A detailed look at the current Buenos Aires billboard, always leafy and vast, allows us to detect a characteristic that has increased in recent years: the rise of one-man shows. These are proposals in which an actress or an actor assumes the challenge of facing the public with the sole protection of their histrionic, vocal and expressive capacity, and the guide of a stage direction in whose responsibility lies a large part of the final result.
Although the genre has multiple antecedents, we remember the extraordinary work of the remembered Elena Tasistoin the long monologue of an English woman, for an hour, sitting almost motionless, in the first part of “At home/In Kabul”, by Tony Kushner, directed by Carlos Gandolfoas a challenge paradigm.
Of course, in some cases, budget reasons may influence the phenomenon. Producing something with a large cast is obviously not the same as carrying out a project with a single artist. On the other hand, perhaps it also adds to the attractiveness of devising and carrying it out, the comfort of putting clothes and makeup in a suitcase to go out and tour halls, theaters and festivals throughout the country. Not a minor fact in our cyclical times of galloping inflation. Literally becoming a traveling minstrel and stepping back from the urban tribe for a moment to tell a story to the rest.
Thus, comedy and drama come together with such progressive assiduity that most of the awards dedicated to considering theatrical activity, were forced not only to take the item into account, but even to split it into male and female.
In addition, the heyday is so evident and reiterated that what in most cases began in the so-called “alternative” or “off” theater also moved to commercial and official theaters. This is demonstrated by the recent premiere of the stupendous “Lady in Red on a Gray Background”, an adaptation of the homonymous novel by Miguel Delibes, admirably starring José Sacristán, at the San Martín.
To try to shed light on this trend, NOTICIAS consulted two makers who currently have their proposals on the bill, to clarify a mystery:What leads an interpreter to assume going on stage alone?
various experiences
The beautiful actress Eleonora Wexler He comes from representing two one-man shows in which his great acting talent could be appreciated. On the one hand, “La maldecida de Fedra”, by Patricia Suárez from Rosario, directed by Marcelo Moncarz, for two seasons in the small space of Hasta Trilce. Inspired by Racine’s “Phaedra”, she freely takes Oenone, one of the characters in the tragedy, and creates a fate for her that is far from the original. On the other hand, the same director approached her with the project “Mary for Mary”, by the Spanish Paloma Pedrero, where she put herself in the shoes of Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of Mary Shelley, author of “Frankenstein”), a pioneer in the vindication of the feminine role and gender equality in the 18th century, which was seen in the El Picadero room.
These days he stars “Mary’s Testament”, by Irish director Colm Tóibin, directed by Julio Panno, at the San Martín theater. The protagonist is the mother of Jesus, who with a torn voice and, at times, without hiding her anger, recalls the events that occurred in the family past and the violent death of her son.
“Theatrical proposals appeared to me that, to be honest, did not move me. I had been doing a lot of audiovisuals and doing two one-man shows in a row was like breaking out the vice of theater ”, he points out. Regarding his current work, he recalls: “I had read Colm Tóibin’s novel a few years ago and it had fascinated me because it seemed to me a stark vision of the Virgin as a woman. I felt that it was very interesting to get back into the shoes of a powerful and strong woman. I feel that the one-person job is a job of enormous improvement and each one that I did is like a great trip that gives me a lot of pleasure. This is one of the most complex that I had to interpret because it is a very intense journey. There is a deep connection in which you are alone with the public, ”she highlights.
another glimpse
Actor, playwright and director lautaro vilo has an outstanding track record, both in official venues and on the alternative circuit, with a set of more than fifteen plays. He has translated and adapted, among others, “King Lear” (with the endearing Alfredo Alcón, in the main role), “Enrique IV” and “Hamlet”, by William Shakespeare, all directed by Rubén Szuchmacher. At the moment there is a play called “El bien” on the bill, with the brilliant performance of Verónica Pelaccini, who manages to split into different characters to tell the story of a real estate agent, married with a school-age daughter, who feels fed up with her lifestyle, where there are no strong emotions or shocks. Originally premiered at the Morán Cultural Center, it now performs at Espacio Callejón.
Regarding the expressive possibilities of a solo show, he affirms: “I am tempted to say that all of them, since it rests on the actress’s ability to present a certain convention and take us in there, to travel with our imagination that moment and everything that comes after. In its scenic austerity, it seems to me to be an unlimited genre, it rests on acting understood as whatever you can think of it to be at that moment: addressing the public, presentation of the action, narration, reaction to stimuli, etc. I can’t make a crowd appear, but I can tell, through the interactions, a massive party and the viewer can imagine it perhaps more clearly than if they had the possibility of putting a hundred extras.
And he ventures an explanation for the rise of this type of option: “In cast works, there is a general tendency to work on one or two stable and determined conventions throughout the work. Due to the way in which realism influenced the scenic conventions of the city, changing the acting registers, the dynamics of what happens on stage is more complex to develop and sometimes, the productions do not directly consider it: everything happens in a certain space, where there is an outside and an inside and the action is concentrated. This theater ‘of places’ can be dynamited by the one-person, who resorts to determining the time and space in which the action takes place only to the extent of his needs, his marvelous austerity can be a springboard to any place. This boom can also be related to the strict present, we are facing several projects that have been conceived in a pandemic, starting from and despite the confinement. Its flourishing on the billboard is a joy for me, ”he expands.
Mauricio Dayub in “The tightrope walker”Carola Reyna with “Okazan”, Franco Massini and “Marvelous Things”, Stella Galazzi in “Summer”, Roberto Peloni with “El bude”, Emiliano Dionisi and “La capsula”, Marcos Montes in “Man of Steel”, Roly Serrano and “Rolando”, Julio Chávez with “I am my own woman”, are other clear examples of a welcome stage invasion that reminds us of the well-known praise attributed to Lope de Vega, who defines the actor and it begins with: “What is that fierce monster / who was born of noble parents / and gave birth to a single mother / and is born of many mothers?”.
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