He grew up among theaters, among rooms, among seats. He grew up with the swing of curtains opening and closing, with the applause in the background and the adrenaline of having a plenary session played every night. “It is a very particular relationship that I have with the theater because it passes through me all my life, it is inside me“, not only from my DNA, theater passes through me personally very, very strongly,” he defines Thomas Rottembergthe son of Carlos Rottemberg and Linda Peretz. On a very particular end of the year, he is presenting the Mar del Plata season and his eyes light up. “Mar del Plata was my summers as a child, the rooms were my playground. I have a very great affection for this city, which transcends work,” he recalls.
News: A long new season in Mar del Plata, in a summer with many uncertainties, what are the expectations?
Thomas Rottemberg: My father has been performing in Mar del Plata uninterruptedly for forty-odd seasons. So imagine that the situation in the country… I don’t want to say that we are used to it, but we have gone through the pandemic. As long as we can, we will continue forward.
News: They will even show dramatic works, such as “Freud’s Last Session.”
Rottenberg: We always try to offer the greatest variety possible and continue supporting the city, because we close the rooms during the winter and open them during the summer. We don’t know what the public is going to choose so we try to do the task as best as possible. From there to getting it right, there is a long way.
News: He said that theater passes through him personally. At any point, did he struggle with it or resist it?
Rottenberg: Not resisting, but when I was a kid I had no idea what I was going to be when I grew up. There he threw flowers at my parents because they let me choose and respected me a lot. Already after high school, I began to glimpse that I was going towards the theatrical side. I never imagined myself working anywhere else either, huh, because theater is part of my life.
Everything indicates that this freedom of choice was taken with respect and responsibility, but in a good way, let’s say, not a responsibility that overwhelms and stiffens, but rather something similar to what is said about the sea (and the metaphor is well worth it in a talk splashed by sea air). It is said that you should not be afraid of the sea but rather respect it. Talking to Rottemberg, it seems that he was encouraged to professional bravery when he felt he had his own board, as if he had decided to build that piece of surface to skate on the waves, instead of sitting on inherited achievements and saying: make way!
Rottenberg: I consider myself a theater worker. Theater is not a game, it is our job. Without a doubt, I take it with great responsibility and I am very serious. I studied Business Administration but then I read books on administration in the arts, on theater administration and I began to develop my own faculty focused on theater. With Carlos (his father) we are partners and within the theater we make a good pairing to be able to make decisions, to know what the company’s values are.
News: What is the social responsibility that the theater has?
Rottenberg: In Argentina, theater is part of our identity and our culture. It has been accompanying the Argentine public for many years, we have a lot of history. It seems to me that this must be honored and that it is good that it is so, that it is a visible activity, where we cannot care what we present in a room, and that does not mean that the work is going to be successful. This is a forty-something-year-old company, which is made up of tickets purchased by the public. And everything was reinvested in theater. Obviously we are businessmen and it is our task to make numbers and see where we are going, but I don’t think that doing theater is the same as dedicating yourself to another profession.
News: You say you are a theater artist before you are a businessman, what does that mean?
Rottenberg: I think that all of us who do theater have a love for theater, it is something very magical that is generated. I don’t think that theater is the best business in the world for a businessman and yet we do theater and we are moving forward and we want to continue betting on this. So you have to have a different head, not just think about the number.
News: There are no formulas for success, what happens to failures? Did you have to get used to it or did you understand it from the beginning?
Rottenberg: I understood. I don’t want to say that it doesn’t hurt sometimes because, for example, for the production of a show you obviously work a lot, but like in any area of life where you bet something and, again, I’m not talking economically, I’m talking about the heart and head. . I also don’t try to find so many excuses or explanations when it doesn’t work, because it seems to me that it is an inherent part of our work and it is precisely part of any artistic field and any work field as well. Failure at something doesn’t keep me up at night.
News: And how do you deal with the big hits? Because they can also have a strong impact.
Rottenberg: Obviously we are all going to seek success, because that is what we do the show for, but I am not emboldened either.
“Matilda” It is one of those great successes, after weeks of double functions sold out during the winter holidays, it has just been declared of cultural interest by the Buenos Aires legislature and, from January 12 to February 13, it will have its final farewell on the Buenos Aires stage. The Rottembergs began to weave that idea in the midst of the pandemic and its restrictions. The play is linked to the family history in a particular way: Carlos and her wife, Karina Pérez Moretto, saw the play in London in 2013. Upon leaving, Karina said that if she ever had a daughter, she would I would call Matilda. At that time Tomás had no brothers. Then came Nicolás (7) and… Matilda (4).
News: What does that work mean to you?
Rottenberg: “Matilda” means a lot, the familiar, the personal, the theater, everything, a mixture of beautiful things. Furthermore, it is the first time that we have been able to participate in a show of this magnitude, we have been invited to participate among other production companies that know how to do it, we surely could not have done it alone. The show talks about such beautiful things and the level of production, talent, and design are spectacular, the work with children has been spectacular. It is a tremendous joy because the public was very supportive and because with “Matilda” the ground was prepared for more musicals for next year. The musical owes a debt to the Buenos Aires billboard and we are going to bet on more musicals with all the expectations, hope and enthusiasm.
News: After the pandemic, was there a re-falling in love with theater among the public?
Rottenberg: At first we didn’t know very well how the end of the pandemic would impact us and the public recovered much faster than we thought. This year we had historical attendance records. at the national level. The challenge is to be able to maintain this flow of public in 2024, with the entire economic situation and context of the country complicated.
News: With so much technology and content offering, what is so irreplaceable about theater that it has been a record year?
Rottenberg: We all live behind a screen for many hours of the day and I believe that theater enhances the value of the personal, of being, of seeing an event live. Also that you are experiencing something that is unrepeatable because the performance may seem the same, but it is never the same, and the audience experiences something very personal and each performance is for them.
News: How is it different and different from its father?
Rottenberg: There is an obviously natural and marked generational difference that we take as positive and we discuss all things, but hey, each one is different. For example, for a long time, Carlos did not produce shows, but rather we co-produced with the room on our side. I’ve gotten more involved in producing in recent years, it’s like a new business unit, in the sense that my father hasn’t produced in a while. Which has a lot of headaches and also different rewards. So there is a real difference there, and the generational difference seems to me to be making the path quite similar in terms of the pillars, but each one is finding its place. We make a good combination and have good work synergy.
News: Is he the successor? How does that label fit you?
Rottenberg: It’s ugly, it’s ugly because my old man still has about 50 years of theater left. When it reaches 100, we’ll remove it from there (laughs).
News: Good Mirtha!
Rottenberg: Exactly, like Mirtha. She is going to reach 130 years old and then we are going to ask her to rest a little (laughs). But in the meantime, no, don’t think that my old man will ever be away from the theater.
