Inspired by the time that Eugene O’Neill, father of modern drama, lived in Buenos Aires, the Argentine playwright, novelist and theater director, Gonzalo Demaría, wrote Elsa Tiro, a play performed by Alejandra Radano, Josefina Scaglione and Luciano Cáceres, who also directs it. On August 10, ninety-something years ago, O’Neill —who at that time was an unknown sailor, fleeing from his actor father and a pregnant woman he had married before embarking— landed in Buenos Aires and was fascinated with the piringundines of La Boca and the prostitutes of Paseo de Julio. Marginal at heart, motivated by one of them, La Renguita, the boy then wrote his first work (Orchid Ash). Twenty-five years later (1936), consecrated as an author, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. His second wife, Carlotta, took advantage of the effects of chloroform to find out about that past and recover the mysterious lost work. O’Neill was carrying serious tuberculosis and Parkinson’s caused tremors in his right hand. At the Teatro Regio, from Thursday to Sunday, the audience applauds standing up.
News: In the work a short film is seen and a porn legend is alluded to. Would O’Neill have made this movie, silent and with sentences in English?
Alejandra Radano: That film existed, it is the first porn film that was made here. It’s not from O’Neill, it’s a license that Demaría takes. But it coincided with her time, the circle was small and there is no doubt that she participated.
News: What was your main interest in doing this work?
Radhan: The cast and the writing by Gonzalo Demaría. With him I have no doubts.
News: Do you frame it as a musical?
Radhan: For me it is a musical theater play, it has sung fragments. And there is a treatment of the text that is musical. The text has a music in itself.
Alejandra Radano received many awards. The Platinum Konex as a female musical performer; She was decorated with an insignia —also received by Jorge Luis Borges— that of “Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres” for her theatrical work carried out in France.
News: When they gave you the Konex you filed a complaint.
Radhan: At that time they wanted to take out the Trinidad Guevara prize, which represents an amount of money that cannot be considered a pension, a retirement. Ordering is not throwing away, as I said at that time. Everything is already cut off; The career of those of us who dedicate ourselves to the show —not only of the actors— is intermittent. In addition to being in a country where we juggle, imagine what actors do.
News: Do awards flatter you as recognition and encouragement?
Radano: I would like something else to happen with the prizes. Before, the Moliere prize meant a trip to France where you could go see works. I would like them to give opportunities to study, travel… That money that is spent on making a monument to applause, which I don’t know how much it costs, could be used for something else. We are experiencing a change of paradigms and structures; a prize would have to serve in another sense.
News: Was your debut as a musical comedy performer with “Drácula”, by Pepe Cibrián Campoy, at Luna Park? How does he get to Pepito?
Radhan: Yes, the founding milestone of my career, and it was in a Boxing Stadium! I did the casting like thousands of us, I auditioned and stayed.
News: Then came classics like “Cats”, “Beauty and the beast”, “Chicago” and “Cabaret”. How was the pass to the Broadway musical theater?
Radhan: From Pepe I rescued the love for discipline. I identified with that and we worked hard. As in the classes of Ricky Pashkus or Hugo Midón. They prepared you to have your body ready to tackle different disciplines. That’s what I absorbed from those experiences. It was like going to the rescue of the best quality of him. When those works arrived, they found me formed.
News: How and when did you meet your mentor, the famous Alfredo Arias?
Radhan: When I had already done Chicago. I had faced the experiences that had to be passed to learn.
News: He worked with him in France, Italy and Argentina and directed her in “Concha Bonita”, “Tatuaje”, “Cabaret Brecht Tango Broadway”, “Tortazo”, “Cinelandia” and “Deshonrada”. Her French and her Italian are excellent. How did she manage to talk to them?
Radhan: Studied. French is very complicated for us. The Italian not so much, in relation to the pronunciation… I played the character of an Argentine who went to such a place, in “Concha Bonita”. It was about not cocolichear. That’s why I studied a lot, especially French; a year earlier with a diction teacher and in the Alliance. I don’t have a facility for languages, but it’s sitting down and working. There is not much mystery. What was ahead was worth it.
News: And what is ahead today?
Radhan: I have the edition of the La Pathétique album, the work I did last year at the San Martín Cultural Center. I’m excited because it’s a project of my work group, with Diego Vila and Fabián Luca. With them I made Delirio Gaucho… They are not jobs where I am summoned, they are my own niche of work that has to do with self-management.
News: At the age of 50, he had his first black and white film lead, “Fanny Camina”, a film about the actress Fanny Navarro, directed by Ignacio Masllorens and Alfredo Arias. She participated in the 30th Biarritz Festival and won the audience award…
Radhan: Yes, as a protagonist it was the only film. Cinema is a very particular job. It belongs to the editor, the photographer and the director. I think it’s less about the actor because there’s a manipulation of his image. You may be acting out a sequence that is later used in a way that has nothing to do with the purpose for which you acted it out. The times are manipulated, the sequences are changed, the color is turned around… The actor is a super puppet in the cinema.
News: Are you a member of…?
Radano: I am not a militant of anything. I am not in favor of absurd situations. I seek peace and there are two paths. Want to be right or want to have peace.
News: To want to be right or to be happy.
Radhan: And what is to be happy? Be consistent with what you have. I am not a reactive person or at least I try… I do holistic therapy, yoga, conscious eating, I meditate. This body is the container we have and we must take care of it.
News: Was your decision not to have children forever?
Radhan: Lifelong. We have ancestors behind us, we are the result of many generations, of many ideas. ORHe is not a free person. The result is me and my thoughts. It was not a decision; it was a result.
News: Are you in a relationship?
Radhan: No. And I’m drunk, very happy. My life is too boring for an interview! (laughs)
News: Do you live a process of introspection?
Radhan: It has to do with age, I think. I always did, but now it’s more intense. I started to see situations differently with the acceptance of reality. I changed my focus by being able to see even the most daunting or terrible things as opportunities; that gave me peace. I want to have peace, I don’t want to be right. I am in a moment of my life in which I do not want to focus on any result; I’m just interested in the processes. I say this in relation to the expected result of a work, in the public… I don’t want to cling to any type of result.
News: And in a pandemic, what did he do?
Radano: Accept, don’t fight with reality. I was flowing, I was voluntary. I assisted the elderly by bringing them medicines, buying them food.
News: As an Argentine artist, what aspects of the national culture do you dislike?
Radhan: Here I also changed my way of seeing things. I think something is happening globally. When you decide to see reality not from lack but from opportunity, everything changes. For there to be no war outside, there must not be an internal war. This is difficult to achieve. How many wars do we have from anger? I don’t have anything specific to criticize. In all countries and societies you can keep an eye on faults. This year everything happens in Argentina, but the theater is exploited with plays. There are a number of people doing, when there is more crisis, we do more. It’s a crazy thing. It is a phenomenon of great vitality. I don’t have an eye on the rest. Everything seems like a show to me. Politics is a place where it bothers me that they are called actors, that word belonged to us. Let them invent another!
