What place does the theater have in a showcase like the book and the Basque fair of Ziburu? Or in other words, how much does the theater of literature have? This question was the starting point for Daniel Landart and Arantxa Hirioien at the round table Zubiburu of the opening ceremony of the fair. For half an hour we have talked about the theatre, the simplicity of the theatre, the balance between amateur and professional actors, the need to work beyond the Bidasoa, the evolution of the Basque theatre...

Daniel Landart has worked for 20 years in the theater. He started reading from a very young age, and he has made numerous writings writing, in extensive literature, and many plays have been directed to the theater. “Before he read about us and now also,” said Landart, just take the micro and start talking: “That’s why the theater serves to bring us closer.” That is, reaching out to those who are not going to read. In Landart's words, Arantxa Hirigoien adds: “Theater and literature are intimately related because it takes shape in orality and theater is oral literature.”

But the oral does not usually translate into writing, even if it is originally written. The Basque theatre is an artistic discipline that is not theorized, despite bringing the plays to the book. Landart doesn't think it's a problem, he said "young people will do it" and wanted to go to the bottom: "The theater is to be given, I understand, not to keep it on shelves."

The most urban and Axut! The members of the group released on May 31 the play "Lurrez estalez" in Izura. Entries for all sessions were already completed before starting. Joyful in this regard, because the Basque theatre is still alive, but, as Hirigoien has stressed, we must look at the bottom: Cover up with dirt the tragedy of cultivation, the experiences of those who go from town to village, puppies with money in stock... Questions imaginable, realistic, from the point of view of humor.

Real experiences and such a tragedy, why count them in the form of a theater? The more urban ones are clear: “Theater has a social function, of telling our history and our stories, and it can also be a vindictive instrument. We want to tell the story of our people, ours and our own.”

Landart adds: “Until 1965 we didn’t call it theatre, but comedy, influenced by the French, was a bit of laughter. But the function of popular theater is another: to get into a glare, but to play our ideas today.”

The function has not changed, but the path has been followed step by step. In 1967, the Assembly of Dramatists and Landart was set up and the first Conference of Basque Theatre Groups was held in 1977. Until the new century, the problems were overcome: “It was very difficult, we had the ear problem. We brought the groups from the South to the North and we didn't understand three-quarters. In Azpeitia, I remember that in 1983, only one word was understood from our work, because it was in Latin. We all had difficulties and the unified Basque country has facilitated communication. Now a group here can move around Euskal Herria.”