December 19th 2004

El Colombiano newspaper

The Ramirez’s house

By Juan José Hoyos

Translated by Juliana Gutiérrez

From the outside it looks like another house from Bomboná Street, with tile roofs of mud, almost black due to time: one of those old houses in down town that are still reluctant to be demolished. Inside, among those ancient thick walls built in the late nineteenth century; it seems like a house taken from a Julio Cortazar’s tale: the walls are filled with posters advertising theater performances, there are people in and out carrying out cardboard pieces painted of colors, puppets, costumes, wigs, it is heard hammers banging tables; the phone rings. At this hour on afternoon, there is only silence in the bar, which is closed, and in the theater hall, which is empty and dark. But at night, everything will be different. It will come out on goblins who have taken over this House in old Medellin, the lights will illuminate and...

It is not a fable: the goblins have its own name. And the house is home to the Matacandelas theater group, founded and directed by Cristóbal Peláez twenty-five years ago. The story began with five people in a bar behind the Plaza de Flores. They meet in the Biblioteca Publica Piloto Library following the invitation of that time director, Juan Luis Mejia. Then Vehder Sanchez offered them the House of Culture in Envigado, which they arrived by chance in 1979 and stayed seven years, until they no longer fit. "They were wrong treating us so good," said Cristobal. At that time, in Envigado, a theater group was kind of platypus. During rehearsals, the boys who passed by on the streets threw stones over the wall and shouted "queers." Christopher told the players: "get used to this, worst times will come..."

After they returned to Medellin and rented a house over Cordoba and Maracaibo street, near to Institute Bellas Artes. They built a theater with capacity for ninety people. It was the time when the Matacandelas consolidated their job. They performed "The human voice," by Jean Cocteau, "Oh Marineiro" by Fernando Pessoa and other works and authors from nineteenth and twentieth century with which they won national and international prestige. Seven years later, the house changed hands. It was 1991. "Then we received a call from Bogota a magic call: the Ministry of Finance had approved an aid of 20 million COP for some Colombian theater groups," recalls Cristóbal. However, money was not enough to buy the house where they had made those entire investments seat in which they had invested so much work and so many dreams and the group had to vacate the house. They end up in another neighborhood, Calasanz.

Against expectations, it came better time. The government of Mayor Omar Florez declared Matacandelas as heritage of the city and the municipal Department of Education supported enthusiastically as it did with other theater groups. But the owners of the house in Calasanz increase the lease. The President Abraham Lincoln said that moving is a collapse but moving twice is equivalent to fire. In the case of Matancandelas, the matter was more serious, where they arrived, they had to move doors and windows, and sometimes even knock down walls. To avoid repeating history, they decided to get their own home. The group administrator, George William Laverde, laughed at the folly and said: "We do not have money to pay our debts in the store, do not even to think on an ownership ..."

Despite the hesitations and poverty, all were at work to find it. Until one day it turns up the Ramirez’s house, an ancient building of big rooms, with an abandoned warehouse and a long alley side. Cristobal went to see it with Jaiver Jurado. Estella Ramirez lived there with a sick sister and a housekeeper. When they were in the abandoned warehouse they saw from crack of a door the alley connected to the Bomboná street, Cristóbal said: "This is the home of Matancadelas”.

"The house was negotiated with a value of 120 million COP. We could begin paying 10 million COP and then we start collecting money among friends to pay the rest," recalls Cristóbal. "And it turned chaotic. A few amount that we had been promised by Colombian Institute of Culture arrived late, others were cut, and others never arrived ... thanks to help of Jackie Strauss, president Ernesto Samper´s wife, the government ordered to Industrial Development Institute to open a line of soft loans to support the theater groups in the country. Still, the household debt continued growing. In 1996, we had paid 30 million COP and owed 170 million COP. The State Bank, which was the intermediary institution, would put the house up for auction.

Although these are bad times for poetry, after searching many ways and even thinking take shelter at home armed with explosives, Matancadelas was assisted by Oswaldo Leon Gomez, manager of the credit union Confiar. He told them off to risk everything for having a big debt to a theater group, but also said: "You are a heritage of Medellin, and that house cannot be lost."

The debt was paid with his job on seven years. A portion of the payment was paid with services. "On Sunday, December 12th at 10:30, after 10 years (Phew!) And leaving hair in the fence it was paid the ranch," said Cristóbal. For those still wondering why they need a home, Cristóbal setting replied: "From September 1994 until December 12, 2004, our house has been visited by 200,000 people, we have created 14 works, we had 16,000 hours of setting, 3000 hours on stage. In 25 years of existence we have developed over 40 productions, including 12 from the puppet theater. We currently have 13 works of repertoire. We have been invited to International Theater Festivals in Cadiz, Manizales and Bogota; We have made tours to Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Guatemala, Venezuela, we had a season at the Olympia Theater in Madrid, we participated in the International Festival of Almada (Portugal) at the International Theater Ribadavia (Spain) and in Theatral May in Cuba. In sum, we have made 4153 public performance."

Meanwhile Cristobal spoke of this story of love and stubbornness; we went together around Ramirez’s home. At the end we stopped along the stage. I looked at the floor. So I thought that in the warehouse where there was before a beauty supplier laboratory, today there is another factory of beauty products for the soul. There, thanks to the people of Matancandelas since ten years ago, every night it happens an old spiritual act it is achieved a dream in which the man of our city met with man.