“Today living an experience is highly valued and is an invitation to leave traditional theater. In this show it’s walking into this bar and finding out what’s going on. As if you went to a bar and could breathe out and listen to other tables with their particular stories,” says Mechi Bove, author and director of “Bar Stories”, a theatrical proposal that combines art and gastronomy.
With performances by Luciano Heredia, Gabriela Groppa, Niko Fran, Erica Zaza, Alberto Rojas Apel, Mica Zappala and Javier Mirez, The show seeks to offer theater outside the “box” in a relaxed environment and in the middle of Corrientes Street. It can be seen on Saturdays at the Multiescena Theater. We talk with Bove.
Journalist: In what sense is the proposal immersive and multisensory?
Mechi Bove: Instead of entering a theater, people enter a room converted into a bar, the action happens in the bar, the different tables, the audience, people enjoy a snack, they can order a drink and there is a host who welcomes them. the spectators and makes them part of that bar. It is a fictional bar called “The Secret” and it is consumed while the different stories happen. Like when you go to a bar and are at your table telling your story and at the other tables there are a multiplicity of different worlds. The same thing happens here but with the observer’s eye as integrated and crossed by him. The actors move around the tables. There is music, everything happens at the same time, each scene with very characteristic music. It is not traditional theater with the actor on stage and the spectator distanced, you are sitting there and you have the actor dancing and acting next to you.
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Q: How is food designed to combine with fiction?
MB: We thought of a snack proposal because it is fun, light, where you use your hands, you don’t have to pay as much attention as if it were a meat and potatoes that requires being attentive to cut and not get dirty, here the spectator drinks a beer, eats the chopped and let himself be soaked by the other things that happen in the bar. It was finding the balance, it is not a dinner with actors, it is tasting while watching theater, which is not something traditional.
Q: What stories are told?
MB: Of love, heartbreak, revenge, reunions, friends, broken hearts. You go through many emotions, the stories make you laugh, there are moments of tension, absurdities, moments that touch emotional fibers but suddenly break with humor. It was written to convey many emotions in an hour and twenty but they are not classic stories, they all have a twist and what they have in common is that each story keeps a secret. Everything comes to light through our host who not only welcomes people at the bar but ends up being a key character that we all have in our lives, destiny.
Q: Were you inspired by Microteatro, which has gastronomy and theater?
M.B.: I did a lot of Microtheater but there the dynamic is different because you consume something at the bar and at most you take the drink with you. Here you do everything at the same time, you eat, you are served, the host is talking, it is 360, immersive, it is not a small room, it is very large, everything happens at the same time, you are not a spectator, you are part of that bar. I based it on an old idea, I am a fan of the musical “Cabaret” and the times it has been done with little tables, there is something about the little table and the spectator that seemed innovative to me on Corrientes Street.
Q: Are you targeting a broader audience than the theater?
MB: There is an audience for everything, it is aimed at anyone who wants to live an experience, there are many people who do not go to the theater, do not consume theater because they are not used to it, or do not know the traditional one, and here it is another code. It is participatory theater because our host talks to the different tables, the actors talk to the people, but they are not exposed nor do they have to stand but they are part of what is happening.
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Q: How do you see theater and culture?
MB: Argentina has always been a fruitful country on a cultural and theatrical level, we are one of the largest squares in the world, there are more than 300 theaters, there is no economic crisis or pandemic that prevents art from being there. Many things were done virtually during the pandemic, we went through worse economic and political crises but there is always theater somewhere. It is a country that needs to breathe art in all its forms, football and art. We resist, we fight, we make independent and commercial theater, putting in a lot of money that we don’t know if it will be recovered. The number of works is endless, there are more and more Argentine authors who are present, in five years the crop of young authors grew. There are discount offers and people go to the theater because it is an oasis.
Source: Ambito

I am Pierce Boyd, a driven and ambitious professional working in the news industry. I have been writing for 24 Hours Worlds for over five years, specializing in sports section coverage. During my tenure at the publication, I have built an impressive portfolio of articles that has earned me a reputation as an experienced journalist and content creator.