2024-05-07 21:57:41
Jorge Luis Borges said, referring to Macedonio Fernández – whom he claimed to have plagiarized with devotion – that he felt “the happiness of knowing that in a house in Morón or El Once there was a magical man.” Thus he evoked the elusive writer who was difficult to pigeonhole, close to philosophy, science, humor and verbal games. An author who refused to be edited, committed to creating an eternal novel. Work written by Enrique Papatino, Macedonian is being presented at Payro Theater (San Martín 966), under the direction of Enrique Dacal. Jorge Capussotti, Marcelo Sánchez and Beatriz Dos Santos perform. The original music is by Pablo Dacal, the scenery and costumes by Julieta Capece.
Not a year goes by without Dacal directing at least one show. And although he has already premiered many authors (Jorge Palant and Adriana Tursi were the last two) he has a special predilection for Papatino, of whom he has already done ten works. “There is something symbiotic between his work and mine,” explains the director in the interview with Page 12and adds: “This is one of his most stripped down and beautiful texts.”
Far from being offered as based on the biography of the author of Welcome Papers, playwright and director set out to build an “oral Macedonian”. However, the Macedonian is present who, after the death of his wife Elena de Obieta, leaves his children in the care of grandmothers and uncles to reside temporarily in boarding houses and country houses, with the firm intention of going unnoticed. In the work, the author’s character cannot prevent a writer who admires him from visiting him to convince him to publish his texts. For her part, the owner of the pension will play a decisive role.
Something that Papatino warns about the character in his work is that the idea of a writer who does not value the written word and who “inclines toward perplexities without apparent aesthetic direction” is mysterious. It will be Gómez, his visitor, who lets the viewers begin to perceive who this unique subject is. The acting record was worked, according to the director, by watching national cinema, “where you can see a performance very close to the technical issues of another era,” as he details, in reference to the sound system, which was conditioned by the high or low microphones, voices and postures of the actors.
-What is this “oral Macedonian” like?
-It was built between what was said about him and what he himself said or wrote. It is a mix between what his life was like, or what is known about it. And of his lying, because he was a great liar. He liked that halo of mystery and eccentricity that he had created about himself. The work does not have literal texts from him, but rather paraphrases them. And take all his obsessions about the poetic world, eternal love, the moon.
-The character in the play says he hates books…
-Yes, the real Macedonian did not say that, but that statement has to do with the neglect of his own work, not wanting to edit it. Because it is true that many of his texts were recovered from among the things that he left in the closets of the boarding houses where he lived.
-What characteristics does the character have that is trying to convince you to publish?
-Gómez is a character that reveals the personality of this Macedonian. He is a salami, an ingenue in which I saw the characters that Sandrini or Pablo Palitos played in the movies.
-And Nicolasa, the landlady?
-With it a very strong communion is produced. If with Gómez the background of the elements of his personality is known, with Nicolasa everything comes into play. Macedonio’s life takes place through his dream machine. For him, the idealization of love is more important than love itself. Reading his work and knowing his anecdotes, it is difficult to think that Macedonio believed in love forever. But this was what gave personality to his work.
The actual situation
Dacal says about theater and the current moment: “Above or near a stage is where the important things in my life happen and have happened, since I was 19 years old. It’s where I can think about something that can transcend me. As for what others are releasing, luckily they invite me, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to go due to the price of the tickets. Those of us who do theater are producing something that we cannot consume. We are like the bricklayers Brecht spoke of, who could never inhabit the buildings they were constructing. Over the years that I have, I have lived many moments in which my elders or I myself could think of a transformation. But now that the extreme right is coming from the polls, it is very difficult for me, at my age, to have hope for change.”
*Macedonio, Teatro Payró (San Martín 766), Friday 8 p.m.