2024-07-19 03:41:25
The story of Camila Peraltathe actress who shines in softis the fable of the “little girl’s dream.” She arrived in the city of Buenos Aires at the age of 17, from Balcarce, without ever having seen a play but quite aware that she wanted to be an actress, and now, at 32, she lives a present of recognition with her first one-man showin which she plays the role of a single mother, a sex worker who provides pleasure to terminally ill patients in a hospital and appears to have extraordinary powers. A character full of tenderness and mutations that turns the theatre into a magical ritual and has won over the public. The show, written and directed by Martin Bontempois presented in Faces and masks (Sarmiento 2037) Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm.
It may not seem like it now, but Camila was a shy girl. She didn’t go to birthday parties and anything would make her blush. She was “ashamed to exist.” But in front of her friends and family she transformed: “she was always acting.” “When I was a kid I was very good with accents. The shows I did at home were imitating commercials”he recalls. Neither at home nor in his city was there any theatre in the air – there weren’t even workshops in Balcarce – he had never seen a play, but he already knew what he wanted to do. Now he thinks that Cha Cha Cha y All for two pesoswhich made her parents laugh in the living room, and the versatility of Juana Molina, were nourishing a desire of mysterious origin. “When my parents come to see me and I see them crying with laughter, I get this feeling: ‘I’m doing what you guys enjoyed doing.‘”, dice.
At one point, a friend’s sister started studying film in La Plata, and since she had no idea that acting could be a career, she came to Buenos Aires to study the same thing. She was studying directing at UNA, but of course, the only thing she was looking forward to were the exercises in which she could act in front of the camera.
Installed in CABA, August –where Norma Aleandro and Mercedes Morán performed – was the first show she saw – “you had to see the famous people.” She didn’t know any names, or venues, and she had no contacts. While studying film, near her house she discovered a place where they taught theater. It was called El Halcón Perlegrino, where she attended Ignacio Bresso’s workshop. As an actress she also trained with Valentina Fernández de Rosa and took some classes with Cristina Banegas; and she studied direction at the Escuela Metropolitana de Arte Dramático. This whole unique path was polishing an actress who was also very unique.. The accents replicated from the TV led to a certain interest in voice and ways of speaking; the laughter of parents delighting in comedy, in a leaning towards humor. Both things are clearly noticeable in softwhich earned him a Trinidad Guevara award in the best newcomer category.
Before this work – which premiered last year in Nün and will move to the Metropolitan from August 13 – and among many other works off the set, Peralta acted in another work also written and directed by Bontempo, called On the skin. The person who is currently her representative saw her in that piece and she started getting jobs in the world. audiovisual. Today her career is divided between that field – she could be seen, for example, in Palermo Division, Planners y Protagonistsamong others- and the theater. He comes from starring Clara gets lost in the forestdirected by Camila Fabbri, based on her book The day they turned off the lightand is part of the cast of In the mudspin off of The marginal (see box). He is also part of the cast of Adulto, directed by Mariano González, which recently won the Jury Prize at the Shanghai Film Festival. In theatre, several plays he has already worked on will soon be back: The captivesby Mariano Tenconi Blanco, and The fearsby Alejandro Gigena, will be re-released in August; while One shot each, Directed by Consuelo Iturraspe and Laura Sbdar, authors together with Mariana de la Mata, it will return in September.
-How are you taking the phenomenon that is happening with soft?
-It’s a feeling… it’s strange. It’s one of great joy and happiness. How can I explain it? We try to keep it down all the time with Martín… it’s almost unbelievable. We’ve been doing theatre for a long time and it’s never happened to us before. It could happen that a play would do a little better, but so suddenly… we opened last year and already after the second performance we started to have four performances sold out, then eight. We didn’t have to make the effort to bring people to the theatre, to tell friends and family to please come. It was crazy.
-Do you think what happens with the public is inexplicable?
-I think about all the elements that led to what happened and I can see them a little: the theme that the play touches on, which is not so common, can have an appeal. An actress doing a one-woman show… at least it appeals to me because I like to see acting. You know you’re going to see a person showing you a super big fan or holding a piece of art. Also, mythology, the pagan saint, is something that runs through us in Argentina, whether we like it or not. Not only are Gauchito Gil or Difunta Correa everywhere, but this also runs through many economic realities. One thinks that popular saints are linked to poverty, humility or marginality, but at the end of the day, When people who have a lot of money do not have a medical solution for something, they end up turning to faith.
-You have said that the text had an impact on you when you first read it. What attracted you so much?
-I couldn’t put into words what had happened to me when I read it. I couldn’t say “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” I read the play and sent messages to Martín crying. I usually end up saying yes to projects because I like the directors or actors I’m with, but that rarely happens to me with the text. I trusted that this was happening to me; I didn’t understand why it was generating all these things in me. And then what surprised me was the comical part that we found. At first, that wasn’t in the text, there was more of the poetic and the situations that the character was going through. In the rehearsal process we found the comical part of this terrible situation. comedy within discomfortIt was quite a surprise. I had been doing funnier things, comedy, and I thought it was going to be the first time I was going to do a one-woman show, and on top of that it was a drama… the description in the text said that Suavecita was an exuberant and well-built woman. Then we found this other one that I suggested – more timid, shy, nervous – because I felt that she was better suited to playing the other characters, and the comedy started to appear.
-It’s amazing to work with your voice and body; the transformations of genres that you experience. What does acting mean to you?
-For me it was always a game. I really think it’s the same thing I did when I was a kid. Back then I was very good with accents. The shows I did at home were imitating commercials. There was one that was by a Colombian, I imitated that. My creation of the game and character came, at first, from the voice. And then that voice takes over my body, whether I want it to or not, I don’t know why, I don’t think about it too much but that happens to me. If I put on a voice, my body changes. I started out as a kid trying out different voices, composing the characters. The voice, the way of speaking, the words place me somewhere. Even if I’m very small, a catchphrase, a little thing is already a diversion for me.
-The issue of sex work is a controversial topic in feminism. How did you work on it?
-It was super important to see how we told that. Last year I was fortunate to do One and a thousand?by Jimena del Pozo Peñalva, where I met a lot of girls who were not actresses, including a sex worker. It was important to be in contact with her. There was a debate in the group about this. I ended up adopting a position: although I find some things very difficult that I don’t understand, in principle if a woman tells me that she made the decision to work with her body I respect it and I think that there should be a regulation of the way of working. In the play, although Suavecita is in a vulnerable situation, under the power of a guy, she had previously made the decision to be a prostitute, which allows her to support her daughter.
Life in a women’s prison
Camila talks to Page 12 during a break from filming In the mud, spin off of The marginal which will portray life in a women’s prison, a new production by Netflix with performances by Rita Cortese, Lorena Vega, Marcelo Subiotto, Gerardo Romano and Cecilia Rosetto. “I think it will come out next year. This year we have filming until December,” she says. “I play a character called Solita, who is a firefighter, she enters through a not so clear situation and is like a rookie in prison, with another small group that enters with her,” she anticipates. Every day she films in Villa Lynch, in a “spectacular prison” built for the occasion.
“Luckily I can combine theatre and audiovisuals. A few years ago I was dying to make audiovisuals, I started doing a couple of things and, although I liked it, I felt like I was in another hole. It’s a learning process. It’s not like in the theatre where you go in and in an hour you get into a character and you leave. Here it’s cut, back, cut, back, repeat, it’s not so much rehearsal. A very different world. Now I’m fascinated by it as much as doing theatre and I have fun in both places,” he concludes.