The latest creation of Mauricio Kartun that in each performance fills the Sarmiento Theater of the Buenos Aires Theater Complex, “Polish Bacchus”is a phenomenal theatrical piece where an ancient Greek tragedy (“The Bacchae”, by Euripides) becomes, according to the author and director himself, a “pastiche” set in a town on the barbarian pampas in the 1930s. Place where a troupe bursts in whose main attraction is Reina Esther, a virgin virgin who carries her music on pasta records.
Also arriving with her are Dionisio, her lover, who follows her like a faithful pet, her protective older sister and a drunk businessman who runs the company. It’s carnival in the town and in the middle of all that Penteo appears, a young ranch owner in conflict with his widowed mother, who becomes obsessed with the young vitrolera and unleashes tragedy.
A work of exquisite prose that invites you to sharpen your ears and with six notable actors (Aníbal Gulluni, Nahuel Monasterio and Paloma Zaremba in the main roles, plus Soledad Bautista, Luciana Dulitzky and José Mehrez), this rereading of the myth of Dionysus is a good opportunity to talk with one of the greatest theater artists on the local scene.
News: How did your reading of this Euripides classic become a pastiche set in the Creole pampas a century ago?
Mauricio Kartun: A strange drift. A few years ago we finished a season of my play “La Madonnita” and with the cast we could not resign ourselves to parting ways. That loving thing that artistic coexistence creates. There was a call for a theater series inspired by Greek classics, organized by the Konex Foundation, and they pushed me to introduce ourselves. We didn’t have anything, so I went out to read. I was very moved by some images of “The Bacchae” and I put together a sketch, an adaptation designed around the bodies of the actors and actresses of that cast; and even the assistant. The 1930s thing even came from the play we were performing: a way to take advantage of the props and costumes from the one that ended in a new performance. The Victrola, which is a central element in “Baco…”, was also a very present element in that other performance. They didn’t choose us, but the imagination was already underway. And go tell him to stop.
News: That was 20 years ago. Why did it crystallize only now?
Kartun: That group, including a substitute actress and the assistant, was six performers. A number that is too large for me, who only works with small casts. I was putting it off. Every so often I reread it, I got hooked, but when it came to putting something together I chose texts with simpler logistics. In 2025, a series of images of political reality led me again and again to this text. A certain joyful presence of hatred, the thematization of abuse. The time had come.
News: Was I wrong if I said that “Bacchus…” basically talks about the eternal opposition between celebration and social order, but also about the abuse of power, violence and the objectification of women?
Kartun: The central idea of a work is usually in the structure of the story. Which here is the story of the narrator himself, Dionisio. But some structures, like this one, are cluster type; one theme is in the skeleton, the stem, and a few more in each grape.
News: One of his dreams was to work with graduates from EMAD, where he taught. Why did you choose “Bacchus…” to make it happen?
Kartun: For years I have dreamed of working this way from time to time. I always care about capitalizing on experiences. Give them a specific weight that takes them out of their pure subjective condition. Get them done. Regarding the EMAD, this year a book will also be published with works by disciples, written within the framework of the workshop I had there; an initiative that I have been promoting for several years. For a difficult text like this, with a lot of narrative area, and unusual aesthetics, I needed a cast willing to experiment. With the patience, talent and enthusiasm necessary to find the way around it. It fit just that fantasy.
News: “Bacchus…” is a round work. Both at the acting level and in other scenic areas. How did you come to that as a director?
Kartun: First of all, thank you for the appreciation. I see her at every performance and I also get excited about the result. My experience as a director was forged in a very particular activity: my Collective Creation classes at the Tandil Art Faculty, where I also worked for a long time. There, working with beginning actors and actresses, I developed some strategies based on prioritizing the knowledge, conditions, bodies and skills of the performers in the process. Sometimes make strength out of weakness. I took advantage of these six notable performers, which I had selected. and I sought to adapt the setting to its strengths. And to its other artistic conditions, such as musical ones. The rest is the credit of our team: set designer, lighting designer and motion designer.
News: Despite addressing complex themes, “Bacchus…” also has touches of humor. Even in very tense scenes.
Kartun: I wouldn’t know how to work any other way, it wouldn’t be organic to me. It’s part of my mechanisms. Humor, in its procedures, is a mechanism very close to poetry. Knowing how to stay on edge, the same text or action can even coexist in both territories.
News: One of the distinctive features of Euripides’ work is the complexity of his characters. Something also present in Pentheus, the bad guy from “Bacchus…”, so arrogant and vulnerable at the same time.
Kartun: Among authors, one of the most effective tools in character composition is contradiction. And it applies to different fields. Making a seamless bad guy is easy, but the result always has the risk of Manichaeism. When a character wins in dialectical condition, as in this case, he becomes energized. In dramaturgical theory this is called dynamic condition, because it creates an internal force that moves the character regardless of external conflicts.
News: Speaking of comedy, how do you get along with your son Julián’s humorous characters? Could you do something together?
Kartun: We tried it years ago, but like many theatrical processes, it fell by the wayside. I really enjoy their characters. And I admire his status as a variety artist. We have different circuits: Juli is more mainstream, and I – to put it in the same dialect – more indie. But it would be beautiful.
News: In 2003 he began directing his own works. How do the playwright and director get along?
Kartun: While I’m not directing, they have a very friendly relationship, both of them are very respectful. When I start to assemble something and problems appear, they become fierce. I usually have very busy assemblies during the late nights. They grab each other’s hair: “you fix it”, “no, you fix it”. Those things (laughs).
News: He never directed in film or TV. Because?
Kartun: They never tempted me as a language. They always require a certain industrial performance. I wouldn’t know how to achieve good results without my patients for seven or eight months of testing.
News: In high school he repeated several times a year. What was it like the first time you stood in front of a class?
Kartun: The first time was at Teatro Abierto, sharing the job with none other than Tito Cossa, who had summoned me as his co-pilot. I had the flank well covered and it was easy. The following year I had to do it alone, and to make it more demanding, transmitting theory, in a workshop that I gave in Trelew. I had to hammock there. It was an initiatory experience, because from then on I didn’t stop.
News: In the environment they call him “teacher” with respect and affection. How do you feel when they call you that?
Kartun: A few thousand students have passed through my courses and workshops, I have the role incorporated. On the other hand, I think that in some way a certain pedagogical impulse has been naturalized in my talks and publications. I like that role. I believe that all artisans who master a craft have a certain social duty to share it at some point.
News: Since “Civilization… or barbarism?”, his first work, Argentine history is almost a constant in his work. Because?
Kartun: History is an extraordinary quarry of images. I’m not as interested in documentary as in that other, more poetic facet. It is impossible to read history without going from one myth to another.
News: In 2025, upon receiving the Martín Fierro for career in theater, he made a strong defense of the National Theater Institute, in clear reference to the cultural policy of the national government. How does that continue?
Kartun: Harder, increasingly. Luckily, we cultural agents have resistant leather. A few days ago I was listening to Dolores Fonzi’s speech upon receiving an award in Spain and I was moved to feel the solidity and unanimity of this resistance.
News: He once said that if he weren’t who he is, he would be a gardener. Where does that come from?
Kartun: What the old women call “green hand”. Since I was a child I lived sowing seeds and making seedlings. In a time of turmoil like this, it is an activity of extraordinary Zen virtues. It puts us in tune with the times of the earth, which are ours, the organic ones. Hands on the ground as a form of meditation.
Sergio Núñez / X @sergei_nunez
by Sergio Núñez
