Theater as a sacred space and as a business with Riña de Egos

“A thousand times it happened that a general essay was bad and then in the premiere all the pieces were aligned and the work of so many months pays off. The play speaks of the theater as something that artists take care and defend but also of the theater as a business, with spotted deadlines, pressures or egos,” says Sofía González Gil,author and director of “The assistant”, who returned to the billboard after its premiere in Cultural San Martín.

In this new season it is presented every Thursday at 8:30 p.m. at the theater abroad, with performances of Agustina Cabo, Diego de Paula, Francisco González Gil and Ximena Banús. The work takes place inside a prestigious theater and tells a story that intermingles fiction and reality, between vintage and scenography without ending, while an cast rehearses “an enemy of the people” of Henrik Ibsen. We talked with González Gil.

Journalist: You wrote it in Pandemia, designed to be represented in Cervantes and finally premiered in the Cultural San Martin, what about that magic of the great theaters?

Sofía González Gil: I was interested in the name that these types of theaters such as San Martín, the Columbus, the Cervantes in Buenos Aires, its prestige, how intense a premiere in a room like that and something of the solemnity of the titles that are usually presented there, Esi was good for the humor that the work has. I work on the theater inside the theater, where although there is a cast that is rehearsing “an enemy of the people” it breaks with that essay and shows the reality of the actors, with a scenography that is not finished, that does not completely do well, an electrical problem in the theater that makes the lights all the time interrupt the scene, the egos of the artists plus the previous nerves to be released, that the assistant has to solve with a lot

that does not finish exploiting the pump and can reach the premiere well. There was some of those spaces that have that unique magic also prestige that suited the premiere that I imagined that these actors had.

Q.: It runs on topics such as theater as a work space, test and error, of coexistence, but also of the theater as a business, with its demands, deadlines and conflicts. What else can you reflect and expand?

SGG: He talks about space from all his angles, of the theater as a sacred and really where magic happens, even where everything seems to fail. A thousand times it happened that a general trial was bad and then in the premiere all the pieces are aligned and the work of so many months pays off. He talks about the theater as a magical fact, as something that artists take care, defend and love but also of the theater as a business, with a premiere that cannot be canceled, with guests, press, the wheel that advances and does not expect an actor who is not ready or the scene that came at the last moment. It shows more angles than the artistic fact such as excessive pressures or egos, fears, insecurities, the hierarchy, the authorities, the figure of the absent director, who does not give more directives and disappears from the theater, and the assistant has no choice but to pretend that the director is there because if the actors find out that the director fled could harm everything. There are all the characters, an inexperienced actress who is nervous to release in that theater, a more solemn actor who has her own school and believes that her way is the only one to see the theater, a more diva actress, cynical, sharp, cold, who corrects others and a very efficient assistant that does everything possible so that the work is released.

Q.: Why did you choose “an enemy of the people” of Ibsen?

SGG: I chose it because the fragments are quite brief, they are an excuse to be able to show the assembly from the inside, of a classic, and there was some of the truth with which those texts that are very in force are usually acting and it served me. I liked that it was a text that almost all the public knows, to make that counterpoint with what the public does not know, the behind the scene.

Q.: What else does Entreline say about the art world, the actors, that theatrical family that is sometimes endearing and sometimes egos?

SGG: Through the characters that are so diverse, the opinion that gives the play on the theater is wide. There are more experienced characters with experience that see the theater in ancient way, stayed in time, as if it were only to act that way and could not include people who believe that acting is something else. There is a counterpoint with the inexperienced girl and that her nerves play a bad pass. There is a more modern look of the theater and passionate, which speaks of the world being faster and faster, that people have a hard time maintaining interest in prolonged time and the work makes a criticism of how much it costs to excite the viewer. Perhaps a classic work with beautiful and poetic texts end up cut or accelerated because people are distracted or cell phones break. The sacred moment of the theater is defended.

Q.: How do you see theater and culture today?

SGG: It is a difficult time difficult for the theater in Argentina, attacked everywhere, how terrible that happens with the INT, the INAA, the FNA, are key for the theater to continue to exist as until now, growing, conquering territories, expanding throughout the country. It is key to defend these spaces in collective struggle as we are doing. In this sense, the “Festival Enter” will be held, from July 3 to 9, in defense of the INT and that I invite you to approach and participate in this type of movements.