It is one of the coldest afternoons of Buenos Aires winter. Javier Daulte He says that he batters the low temperatures and immediately appears a mental image: to be in the heat of the projects, of so many multiple projects that always shelter it. As the birth of the theatrical group that leads, Callejón company; and the address of “The Chief of the Chief” (Paseo la Plaza). EITHER “Druk” (Metropolitan Theater) and “The sound” (Callejón Espacio), for which the best direction has just won at the Martín Fierro de Theater Awards. Or as the work that prepares to ride in the Cervantes in 2026. All that bubbling broth is a stove ignited a few centimeters of his, “a fundamental bonfire for the spirit, a huge privilege,” he describes.
News: Talent implies responsibility.
Javier Daulte: More than talent, it is the vocation, which is that thing that is not measurable. Because we have met people with enormous talent who have not wanted. Today, neurosis themselves are very alert to inhibit us and tell us that it is not worth trying. Many times it is a flag that lifts who cannot, so he says that it is not worth it for those who still insist, surrender. And no, you don’t have to surrender.
News: It’s like thinking about the result rather than in the process, right?
Daulte: Exactly, as is. The result is also a great trap, because if we are working only for the results and not for the processes, the results, whether they are good or bad, they will depress us because they have the idea that something ends and then we have to look for something else.
Only two minutes passed and we are already thrown to the depths of Daulte. Despite the thermometer in a digit, he dives and takes us from an excursion to his own world.
Daulte: With the group of actors with which we make “the sound”, we create a company, something very absurd at this time, because we are a lot and nobody will finance us. But I told them that what needs to be done is not to create a project, but that you have to create a project project, thus born company Callejón. Because if not, we just mentioned what we just mentioned: as we feel that one day it will end, it is a lethal commitment.
News: With what he says of the result and his commitment to the processes, how do he take with the awards and the external guarantee?
Daulte: I was very awarded, many times I lost, many times I won. I have prizes that are really very important to me, such as the platinum konex, such as the city of Barcelona, like this Martín Fierro being the first time he occurs to the theater, but it is also because they gave it to me for “the sound” and for “Druk”, they rewarded me for my two houses: Corrientes Street and the Callejón space, which I know could not exist one thing without the other. Regarding the awards and recognitions, there is always something of the prize that leaves you a little alone, because we are always more losers. But the important thing for me is that someone can cheer up to me. I have to assume that I get along with the awards, now if one believes the prize, it is fried, or if you think the prize is the objective or it is the result … that is, I remember people who say “all life I waited for this”, and oh, no, it is not good, that is not.
News: If I had to complete that phrase, I would say: “I waited all my life …”
Daulte: I expected all my life to have arrived, because if you arrived, if you got what you expected your whole life, there is nothing more later. It is a kind of spiritual death. So what I always ask when you ask for wishes is to lose fear and not lose the desire. Because without fear and eager, nothing will be impossible, nothing will be so terrible. With fear, everything is difficult. And without desire, well, it is already impossible. We are in an era marked by anxiety and demotivation and that combination is very serious, because it is the mother of all vices. Also distinguishing stimulus motivation because the stimulus is fame or money, is notoriety, goes straight to the ego and the result. Instead, motivation is more linked to desire, it is an internal impulse.
There was a time when he had a very bad time: recently separated from the mother of her son, very depressed, without desire, dejected; He read an interview with Claudia Lapacó in which she told that the phrase of a sugar overdnex had rescued her from a depression, and that also ended up taking him out to the surface. “Today is the tomorrow that you fear so much,” he recalls and recites.
News: Was that the worst moment of his life?
Daulte: Look, yes, what do I know. I grow up and more I realize that certain anguish -angustias or fears, they are cousins- are inherent in existing, right? Then one is bigger and is less omnipotent, he already knows that he will not live forever, he begins to recognize the limits of existence and then these anguish and these sinkings are as part. If you do not experience them, it is because you did not find out about something or it is part of immaturity. Maturing also implies a connection with these things. In more personal terms, I say that I died three times: because I am from the generation of the dictatorship, AIDS and Malvina. They were three times that I felt my life threatened specifically. I could think very recently, I said: “Of course, metaphorically I died, three times.” Because I could have been the victim of these three things.
News: Dying three times also means that many others were born again. How much was the intention and intuition to build?
Daulte: The theater captivated me, at one point the theater caught me out of nowhere and never happened to me. For me, the game that poses has no limits, is a language of a wealth that does not finish exploring. It seems so magical. I always tell that one of my first theatrical experiences, but of very large and traumatic dissatisfaction, was with the Cinderella work: the moment in which the fairy godmother will do its magic with the pumpkin, the mice and the harapos dress, a person appeared by the curtain. I was very small but the experience of disappointment was very strong and I feel that it was somehow the great motivation of my whole life: to ensure that the public see something magical without the need for great budgets. I feel that if I am able to produce the enchantment, then I give the viewer all the contents that I want.
News: Enchantment and magic sound like the fantastic and, in turn, the theater brings the body, the presence.
Daulte: Absolutely. Yes, the covenant is beautiful because you are anywhere more than here and I am anywhere else here. With those bodies present, he acquires mystical.
News: It seems that today the rooms are very busy, as if there was more need for theater. Is that what you are seeing?
Daulte: I think so, that we are in a season where the theater recovered the vigor that I did not have since 2016, because the theater crisis begins before the pandemic. And he returned multiplied because we are more and more and there is a kind of celebration. For me the theater is a great excuse to chat, but what are we going to talk about, about the kittens we saw on Instagram? Or the issue of the moment, fashionable?
News: What interests you to count on a stage?
Daulte: It will always find it interesting what seems absolutely universal, something that we cannot uproot from us, which is everything that takes roots in childhood. There is no way to disregard that. Sometimes I get into territory that I do not understand and it is not that I plan to talk about such a thing, but I intuitively get into a universe for some reason. And I know that in the end something is going to reveal to me and when that is revealed, it has a connection with childhood. Now I am working on the new work called “The Movement”, which will be in Cervantes next year, and I got into the world of advertising, it is very crazy, but of course, I start thinking and advertising is part of my constitution as a person, consumption advertisements since I have use of reason.
News: As a playwright, you have to recreate different voices but today it seems that monologues are imposed, where true dialogue is obtained. How do you live?
Daulte: I think it is very important to listen to the other. If one can make the effort of listening to listen and not only wait for the turn to speak and say otherwise, really listen to the other’s speech, he will begin to lower his level of hate. We are at a time where we seem that we cannot run the exercise of hatred, it is even something until well, it seems that if I am not mounted in a hate speech I have no commitment to reality. I have proven that it is not about being right, it’s about solving problems. In that sense, this is a moment that I regret, that I suffer. Hate hurts and my joy hurts in hate. And I think it is very interesting to hear who does not say what I want to hear.
News: At 62, what is love?
Daulte: Love is not being able to think of one in terms of number one. I think love makes even the misfortune of widowing, you will not stop being that two. What is love? Love is being two. You are or not with another person.
