What does an 81-year-old woman do who is undergoing cancer treatment, her fourth in two and a half decades, with a diagnosis of metastasis? What does someone do who had to remove the splinters when the ideal of lifelong marriage was detonated? Although he had made an effort to maintain a relationship that always put his self-esteem in check, faced with the evidence of his ex’s double life, manifested in a baby who already knew how to say daddy, he had no choice but to send everything to hell. What does someone do who later lost a son in a road accident and, years later, had to hear that her daughter had cancer and accompany her without wavering? What does someone who also suffered a stroke do?
Well, we don’t know what any other woman does in such challenging circumstances, but this woman we are going to talk to travels kilometers on a theatrical tour that takes her through Santa Fe, Province of Buenos Aires, La Pampa and Montevideo. She arrives with her tongue out and huge sunglasses that she soon takes off to feel more comfortable, she gives this note, puts on her makeup in ten minutes and climbs on stage with Rodolfo Ranni to make everyone laugh. “Let’s negotiate”. Let’s talk about resilience. with you, Marta Gonzalez.
Marta González: We just arrived, after six and a half hours on the road. I’m in Esperanza, Santa Fe. What do you think? No less than in Esperanza, for this work that I say is very hopeful because it is the love story of two old men. I’ve had it closed for so long…
News: Is love closed?
Gonzalez: Yes, this thing that a girl used and abused (she looks mischievous and provokes laughter).
News: With so many experiences, he always tried to find meaning in what happened to him. That’s many years of psychoanalysis, right?
Gonzalez: Yes, I tried everything. When they tell me: “Oh, you, how well you are! What strength you have!”, but it’s just that I went looking for it, it’s not that I have strength. When my son died, they told me: “There is a healing priest in San Isidro,” and that’s where I went, everywhere. Of course I never stopped therapy. When I had cancer surgery the first time, on January 24, 2001, I called the psychiatrist and told him I had cancer. And he said to me: “And how are you facing it?” And well, when they tell you, it seems like they’re not telling you, it seems like it’s a movie. They wanted to operate on me now and I had to buy a nightgown and we went with my daughter. Since we didn’t like any of them, I bought a dress. And the psychoanalyst, the psychiatrist, told me: “Madam, you are not going to die because someone who cannot find a nightgown for the hospital and buys a dress, I can assure you that they will not die.”
News: At that time I didn’t suppose that cancer wouldn’t be the worst. She was very close to tragedy, to being gutted but not in an operating room: her son would die a month later on a Mexican road.
Gonzalez: Yes, my love (cries). Imagine that the baby came here when I had surgery: “Well, mommy, you’re going to be fine. Do you want to come to Mexico with me?” “No, no, son, I’m going to be fine.” And on February 17 he had the accident. So this is life, but I learned (he becomes distressed) that I don’t have to say why but for what.
News: How could he understand why?
Gonzalez: I say that if God left me in this world and took my son, who was really so good, I will have to start doing things. I always considered myself a good person, but I still won’t be that good, because God doesn’t call me. But you can’t explain what I felt, I took so much refuge in prayer (cries). Oh, shit, I don’t know, it’s a pain that doesn’t go away, you have it there, in a little corner, but you know that as soon as the door opens…
News: That door first led her to a suicide attempt. However, today at 81 years old, he continues to cling to what is vital.
Gonzalez: Yes, thank God, yes. But you know what helped me a lot: the work. When Jorge Lafauci came to see me, he told me: “Marta, you have to start acting.” I said this man is crazy, if I didn’t even want to work, I wanted to die. But this was in February and in September, more or less, Nora Cárpena called me to do “Brujas”, for the character of Luisa, which is that of Moria Casán, imagine nothing further from me. And well, I played that character, I had to put on makeup, I had to dress, I had to be someone else, I had to be Luisa. Then the Luisa on stage, when the curtain came down, was Marta again. And there I had some crying attacks, but, well, then the crying slowed down and you kept the pain away, because the pain never leaves you, and you start enjoying other things.
