Picasso visits Picasso in Malaga

Picasso has fulfilled his greatest wish: to return to Malaga. That yearning is one of the core themes in El Barbero de Picasso' which premiered on Thursday at the city's Teatro del Soho Caixabank.

The play stars Pepe Viyuela as Pablo Picasso, at a similar in age to his popular statue in Plaza de la Merced, and who had a profound friendship with his barber, Eugenio Arias, a friend, confidante, and both exiled in France. More than half a century later, Pepe Viyuela has become the iconic painter, and, before making his debut on the Calle Córdoba stage, visited his other self at the Museo Picasso Málaga (MPM). A reunion between Picasso and Picasso.

Pepe 'Picasso' Viyuela was received by the director of the museum, Miguel López-Remiro, who told him that the performance and the visit could not have come at a better time, as we are in the middle of October, which is Picasso's 144th birthday anniversary and the 22nd anniversary of the museum's opening.

The visit was also attended by the barber, played by Antonio Molero, as well as Mar Calvo (playing Jacqueline Roque, the artist's last partner) and José Ramón Iglesias (in the role of another Spanish emigrant who, with his cynicism, annoys the Malagueño).

Pepe Viyuela and the rest of the cast explained to López-Remiro that El Barbero de Picasso is on stage at the Soho theatre until Saturday 11 October. The show brings a lightness and a humour to the exile, offering an intimate and "friendly" interpretation of the painter. A work of "human archaeology", said Viyuela, who has recreated Picasso with the help of another Malaga native, Chiqui Carabante, stage director. The play aims to redefine the painter beyond his art, in which everyone venerated him.

"The difference is that Eugenio was his friend and didn't treat him like everyone else," Molero points out, to which Iglesias is quick to point out - as his own character in the play would do - "not everyone touches your head". Least of all Picasso's.

After the discussions, expert Carolina Montufo guided the Picasso troupe through the rooms of the MPM's permanent collection, starting with the emblematic oil painting Lola with a Doll (c. 1986), which reveals the artist's mastery over realism when he was still a teenager, to his final works in large-format - groundbreaking and revolutionary.

"If he hadn't experimented, he would have been just another artist," Molero said aloud, very interested in the work of the Malaga-born artist, whom he had visited at the Reina Sofía and other museums, but not in his native city. "We should have visited before starting play rehearsals," said an enthusiastic actor.

Mar Calvo could not help but stop in front of the cubist piece Jacqueline Seated (1954), while the cast joked and told her, "hey, girl, you look great". Other pieces, such as the Bull's Head (1942), a sculpture made up of a bicycle saddle and handlebars, were also noted.

"This work was included in the play's text," said Molero, who asked Viyuela about the line in the script that referenced it: "Picasso said that he saw an animal, but if someone else looked at it, it would surely just be bicycle parts," answered the fictional Pablo.

Passing in front of Bronze Metamorphosis II (1928), the quartet of actors solemnly turned to the small sculpture until José Ramón Iglesias cracked a joke: "That's junk". Immediately, smiles appeared on the cast's faces. "That's what my character would say on stage," explains the actor, who adds that his role is another "comrade from the communist party in France who is a bit of an idiot because he doesn't understand Picasso's work and the Malagueño doesn't like him".

With the talk and the tour, the guided expedition has reached its end, although the museum prepared a surprise for them. An area usually closed to the public was opened to them, the Mudejar tower of the Buenavista Palace, which is the headquarters of the MPM, and features a circular terrace, overlooking the city centre. From there they went on an unpublicised visit to the Alcazaba, the Cathedral, the Church of San Agustín, the penthouse of Antonio Banderas (another actor who has also embodied the Malaga painter) and lastly, an image that probably made the exiled Picasso unable to forget Malaga: the tower of the Church of Santiago where he was baptised and the Plaza de la Merced where his house remains. A reunion that 'Pablo' Viyuela experienced in Picasso's place.