who dreamed of a “world without borders”. More than once it seemed fair to him that in that space he is mentioned in literary references; He was even the central figure of a review the editor wrote about The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), whose director Wes Anderson actually take the Zweig’s texts and their appearance as inspiration for the setting of his fiction.

Encounter with books: the opportunity to continue reading Zweig

In his most recent tribute, Carlos Ycaza premieres this weekend An hour in the life of Stefan Zweig at the Paulsen Studioperforming arts center under the management of the Albert Paulsen Foundationchaired by the communicator and theater enthusiast. Ycaza also directs the staginga adaptation of the work of the Spanish Antonio Tabares produced in 2008. They perform Alejandro Fajardo (as Stefan Zweig) Michelle Zamudio (Lotte) and Benjamin Cortes.

“I met Stefan Zweig through the cinema, in a film version of letter from a stranger (1948) when he was very young. It was a very romantic version of a Stefan novel, with a psychological depth in the characters that he got a little lost in the Hollywood of that time”, recalls the communicator before the debut of the play this Saturday, November 12.

‘Letter from an unknown woman’, the disturbing novel by Stefan Zweig that arrived at the Sánchez Aguilar Theater

“Later, when my mother-in-law Mrs. Maruja Solá de Estradawho has passed away and was an educator with a wonderful library, began to give away books, one of the books he gave me was the world of yesterday by Stefan Zweig, the autobiography of him written a year or two before his suicide.

What impressed Ycaza the most about the also poet was the enigma of a troubled character without a homeland not only for the loss of their nation, but for the culture debacle of the continent that saw him born, after the nationalist processes of war conflicts in the mid-twentieth centuryespecially the Nazism of hitler.

Paulsen study: five years of resistance, vocation, training and theater for all audiences

Zweig was a Wandering Jew born in the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empirewho before the disappearance of his native country was forced to stumble in Austria, Germany, England, USA Finally the author finds the closest thing to a home in the famous ‘imperial city’ of Brazilsettled in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The Stefan Zweig House in Petrópolis, where Zweig and his second wife Lotte they ended their lives with veronal poisonin an act of despair for the world of his present, he turned himself into a museum.

“The public knows that Mr. Zweig commits suicide. The work happens the day they are going to commit that act, at the moment they are fixing everything a mysterious character who they don’t know and who brings him a letter from a personal friend of Zweig’s, from the composer Richard Strauss. This leads to a confrontation and a cliffhanger: What does this man want with them And what can happen the day this couple has made that tremendous decision? That mysterysays its director, takes place in a uncut sequence lasting one hour and ten minutes.

Inaugurated in Guayaquil the Estudio Paulsen, a center for the performing arts

It’s about a Latin American premiere, highlights Ycaza, because the play had only been broadcast in Spain, precisely because its playwright is from there. “In other countries it has also been seen, such as in Italy and I think in Germany, but the work had not reached Latin America.” Not even to Brazil, she says, where Zweig was buried.

The staging is a commitment that it had been postponed precisely because of the coronavirus pandemic. “We were going to do the play in the year 20 and the pandemic came, then we were going to present it in the 21st, but the pandemic continued. So in 22, preventing another pandemic from coming, I saved it for this year’s marquee closing”.

Why does Ycaza bring us this theatrical presentation, in addition to being motivated by a personal fascination What has he fed since his youth? So that he captivates us, like him, the great sensitivity that he perceives of Zweig towards the human racethe one that must prevail in the most restless and disturbing times. “His suicide was an act of exacerbated humanityFor others it was an act of cowardiceor an act of injustice towards the society that saw him as a light. Although that is the controversial part of his life, what I want is for them to keep their light”.

An hour in the life of Stefan Zweig will be available at Estudio Paulsen starting this Saturday, November 12 and Sunday, November 13, at 5:00 p.m. Later from Thursday to Saturday at 20:00 in the remainder of the month. (AND)