News: As if it accommodated it differently?
Gonzalez: Of course, that’s how it is, to be able to continue living. There are many things that helped me. A minister of the Eucharist told me: “Marta, I know you are suffering a lot, but would you change these 29 years of having had Leandro to not suffer this pain?” And I said, “Nooo, I would have it again.” And then my daughter said to me: “Mom, what’s wrong? Did you only have one son?” They are all things that you desperately cling to like a life preserver. Like now, imagine, I even have no eyelashes, I’m an alien, I don’t have eyebrows, (laughs) but hey, I have this strength that they say I have.
News: What does the scenario represent to you?
Gonzalez: It seems like a cliché: the stage heals you. And at this moment I am not me, I am not Marta. As I am doing the work with Ranni…
They tell her that she has a few minutes to put on her makeup and leave for the theater. We’ve been in the interview for a quarter of an hour, we need more. More to continue addressing the life of a woman who, despite everything she has experienced, decides to continue on stage. “What can we do, my love, do you think I put on makeup while we continue talking?” The sweetness breaks through. The solution arrives. The phone is focused on her from a low angle view and she begins to smear foundation on her face. Hump: “I’m going to do what mines do for Instagram.”
News: That humor is another great lifesaver.
Gonzalez: Absolutely.
News: Did you always have it?
Gonzalez: Always, always. I say the most serious thing in a way that makes it seem serious, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to live.
News: He was telling me what the stage is. And the applause?
Gonzalez: The applause is already the wonder, because it’s over. Acting is a transition, a ritual, it is playing.
Just as he has removed his wig in a recent article to reveal his bald head due to chemotherapy, he is one of those people who is determined to put on masks and put taboos at the center. “They still don’t want to name cancer because they are afraid of getting it,” he says. Nor has he had any qualms about talking about heartbreak, suicide attempts, and death. People appreciate it.
Gonzalez: I don’t want to play the saint, but I said: “If God leaves me here, obviously I have to help.” Listening to people who tell me: “You don’t know how good what you say makes me feel,” gives me strength to continue living. And all I do is say what I feel, without fuss, say what I feel and what I live, and that’s it. It gives me strength to help people, you know? It’s not living hard.
News: Speaking of “Let’s negotiate”, what do you negotiate with life today?
Gonzalez: What business? I always try to be there when they look for me and try to give what I know most, this thing about living… I’ve had very beautiful things happen. I have loved a lot. I have suffered a lot. But I have enjoyed, I have traveled. I mean, I had a good life, with all the bad things I went through, but I had a good life. I had a stroke in the middle of the stage…
News: Paradoxically in the play “The show of the horns”, in 2019.
Gonzalez: Yes, my love, and my daughter saved me there, because they gave me something for my blood pressure and sent me home. And my daughter said: “No, my mother is not well, I know her.” And they did a CT scan.
News: He says he came to the conclusion that death does not exist.
Gonzalez: Yes, I think we went to another plane, I don’t know what it is, but I really feel like that. There is another life after death and we find each other, I don’t know how, I’ll tell you later!
News: Do you have any fear left?
Gonzalez: My real fear is not of death, but of carnal, physical suffering. And you know what scares me the most: the suffering of those next to me. I loved my mother in an impressive way and at a certain moment you realize that you are wishing your mother to die, so that she does not suffer anymore, to relieve her. I don’t want that for my daughter. But I’m here, willing to do it.
News: What worries you about Argentina today?
Gonzalez: Oh, everything worries me! Look, I have been through governments, but not like this. Look at you, not having eyelashes, you tear (dry your eyes)… and a little for Milei! (laughs) I hope to see my country a little better, my country hurts me. Well, my love, I have to go.
News: Enjoy the show!
Gonzalez: Thank you, that’s the best thing that can happen to me, enjoy!
