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Interview
10 April 2022 2.00 h

Paula Jornet

THEATRE ACTRESS, COMPOSER AND SINGER

“There will be more diversity on stage tomorrow”

A native of Sant Cugat, actor and musician Paula Jornet is clear about what she wants and an optimist and activist in equal measures

I really believe in the theatre as a tool for social transformation IT’S GOOD TO GO TO THE THEATRE AND TALK ABOUT TOPICS THAT HAVE COME UP

After singing under the name Pavvla (she starred in Crea­tures, 2016), Paula Jor­net has been cul­ti­vat­ing her act­ing side, which she dis­cov­ered at the Unió Santcu­ga­tenca cul­tural as­so­ci­a­tion when she was just five years old, now just over two decades ago. Today she can be seen as the daugh­ter who plays the gui­tar in La família (im)pos­si­ble at the Fly­hard the­atre and as a friend of an un­usual group in an aban­doned open space (Qui es­tigui lli­ure, in the Off of La Vil­lar­roel).

What has more weight in your ca­reer: music or act­ing?
My ca­reer’s gone through dif­fer­ent phases. But I’ve spent more time act­ing. I had a pe­riod of four or five years with a music com­pany (Luup Records) and put the work in be­cause I was get­ting gigs. Now I’m work­ing more on act­ing. But I re­ally enjoy both things. I couldn’t choose one.
The di­rec­tor David Sel­vas al­ways says he’s jeal­ous of the au­di­ence’s con­nec­tion at con­certs com­pared to the the­atre. Last year you went back to work­ing on the com­po­si­tion for El màgic d’Oz, La Bru­tal’s first mu­si­cal.
I think the en­ergy that’s cre­ated on stage and from the au­di­ence is very dif­fer­ent: they’re dif­fer­ent lan­guages, music and the­atre. I don’t know if I feel the same envy as Sel­vas, be­cause the eu­pho­ria of music should be weighed against the cathar­sis of the the­atre. Both are dif­fer­ent and nec­es­sary.
Ac­tress Laura Aubert is al­ways as­so­ci­ated on stage with her vi­o­lin or dou­ble bass. She says she likes to use these tools as an­other part of her in­ter­pre­tive palette, but it both­ers her that she may not be val­ued for her role as an actor. In La família (im)pos­si­ble, the char­ac­ter is ex­pressed through the elec­tric gui­tar.
Yeah, I’d also add that I’m never the one who sug­gests it. For me it’s also just an­other tool. If at every per­for­mance I was asked to “bring the gui­tar”, I would con­sider doing my own stuff. In the case of La família (im)pos­si­ble, Carol López [play­wright and di­rec­tor] told me that there was Dolo [Dolo Bel­tran], who also sings, and that she wanted to ap­proach it in a fresh way to avoid her char­ac­ter being strictly ped­a­gog­i­cal. Carol saw that music would help to get the ped­a­gogy across bet­ter. But I also un­der­stand what Laura is say­ing. I guess she has worked more than me and she must have been asked to bring the vi­o­lin more often...
Play­ing in a con­cert is not the same as com­pos­ing the music for El màgic d’Oz. Was it a real chal­lenge?
It’s an­other type of art, dif­fer­ent from the oth­ers. It in­volves spend­ing a lot of time in the stu­dio. I re­ally en­joyed it, too. But I’ll think twice be­fore em­bark­ing on a sim­i­lar pro­ject again. I threw my­self in at the deep end, but I asked Arnau [Vallvé] to com­pose with me. We spent more than a year and a half com­pos­ing and writ­ing. And you have to re­alise that when you start this pro­ject you’ll have it on your mind for a long time. It re­ally wears you out. But now it’s mas­sively re­ward­ing and very ex­cit­ing. It’s been quite an ad­ven­ture.
You also worked on El Chinabum, which was writ­ten and di­rected by Paula Ribó. She’s been at the cen­tre of one of the lat­est Twit­ter con­tro­ver­sies due to her rep­re­sent­ing Spain at Eu­ro­vi­sion as Rigob­erta Ban­dini.
I con­fess to being a big fan of Rigob­erta Ban­dini. I re­ally ad­mire her as an artist and as a per­son. I did be­fore this music pro­ject. I think I’ll be there until the end with every­thing Paula Ribó does, be­cause I find every­thing she cre­ates won­der­ful. She’s a very good artist and it’s very nec­es­sary to have groups and artists like her.
