In “La fuerza de la gravidad”, the reality-fiction tension is repeated or radicalized. First, Flores Cárdenas recounts that one day he invited actor and actress friends to his house and asked an actress to read a new play that she did not know, giving him the power to finish it whenever he wanted.
After this introduction, Laura López Moyano, the actress of that night, begins reading the play and at one point, following the original instructions, decides to end the reading. The viewer never knows if the end of that reading is already scheduled from the beginning and is the same in all performances, turning into a fictional game, or if the fiction actually follows the course dictated by the sensations of the actress on stage.
The two shows take place in the Casa Teatro Estudio (Guardia Vieja 4257) where Flores Cárdenas lives and, evidently, link with the idea of making the theater a house or a house in the theater.
“No hay banda” can be seen on Mondays at 8:30 p.m. and “La fuerza de la gravidad” on Saturdays at 6:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
In addition, this week “No hay banda” will be presented at the Rafaela Theater Festival and in the city of Córdoba, in October it will be staged in Madrid and in November it will take part in the Cádiz Festival.
To talk about some issues present in the works, Télam spoke with Flores Cárdenas through a written questionnaire that he answered. Here are the questions and their answers.
Télam: During the performance of “No hay banda” you told that this project was originally made by five actors/actresses in Brazil as a work in progress, why did this project finally lead to a solo work?
Martín Flores Cárdenas: This project, to do something with that work, was pending. No matter how hard he tried to write something else, he always ended up returning to that truncated work, to that text and that experience, which, now, I don’t really know what it was, if it happened or what really happened. They often ask me at the exit for names, dates and the veracity of the facts. At first I would answer what I thought everyone wanted to hear, but for some time now I decided not to pronounce myself and, if I did, to be ambiguous, contradictory, like this answer that I am giving you. I decided to assemble it by myself because I thought it was easy and possible. I thought it would be a few functions and that’s it. But dismantling that work, the utopian, let’s call it, another was generated. One that began to become more and more complex and well, here we are.
T: There is a question at the end in which you say how many performances you did of “No hay banda” (How many are there?) and the way you said it made me think of that idea of the clown who puts together a number that he carries on and does over time, the same number, with small modifications but that can or could change all the time because it is something alive and something only his. I was wondering if there is any of that in “There is no band”.
MFC: We have around 115 performances… in the course of the first year we did three weekly performances for several months. It is a privilege to be in a room that will always be willing to program you, in whatever space it may be (heh). Now he goes up and down the bill all the time because I travel (with “No hay banda” and with “Love me”). Then you can make a hiatus in the continuity of one or two weeks but the following week it comes back, the ball spreads and continues. Regarding the analogy with a clown, it could be, but the truth is that I don’t feel very clown, I’m not an actor; on stage, barely alive.
T: Another question has to do with “La ley de la gravidad” -and it also applies to “No hay banda”-, at a time when Laura López Moyano is acting and speaking things supposedly in relation to herself, it made me think about the issue of registering the performance and that although she could be moved by this text the first, second, third, or fiftieth time, at some point it should stop moving her and then everything would have to be one hundred percent performance, I remembered some verses by Fernando Pessoa: “The poet is a pretender/he pretends so perfectly/that he pretends that it is pain/the pain that he really feels.”
NFC: It’s great that you quote Pessoa’s “Autopsychography” because, talking to Laura about the procedure to follow, at some point that quote, that poem appeared. We both think that “faking the pain you really feel” doesn’t do much justice to what’s going on in the play. Works great as a pun or reference. But the pain is there. No need to fake it. In any case, the work works with that threshold or that door that allows us to connect with our demons and see what happens. Wounds don’t hurt less every day, time doesn’t heal everything, just look at each other a little. In any case, I think it is important to clarify for those who have not seen the work that it is not a sad experience, not at all. I think it ends up being quite a fun and exciting ceremony. For everyone, but especially for the protagonist. That’s not to say it’s light or easy for her. On the contrary, it is very intense, I repeat, for everyone.
In the case of “There is no band” it is a little different because of the level of ambiguity and contradiction that it carries. It seems difficult, even for the protagonist, to determine what he is going through or doing. At the same time that a work is dismantled, another is created, apparently simpler, more orderly and without artifice. At the same time that it hides, it weaves, it conspires. It can be a more or less painful exercise and to some extent necessary for me. Also, intense.
T: What things did you discover about the reality-fiction tension from putting together and working and performing these two works?
MFC: Problems and possibilities of language that, in a very simple way, the two works propose to think about. Nothing new. But it is clear that the limit, that line that separates fiction from reality, calms down, reduces. Many people ask me about the veracity of the narrated facts, what is fiction and what is reality. Perhaps it would be good to ask what we call fiction and what reality, to begin with. They are not new questions or topics. But for some reason we are needing to think and talk about it.
T: Could you tell us how your house ended up being your theater?
MFC: After some experiences in different circuits, I realized that my decision to dedicate myself to this didn’t have so much to do with “arriving” at certain places or occupying certain spaces, but rather with a way of producing. A way of doing the works that gave me the chance to do those other experiences. I mean, a much more traditional way, with my friends, with my times… Looking for and discovering my own ways of putting together projects and carrying them out. That’s why we decided with my partner to have our own space. Currently I am only producing in and for Casa Teatro Estudio. But not with resignation or for not having found space in a larger circuit. I am not interested in working with the expectation or ambition of “taking the big leap”. The theater that we do or do here, I prefer to speak for myself, embraces its independent, rare, intimate condition. In this room I premiered my last three works: “No hay banda”, “Love me” and “La fuerza de la gravidad”. Those who have seen those works, I think they can get an idea of what I’m talking about. And to those who did not see them, we are waiting for you. With cold beer and good music.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
