Being male and attending a function “Dalia Gutmann Experience” Full of women who celebrate each frame of this one-man show, like fans of a rock band, it is an experience in itself. And even if one is not the original recipient of her work, with cathartic and emotional humor, the standapera manages not to leave us out. Outside of those very feminine experiences that – according to her – “ruin her life” and that, however, she manages to turn into comedy.
Shortly after new presentations in the Astros Theater —the next one, on April 29— and performances in other venues in the country (more info at www.daliagutmann.com.ar/), Dalia Gutmann He speaks here with NOTICIAS about his latest work – Estrella de Mar 2026 award for “Best Comedy Show” –, about his 20 years as a couple with Sebastian Wainraich and the relationship with their adolescent children.
News: “Experience…” speaks self-referentially about women. Have you always done stand up with this theme?
Dalia Gutmann: No. When you start, you don’t have your own style. Furthermore, when I started in 2004, feminism had not yet emerged and the few female comedians there were at that time wanted men to also like what we did. Furthermore, the first stand-up teachers suggested that we avoid topics such as being unwell because they were boring. But they said it because they believed they were helping us, not being nice.
News: When and why did you start with these topics?
Gutman: I started in 2011. The topic always interested me; but I just started there because a woman writing her own scripts is different from a man writing them, who can only intuit a woman’s feelings. I started with “Mining Things.”
News: Which he did for about nine years.
Gutman: Yes. I started as a hostess for other women that I invited and then I transformed it into a one-person business because I had the opportunity to start traveling with him; and traveling with more people is logically more expensive.
News: Between “Things about mines” and “Experience…” he made “I have things to do,” which thematically was broader, right?
Gutman: Yes. I released it in 2021, post-pandemic, and there I tried to do something for a more general audience, but it doesn’t work out. I’m interested in everything, but mine is the world of women, I read about female psychology, the female brain, hormones.
News: How is “Experience…” different from your previous one-man shows about women?
Gutman: I always talk about the same topics. Basically, about ties and emotions. Except that in 2011 I had one thing to say, in 2021 another and now others more typical of my age, that I didn’t think about before.
News: How do men experience a show of yours about women?
Gutman: In general they accompany their girlfriend or wife and I feel that they have a good time, that it does not exclude them. It’s as if they were listening to a conversation between friends, a possibility that they don’t always have (laughs).
News: For some time now it has had Mariela Asensio as its director. Because?
Gutman: Stand up has that thing about whoever does it also writes and directs it.
News: That’s exactly why I’m asking you.
Gutman: At a time during “Things of Mines”, back in 2015, it happened to me that I needed to not have everything fall on me. Mariela gave me something more theatrical, a look at the staging, the lights, the costumes. An external look that stand-up doesn’t usually have. She follows me in what is flowing, but with instructions like “the space is very unbalanced, you are doing everything in the same place.”
News: He once said that stand-up is the art of making viewers believe that everything is improvised. How do they take it when it reveals to them that it is not like that?
Gutman: It’s like when you go to see a magician, where you know that everything is put together and the guy went over it a thousand times. The moment they are watching the show, the audience forgets that I scripted everything. What matters to him is going and laughing.
News: Is doing stand-up in theaters like Astros or Maipo, where you also performed, different from doing it in a bar, for fewer people? In a smaller area, isn’t the back and forth more intense?
Gutman: In that sense, I am “old school”, I don’t interact much with the public. For me, the show has to be given by the one on stage. I don’t criticize those who do it differently; and in fact some do very well that way. I’m just saying that that proposal doesn’t suit me.
News: The “Experience…” press release talks about making humor out of things that “ruin women’s lives” and in an old interview she said “life is suffering.” Am I doing wrong if I associate one thing with the other?
Gutman: Did I really say that?
News: Yeah.
Gutman: Like everyone, I have gone through dark moments, but no, no… The day of that interview I must have been in a very bad moment (laughs).
News: Well, I’m calmer.
Gutman: Yes, yes (laughs). For me, when one of your ghosts – which we all have – manages to do something humorous, it is very enriching. Humor is a way to process heartbreak, and that can help audiences, too. In my first book I wrote. “He who makes humor has paid for it.” And I said it because I think that perhaps it was harder for us stand-up comedians to fit in than others, that we were more “searching,” that we had to pay a toll to get to our material.
News: In terms of searching, before stand-up, he studied voiceover…
Gutman: I started several careers, but I didn’t fit into any of them. And since I liked radio, I later signed up for broadcasting. I studied with great passion, but over time I began to feel that just saying the time and temperature was not fulfilling for me. I just found that with comedy.
News: And how did you get to it?
Gutman: I was a news reporter on Channel 9 and since almost everything I had to cover was very sad, I decided to sign up for a stand-up course. It started as a hobby, but doors quickly opened for me and I realized that if I took it seriously, it could be my job. The first time I was able to integrate voiceover with humor was on “AM”, a program hosted by Leo Montero and Verónica Lozano on Telefé.
News: In another interview he said that, as a comedian, he never finds himself embodying a character in fiction.
Gutman: I didn’t have many of those experiences. For example, in “Camp with Mom”, a film I made with Natalia Oreiro and Pablo Rago in 2024, I had a great time, but I don’t mind waiting for someone to call me or find out if I’m in a role or not. That was like going to play something else for a while.
News: Play a dramatic role even there, right?
Gutman: In “Camp…” there was an emotional scene where I had to cry and I got so into the situation that I ended up really crying and couldn’t stop. That’s the closest thing to what you’re asking me, but I don’t have a dramatic role as my fantasy. Mine is comedy, and in addition to my shows, now I also started producing other stand-up women and I direct Julieta Otero in her one-woman show “I don’t remember things” at the Picadero.
News: Have you and Sebastián ever thought about doing something together in theater?
Gutman: I find it difficult because we both like to be in charge of projects and we would have a hard time. If you ever see us working together, it will be because we owe a lot of money (laughs). Besides, society is still sexist and, professionally speaking, nothing interests me less than being “the woman of”. In fact, when Sebastián was called by Channel 13 to host “The Perfect Night,” they asked me to participate and I said no.
News: But in the theater Sebastián would be “the husband of”, because he is identified more with radio and TV.
Gutman: Yes, I don’t know. We have enough being parents of two boys, which forces us to negotiate a lot. If until now everyone has made their own career, why mix things up?
News: How important is humor between you?
Gutman: I think that raising children is a hassle and that inevitably affects the relationship, but now that Kiara and Federico are a little older, we were able to recover the humor that we had lost due to all those things.
News: She has said that Kiara is usually very critical of her work, but now she has her as an assistant in the theater. How did he do it?
Gutman: I didn’t tell her anything, it came from her. Now that she finished high school and wanted to do something, she started going alone and I was upset. It’s all very recent and I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but it seems to me that there is something about this that attracts you.
News:And the man?
Gutman: Oh, my life, my baby! Well, not my baby, because he is already 13 years old and I am working very hard not to infantilize my children. Federico is another wave. He likes theater and does theater, he really likes music, he watches movies. Everything I can tell you about my children is going to sound cliché, but raising them is what I learn the most in life.
Sergio Núñez / X: @sergei_nunez
by Sergio Núñez