In terms of top­ics, La família (im)pos­si­ble is about a trans­gen­der fam­ily and Qui es­tigui lli­ure is about ho­mo­pho­bic abuse. These are works that in­vite the spec­ta­tor to re­think their aware­ness, and we are see­ing more and more of them nowa­days. Why do you think that is?
I re­ally be­lieve in the the­atre as a tool for so­cial trans­for­ma­tion. It can also be for en­ter­tain­ment, but I be­lieve in it more as a tool for mir­ror­ing and see­ing one­self or so­ci­ety. Based on that, the two plays – which I didn’t write, by the way – have been very in­ter­est­ing to me from the be­gin­ning. Pre­cisely be­cause of this: firstly, for me to learn my­self and sec­ondly be­cause I think they are nec­es­sary. I’m not say­ing that just be­cause I’m in them [she laughs]. I think it’s also great to do per­for­mances where the goal is to for­get a lit­tle bit about every­thing, about the pre­sent sit­u­a­tion, but it’s also good to go to the the­atre and then talk about the top­ics that have come up af­ter­wards, “I agree, or don’t agree, with a cer­tain char­ac­ter.” It has a very nice so­cial side to it.
Do these is­sues only con­nect with young peo­ple or ac­tivists? A loop is often gen­er­ated that in­ad­ver­tently leaves out the gen­eral pub­lic (who would do well to know that other re­al­ity).
From what I know and the cir­cles I move in, with peo­ple of my gen­er­a­tion, these are the top­ics that in­ter­est them, and they’re left very cold by other top­ics dis­cussing how to do the­atre and other banal things. Every­thing we con­sume, in what­ever for­mat, is about these is­sues. These are the things that in­ter­est 16 to 35 year-olds today.
That’s fine, but then we can’t break the loop for the 60 and 70 year-olds. If they went to these plays, they’d be in­ter­ested in the topic too. But Carol López has more of a mid­dle-aged au­di­ence, in their 40s and 50s, who liked the play Bonus track, for ex­am­ple.
To­tally. Even if they say that Carol doesn’t talk about it, her par­ents are re­ally of this gen­er­a­tion, and they can feel very iden­ti­fied with it. And, at Fly­hard [the the­atre where La família (im)pos­si­ble is play­ing], peo­ple come and are sur­prised by the topic. And there are also par­ents who come with their trans chil­dren. It must help them when they try to un­der­stand the con­tra­dic­tions they see in them­selves [which are the same as those ex­pe­ri­enced by the char­ac­ters].
Now that we’re deal­ing with is­sues that af­fect a par­tic­u­lar group (whichever group that may be), there’s the ques­tion over whether a trans­gen­der char­ac­ter should al­ways be played by a trans­gen­der actor, as is the case here, or whether an­other actor could play that role. What are your thoughts on that?
I un­der­stand both sides per­fectly. And I think the de­ci­sion should de­pend on the play. What I do see is that there must be some­one on the team who has ex­pe­ri­enced the con­flict him or her­self, or who knows it very well. Be­cause these are cases we have heard very lit­tle about, un­for­tu­nately. We found, when we were re­hears­ing, that we had no idea re­ally. I have a cou­ple of trans col­leagues, I thought I was bet­ter in­formed than I ac­tu­ally was, and then I re­alised that it wasn’t enough.

in­ter­view THE­ATRE

Always growing

Paula Jornet must be one of the few exceptions who has managed to perform at the TNC (National Theatre of Catalonia). Last year, she made her debut in the Great Hall (La nit de la iguana), following her success as the lead in La importància de ser Frank (Small Hall and later Poliorama and tour). She had already stood out in the play La Riera. Her first artistic foray was under the stage name Pavvla, singing tender songs in English. A friend of The Mamzelles and many others, she is adding facets to her interpretive palette, all of which are tools for expressing herself and connecting with the audience. She is able to project euphoria in an intimate concert or catharsis in a small-format play. Convinced of the social value of theatre, she celebrates the fact that she is working on two productions in which the topic forces us to review our conscience and discover our privilege. She feels active in small spaces, but can also absorb the attention of large audiences.

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