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Nora Schiavoni: “Ladyquita de Thompson was an influencer in her own time”

Nora Schiavoni: “Ladyquita de Thompson was an influencer in her own time”

Journalist: What was the origin of the work?

Nora Schiavoni: For the Bicentennial we wrote a television script about 13 women in Argentine history together with the journalist Sylvia Do Pico. She made me know the history of many women of whom she only had a brief reference because they were the names of the streets of Puerto Madero. Curiosity made me buy history books and read about them. During the pandemic, I wrote several stories about some of them and then, to present in a contest, I turned the story of Mariquita into a play. I did not have to force the conflict much because it was real, according to Daniel Balmaceda in his book “Turbulent Romances of Argentine History.”

Q.: What women are your stories about?

DK: One is about Julieta Lanteri, the first to vote in South America in 1911, the first to be a candidate for deputy, creator of the National Feminist Party, the fifth doctor in Argentina who was killed in an act that was passed off as a car accident. The other is about the life of Macacha Güemes, sister of Martín Güemes and her role as governess of Salta when her brother was fighting further north and, above all, about the creation of an espionage mechanism with Salta women worthy of James bond. The other story is about Juana Manso, an immense woman who lived in the shadow of Sarmiento and who was the one who carried out his entire educational project. She was the director of the first mixed school. She introduced gymnastics as a subject in school, learning a foreign language, and founded many public libraries, including Chacabuco, a place where when she gives a lecture, they wait for her outside and throw asafoetida, a kind of rotten fennel.

Q.: What do you think about the mandate to marry the candidate chosen by the father and that continues to apply in some areas to this day?

DK: It remains a matter of family approval or rejection and what that entails if the spouse is not accepted. This can happen because they are from a different social stratum, due to a significant age difference, being the oldest woman and the youngest man, but the other way around is accepted. There is also rejection and almost disinheritance if the marriage is with someone of the same sex. In any case, my work does not speak of love a la Romeo and Juliet but of how women did not have any kind of decision about anything other than the dresses, how to set the table or what food to serve. What the public knows about Mariquita is that her anthem was sung at her house and that she had beautiful gatherings. I mean, she chose the musicians, the tablecloths and the cupcakes well. This is how they told us about Mariquita, as one more ornament from the colonial era: there was a cistern, a lamplighter, an old lady, they didn’t even give it a name.

Q.: What is the novelty that the work brings?

DK: The play tells of the day that Mariquita rebels against the patriarchal mandates of a society that considered women as eternal daughters, first in charge of the father and then the husband. She, who has been instructed in the art of reading and writing, uses those weapons, which a few women had, to write a letter of protest to the viceroy. If there had been magazines and TV at that time, it would have been the most talked about scandal. During the play, the role of 14-year-old girls-women who were married to 50-year-old men and the indoctrination of her mother to not only accept that fate, but to thank it, is told. Faced with all this, Mariquita, with her texts, refutes her mother, her friend and even her maid each of the indoctrinations that they suggest and implore her to accept.

Q.: How did you see the passage from role to stage?

DK: I told the director that I didn’t want more historical data given than what was in the play. That you couldn’t explain everything because it was going to end up being a history class. That was what cost me the most when writing it, not downloading historical information for the public. That’s what books are for. As for the actresses, there are 23-year-old Bernadette Orengo and Susana Giannone, whom I have known for twenty years, and she composes five characters throughout the play, as a counterpart to Mariquita. The director Marcela Grasso leaned towards a minimalist setting where everything is in the performance and costumes of Macarena Santamaría.

Q.: Is there interest in Argentine historical figures?

DK: Yes, in fact there are several plays where they are protagonists. and I think this is very necessary for women because they not only kept this part of the story from us, they denied us the ability to identify with the heroines, obviously indoctrinating us. If you were a boy, your mother would make you the costume of Belgrano, San Martín or Sarmiento. If you were a woman, an old lady or a black mazamorrera. It seems to me that having denied the participation of women in history is a vile act that I do not forgive my teachers.

Q.: How do you see the theater in Buenos Aires?

DK: The theater scene in Buenos Aires is the best and I have traveled a lot. There is everything, for everyone, with an excellent level, generally in the independent theatre, which is done with two weights. I see everything, stand up, theater, musicals, rock bands. We have a lot of talented people in our country with a passion for theater that, as they say today: you couldn’t understand it. Because in general everything is done by lung but with a love and an illusion that move.

Source: Ambito

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