The last three works he did laura olive are intersected by the complexity of bonding, specifically by the theme of the fraternal: in “For me, for you” (Multitheater), the rivalry between a successful sister and another who stayed to take care of the parents appears; in “Lapland”, also two sisters faced each other; and in “The appeal of Amparo”written by Oliva herself, a woman accuses their mother of the death of her sister.
It is not accidental, it is on purpose and with treachery. She herself recounts the mutation process in which she went from swimming in comedy and humor, to drying up from that water, and becoming a social and serial questioner.
News: What attracted you to “For me, for you”?
Laura Olive: It seemed to me that it was like a green dog, especially for Corrientes street, for commercial theater. I said: “Well, if we are going to do something on Corrientes Street, let it be something where I feel that I am taking a risk as an actress and saying something.” Because it is a very funny work, but also very deep. Imitating the Chekhovian spirit, he deals with conflict and daily suffering; It has a very distressing side, which is existential anguish, what am I doing here.
News: His last three works walk along that ledge of elucidating what unites us and what separates us, right?
Olive: You have touched a totally neuralgic point of my journey as an actress. Several years have passed, it was in 2010, but For me it was always yesterday: I had a crisis with comedy, and I went out to the world of producers and directors to ask them to please give me the opportunity to make other types of materials. At first it was very difficult to explain why, because I was doing very well with it. Imagine that I get off in the middle of “39 steps”, a wonderful, extremely intelligent comedy, an absolute success. But I felt two needs: to say something and to talk about ties, which is the only thing that matters to me in life, it’s what goes through me.
News: Could we say that there was a third need, that of not staying in the complaint, unlike your character?
Olive: Well, yes, of course, of course. She had a great teacher, Joy Morris, who said that we all have a Hitler inside. And with this phrase she wanted to say that people believed that they did not have the envious or the egocentric inside and that the actors simply had the privilege of knowing that they did and, furthermore, having the obligation to be in contact with those parts of ourselves. And, perhaps, Sonia, my character in “For me, for you”, is that me from the last months of “39 steps”, and what I could have been by staying there. I always had a lot of fun being in contact with all those parts of me, knowing that if I put them on stage, they don’t come out in life; and the more I know them, the more attentive I am when they come out in life, because sometimes it’s inevitable. AND The same thing happens to me with my great pain, in general I talk a lot about my childhood and the separation of my parents. That’s me, that’s my stuff.
News: Perhaps that jump was to give space to Laura full of nooks and crannies, emotions, experiences and pain.
Olive: As is, exactly. In addition, the image for the outside was also beginning to weigh on me. SI am a person with a very good mood, very funny, very funny, but I am also a lot of other things. The permanent criticism when I go down the street is: “Oh, how serious!”. I am walking down the street and I am thinking, I have opinions on millions of things, millions of issues concern me and I want to talk about it in my profession; especially when the materials exist. I was doing “39 steps”, I was going to see “August” and I wanted to climb on stage.
They were months of cooking in their own broth, over low heat, macerating the internal bitterness with the dish that seemed irresistible in the eyes of the rest. But one day, before the show, he went to the hairdresser’s. Suddenly, María Carámbula and Pablo Echarri came in, who were doing “El electión” and wanted to change the look of María’s character. Oliva pricked her ear and began to listen to the talk: that the character had to cut her hair because before she was a woman like that and now she was a woman like that… Her broth began to boil, her blood bubbled like lava . They finished combing her hair, she greeted her friendly and smiling, she went out into the street and cried desperately. She walked to the theater at a dramatic peak: her tears overflowed her outside and a mantra beat inside her: “It’s over, it’s over, I’m doing this show and that’s it.” The next day, she quit. She wanted her hair to be available to the demands of the characters. Her head, she had already been there for a while.
News: How did you feel the day after making the decision?
Oliva: A huge relief and tremendous vertigo because I practically didn’t work for a year and not because they didn’t bring me materials but because they were all comedy.
News: What conviction of yours!
Olive: No, it’s that I was going to die (smiles). I was drying up and there was also something very Sonia: I was becoming an unbearable person, nobody understood. Because you know what it’s like to go to a packed theater and to a very beautiful play and add performances, and me clutching my head! So I felt very liberated with the decision. The first different proposal was brought to me by Faroni with “Danza de verano”, which was like “August” and on top of that he gave me the most complex role, a girl who had a mental retardation. You don’t know how much I thanked him. I was happy to tell how I do this. For me it is a much more interesting job than knowing how to do it one hundred percent. And then came “Who is Mr. Smith”, where I met Javier Daulte and we forged a beautiful bond that lasts until today.
News: Did you start doing playwriting with Daulte much later?
Olive: Much later. Writing was forever. Until at one point in my life, this idea of “The Amparo Appeal” appeared, this trial against my mother and that turned me back to years, because the trigger was a conversation with my mother, and she died in 2005.
News: Was it your mother’s conclusion that she caused your sister’s illness, or is that the reading you did after the talk?
Olive: No, on the contrary! Someone had told her that my sister’s breast cancer was emotional and hearing her say: “This last time she’s been having such a bad time, isn’t that what made her sick?!”… it was nonsense , I had had a baby six months ago and they were adjusting to maternity with their husbands, nothing special… After all that we had gone through as girls, because my parents handled the divorce in the worst possible way, the manual of what you shouldn’t do is what they did with us… and she telling me that, 6 months against 32 years (she laughs). And I, far from laughing like I’m laughing now, couldn’t believe the cut, my mom had the effect of leaving me patties. And that’s when the idea came to me: if the origin of the disease is emotional and that had to do with many years of suffering, there must be a culprit and there must be a trial. But my sister died in ’99, that talk was in 2005 and I wrote it in 2019, so take a look. I wanted to talk about two fundamental things: how the same event can be seen in so many different ways and how what happened in very foundational ages shapes who one is today. Because many people say “well, but it’s been so long, that’s it…”. And that’s why I am who I am: I’m still a fearful person, I’m still that girl who doesn’t understand why she was so mistreated without supposedly deserving it. I have a lot of issues with merit and that comes from there, whenever there is something good, I am waiting for something bad to come. So to what extent is it past, do I still feel it today and it’s what I keep dealing with.
News: Do you think there may be a new turnaround in your life?
Olive: Yes, in this case I think not so much regarding the theme of what to say but rather the manner. I think it is no coincidence that I am studying Writing at UNA (National University of the Arts), I really enjoy being an apprentice. I premiered “El recurso…” with a cast that I was not part of and that experience was incredible: just doing the dramaturgy, seeing how people appropriated it, I loved it. It seems to me that at some point I will be a little behind.
News: How interesting to catch up with people who are just starting out, they will have companions of 20 years!
Olive: Exactly, tie yourself in that same place of voracity, of discovery. And also being below wonderful teachers, in front of whom you say “everything I lack.” And I, who in that sense am a fairly positive person, far from staying in what I lack, I say “oh, all the time I have to recover.” Imagine, I put in three subjects per year, I’m going to receive the year of jopo. The other day I took out the account and I would be receiving it at 65 years of age, and I say great! I am 53 and, if everything is fine and nothing out of the ordinary happens as it happened with my sister who died at 32, I can have 30 years ahead of me.
News: Age still falls forcefully in the eyes of others and that can be paralyzing. You have to have the courage to say “I graduate at 65 and it’s going to be great”!
Olive: Yes, I know people over 65 who are in the prime of their lives. And more with writing, it’s a world that opens up!
