(****) FOUR STARS
Ema is a woman sitting by the sea, immersed in sensitive memories of her childhood, full of dreams and vitality. With her extreme tenderness, she shows us her personal diary and she tells us about the house on the beach where she lived with her beloved grandmother Galia. She raised her when her parents died in an accident and gave her that name in
I remember a puppy that I had. She was a very decent lady who used to read some of Lenin’s writings when her kidneys ached and she had abandoned her alcoholic husband to go live near the water.
Everything in Ema indicates and conveys an intense desire to express herself and the suffering of not being certain of her origins. The same need that leads her to dedicate poetry to almost mythological beings like King Kong, the terrifying giant gorilla, which Mar del Plata received as part of the attractions of some lost summer, far away and long ago. In reality, it was a moving metal structure that was scrapped decades ago. Even in the poetic and suggestive text by Luis Cano, who also directs the piece with great creativity, perhaps that ape is a metaphorical form of
refer to the ferocious dictatorship we suffered.
That lonely girl wrote and also drew, glued on rhinestone figures and wrote lists of “radiant and luminous things”, like the rainbow or candy wrapped in paper. Her great company was the inseparable and toothless dog Pomi.
Every summer he received with expectation the visit of his relatives from the capital. Among them was Walter, someone she identified as her surrogate cousin, who once asked her for a kiss. One afternoon, the adolescent gave her a simple spoon that the girl mistakenly took as a symbol of her love. Nothing could be further from the truth since the young man only had eyes for his girlfriend, who was waiting for him in the big city. Ema, confused by her rejection, realized that this moment would mark a before and after in her simple life. Her joy will give way to the monotony of an eternal autumn, crowned by the routine of a job that does not satisfy her and the departure of her only relative.
Such a stage proposal requires a strong actress with the talent, sensitivity and multiple expressive resources to cover the different ages of the character. Luckily the angels have illuminated the great Stella
Galazzi, one of the best actresses of her generation, to achieve the goal of captivating and moving viewers with remarkable work.
