Couple in real life and in fiction, Arturo Puig and German Jungle They premiered last September at the San Martín Theater “Long day trip into the night”, the classic by Eugene O’Neill (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936 and one of the pillars of realist theater) where the American playwright autobiographically portrayed the history of his complex family. This time, directed by Luciano Suardi and on a Corrientes street full of comedies.
Thus, contrary to a billboard that mostly invites a moment of relaxation to make the harsh local reality more bearable, here the talented and experienced Puig explains the reason for this new presentation of a text as notable as it is hard, with the which the flagship of the Buenos Aires Theater Complex has just opened its 2024 after a brief summer break.
Arturo Puig: We have wanted to do this work for a long time, but in a context where proposals to pass the time and escape a little in such a difficult time predominate, it was not easy to get involved with strong and profound dramaturgy. In any case, we believed that there was an audience that wanted to see an O’Neill and think about some phrase or some situation. For me, that is the main function of theater: that people can see themselves reflected in a character and perhaps change a thought or an attitude. Anyway, that belief coincided with San Martín’s desire to also do an O’Neill and everything went wonderfully. Including the reception of the public.
News: Although it was still a bet with some risk.
Puig: Sure. But the truth is that the Casacuberta room was filled to the sides, which had not happened in a long time. This, said by the theater people themselves.
News: In the revival, compared to the premiere, I felt that the few touches of humor that the work has now carry more weight. Was that something sought or did it happen naturally, with the evolution of the functions?
Puig: It was happening. “Long Journey…” is not a piece where one can do much to make the audience laugh. And when it does, it is because there are tremendous phrases or situations. Like when Jamie, the eldest Tyrone son, says, “Where’s the drug addict?” in reference to his mother. Those are cathartic laughs.
News: The work was done four times in Buenos Aires. First, with Inda Ledesma and Carlos Muñoz; then with Norma Aleandro and Alfredo Alcón; later with Claudia Lapacó and Daniel Fanego; and finally with Selva and Víctor Laplace. Were you able to see any of those displays?
Puig: Curiously, no. Not even the one where Selva acted, because she was working on something else. What I did see at the Regio shortly before our premiere was “Elsa Tiro”, which talks about O’Neill and his possible connection with a porn film during his time in Buenos Aires, where he arrived in 1910 as a sailor. Like Edmund, James and Mary’s other son. Quite a character O’Neill
News: Of course, because James, his character, would be O’Neill’s father.
Puig: Yes. James is a successful actor, who took his family from one second-rate hotel to another due to his constant tours, something that Mary always reproaches him for. The thing about those hotels is because he is very stingy; And also, he has problems with alcohol. He wanted to be a Shakespearean actor, but he ended up going after the box office with another play. Perhaps because of the ghost of having grown up in poverty.
News: I sense that for O’Neill, “Long Journey…” was a way of exorcising his ghosts.
Puig: In fact, he asked that the work not be done until 25 years after his death, which his last wife did not comply with. O’Neill was a very peculiar person. I’m going to tell you something that a friend of mine who is also a friend of Geraldine Chaplin told me and that few people know: When Geraldine, who is O’Neill’s granddaughter, had her first daughter, she went to Eugene’s house so he could meet her. , and he did not receive them. All because O’Neill never accepted the marriage of his daughter Oona to Charles Chaplin, since she was 17 years old and he was 54; and he got so angry that he never saw her again.
News: How strange, isn’t it? Above all, taking into account the intense life that O’Neill had. In fact, I read that here he lived in La Boca, among prostitutes.
Puig: Besides, his son-in-law was none other than Chaplin, a genius. Maybe that was precisely why he got angry, out of jealousy.
News: What else did you draw on to make this work?
Puig: I read everything I could about O’Neill, his father, and that dysfunctional family. Additionally, I saw fragments of a monologue by Christopher Plummer, one of the great actors who did this play. Like Jack Lemmon, Laurence Olivier and Jeremy Irons.
News: What is it like to work with Selva?
Puig: Now, very good.
News: Because right now”?
Puig: Because before we criticized each other a lot.
News: How did they modify it?
Puig: Because once they called us to do “Cristales Rotos”, and since none of us wanted to miss the opportunity to do an Arthur Miller, we had to agree. Now everything is calmer.
News: The vitality of both on stage is admirable. Especially considering that most of the work is there. At this point in his career, aren’t you more tempted to return to directing than acting?
Puig: Not with this work. Although after dinner and taking the dog for a walk, I’m exhausted (laughs). Once we were asked to do “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and we said no, because it is a very physical work. But with “Long Journey…” it was worth it.
News: The last thing he directed was “Hello, Dolly!”, until the pandemic. Do you plan to return to that role?
Puig: This slope. I, as a director, have a method that I learned from Carlos Rivas: a lot of table reading, where I mark certain ways, intentions. That’s very good because the actors hear each other directly and that allows things to be cut or added; and when we go to the stage, we focus squarely on issues linked to physicality and movements.
News: In 1974, while also reading text, a crush on Selva arose…
Puig: (laughs) That was at Diana Álvarez’s house, during the first reading of the script for a new novel directed by her. I had just done “Carmiña”, with Abel Santa Cruz on Alejandro Romay’s old Channel 9, and Selva was returning after a retirement; But since we were both married, our thing only happened some time later, during the recording.
News: In 2024 they will celebrate 50 years together. What is that relationship like today?
Puig: Very good. Not only because we worked together again, but because the grandparents of three grandchildren revitalized us. These children are from the two children I had in my previous marriage, but Selva – who is very intelligent and never wanted to take the place that belonged to her mother – knew how to win her affection and create a very strong bond; that now she continues with the children. Grandparenthood is something very special, because you allow yourself to pamper your grandchildren more than your children, since as a father you have to set limits and as a grandfather, you don’t.
News: You just mentioned “Carmiña”, which along with “Grande, Pa!”, were your greatest hits on TV, right?
Puig: Yes, along with “Pablo en Nuestro Piel”, already with the help of Alberto Migré, with whom I worked for five years on Channel 13. Then, in the ’90s, came “Grande, Pa!”, one of the most popular comedies. successful shows on our television. Today, unfortunately, I think that fiction on TV is over. Now there are the platforms, but it is not the same. What ended are those actors who entered homes at snack and dinner time as another member of the family.
News: “Carmiña” was also a success in cinema. Have you made any movies lately?
Puig: In 2022 I recorded “Los Justos”, by Martín Piñeiro, which has not yet been released. I made it with Claudia Lapacó and Claudio Rissi, who died recently, and it talks about old age and its possibilities of redemption, with elements of crime, melodrama and adventure. A very interesting film.
News: Did you discover your vocation at the Lasalle Theater, which your father directed?
Puig: In part, yes. When I was 14, they were rehearsing “Panorama from the Bridge” there and I always started to wonder. Until one day Pedro López Lagar, who didn’t know that I was the businessman’s son, made me go on stage to play a small role and I stayed.
News: His father also had a prop house that supplied things to the fictions. Did that place also influence you?
Puig: Sure, because there I played with spears, rifles and swords, believing I was the Burt Lancaster or the Errol Flynn that I saw in the cinemas in Belgrano, where we lived. I think everything was born with those projections. In fact, recently, walking through Belgrano, where I still live, I ran into a man my age who reminded me of how I used to tell those stories to other kids in the neighborhood. He told me: “You told them better than the movies.” And maybe it was yes, because I really recreated them. So much so that after seeing Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein I told them that the character had a square head from banging it against a wall so much.
News: And they believed him.
Puig: Yes. So I couldn’t have done it that badly (laughs).
by Sergio Núñez
