“The stage is not a comfortable place, you have to work all the time even if you don’t have a text, you have to radiate, it is a very magnificent, intense and little-known job for the public”says Rita Cortesewho adapted and directed “There is not a tear,” version of “Heldenplatz” of Thomas Bernhard, starring Juliet Cardinali and Vera Spinetta.
With production of Sebastian Blutrach, It is presented on Thursdays at 8pm at Dumont 4040. The set design is by Diego Mendez Casariego, costume of Monica Toschi, lighting of Ivan Gierasinchuk and executive production of Barbara Rapoport. We talked with Courteous.
Journalist: What attracted you to this material by the Austrian novelist and playwright?
Rita Cortese: The interpellation with the present and with each one of us. The texts are of enormous depth, he is one of the best contemporary playwrights. The way he crosses the ages is incredible, it seems as if he were speaking about us today.
Q: How did you work on the staging and direction of the actresses?
RC: The first thing I tried to do was find the lines of force between the characters, those invisible lines, the tension of a play. With the actresses it was very close, marking, reading, imagining, betting on the secret, on that invisible world that becomes visible with the theatre. Betting on danger, the stage has to transmit some danger, as Roland Barthes says, he says that if all plays had the danger like a football team has, they would always be a success. Danger of scoring, in the theatre that danger has to be there.
Q: What themes does the play address and what conflicts do the characters go through?
RC: A decisive and final event occurs that overwhelms the characters. It pushes these characters, the housekeeper of the house, Cardinali, and the minor servant, Spinetta, to the limit. It is an adaptation that I made of the original work, I reduced it to these two characters who together tell another story.
Q: What is it like to do independent theatre today? This play is in an off-site venue but has production.
RC: This is independent theatre with the production of Sebastián Blutrach, to whom I approached the project and who supported it. We will do it at Dumont 4040, a similar facility to what happens at El Picadero. The theatre scene is diverse, huge, there is the boulevard theatre which would be the one on Corrientes Street and then there are a number of young directors who are around Picadero, Dumont, Nun, El excéntrico de la 18, Apacheta… there are thousands, luckily Buenos Aires is rich in theatre and music.
Q: How do you see culture today?
RC: As artists we are a part of culture. Horacio González says that culture is what is in the folds of memory, or according to Foucault, culture is the insurrection of knowledge that has been subjugated, it is everything that is secret and how, the look, how we want to live, how we want to be cured, how we expect our politics to be, football is also culture, it is art, it is just one part.
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.
