★★★★ It is a love story, not pink but earthy,” said the great Argentine poet, writer, singer-songwriter, playwright and composer María Elena Walsh, referring to “January”, the first of the fictions written by her compatriot, the prominent journalist Sara Gallardo (1931-1988). In her time, Gallardo was little considered in the facet of a writer, but in recent times she is experiencing an editorial rediscovery that implies her recognition of a committed work. Perhaps for having explored the small hypocrisies of the wealthy classes or the loss of innocence, prejudices influenced when examining her prose. Time has done justice and has shown the quality of a pen out of the ordinary.
“January”, published in 1958, is a short and very significant novel, ahead of its time, in which it tells the story of Nefer, a teenager who lives and works in the countryside, along with her parents, as a stay. Her daily routine is spent milking cows and carrying out household chores in an absolutely patriarchal microcosm.
From the beginning, the tremendous loneliness that surrounds the girl is impressive, unable to express to her family that after a rape that occurred during her sister’s wedding, she becomes pregnant and the fear of social condemnation arises.
The risky stage version carried out by the talented director Analía Fedra García, in a solo key, gives voice to the young woman in the figure of the actress Vanesa González. Immersed in a minimalist space, barely set with a windmill and a horse made on a reduced scale, on a mat that resembles the dry grass of the plain, she exorcises her misfortune before an attentive audience. Everything takes place in just fifty minutes in which crickets, birds and other sounds of the countryside accentuate the isolation of the protagonist and provide a frame of reference for that immeasurable desert that surrounds her. Thus, Nefer, unable to give voice to the anguish he suffers, finds refuge in his bond with nature.
The art design by Laura Rovito, the suggestive chiaroscuro created by the illuminator Marco Pastorino and the original music by Miguel Angel Pesce, contribute to creating the almost dreamlike climate in which the action takes place. González imprints equal doses of deep truth and resounding emotional commitment.
