02/04/2011 |
By Victoria Eandi
For the Herald
Where does the mind of a woman fly when she is lonely? Maybe much farther away than what a man could imagine. She might create a whole parallel world, a world full of impossible images and nonsensical characters.
Two plays of the bulky and promising 2011 theatre season revolve around the mind of women and its loops in a very creative and original way: Solo lo frágil by Paula Ransenberg and Luciana Dulitzky, and Quién sabe Marta by Francisca Ure. Both of them are already in their second season, but now they are being staged at bigger spaces than last year: Timbre 4 (internationally renowned director Claudio Tolcachir’s theatre) and Teatro del Abasto.
LOOK AT ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE. Solo lo frágil, as the word “solo” in the title suggests, is a one-woman show performed by Paula Ransenberg and directed by Luciana Dulitzky. Through an impeccable work, Ransenberg plays five completely deranged characters, most of them women: an old male soldier, the skeleton of a woman, an old lady, a geisha and a black witch. The transformations happen on stage, presenting a woman who unfolds in many facets, all linked by an invisible line loneliness and the need to love and be loved. Even the military man could be a reference to the authoritarian and manly side of women.
In each case, the characters invent absurd or strange universes to survive. The former general of the army, who is in hospital, revives the old times recreating battles with syringes, drips and blisters, as if they were soldiers, searching for a more praiseworthy and heroic way of dying. The skeleton-woman who lives in the bottom of a fish tank in an aquarium tries to make friends with fish or remembers her “life” in the sea, trying to escape boredom. The old lady keeps a very strange relationship with a doll that helps her talk about loneliness, love and time. This scene has one of the most beautiful and melancholic moments of the piece, when she begins to play Somewhere over the rainbow bowing a musical saw as if it were a violin. On the other hand, the geisha describes all the sacrifice and pain in the lives of these Japanese women. She yearns for an old love, while she dances a choreography saying: “Stab the body and it will heal, but hurt the heart and the wound will keep bleeding your whole life.” Her story seems heartbreaking, but she can momentarily evade it by talking about hair arrangements made of coral. And finally, the witch is an African-American woman (in fact, this scene is spoken in English) who is usually visited by people with problems seeking help, but this time she goes to church and has a hilarious chat with Virgin Mary and Saint Francis, imagining a universe where she can just have a friendly and earthly conversation with a blonde woman with a baby and a handsome man with a lamb.
One of the many assets of the play — whose small creative team also includes Federico Ransenberg as lights and set designer and Emilio Álvarez as sound designer — are the fluid changes from one character and scene to the next. Besides, through very few objects or props, many dramatic and poetic solutions are achieved, like the handsaw that turns into a violin or the doll that contains the make-up of the geisha.
Solo lo frágil deals with what is left after crises, breakdowns, tragic moments in anyone’s life: as the press release states. “what lies beneath any determination to survive, any resistance, any cynicism and any concealment.” Just the fragility of people, and the condition of being alone in the world, especially from a female perspective.
WHEN SEVEN EQUALS ONE. These same aspects are also present in Quién sabe Marta, written and directed by Francisca Ure, daughter of the famous theatre director Alberto Ure. But as if it were an inverted mirror of Solo lo frágil, this play has one character, the Marta in the title, who is unfolded in many facets played by seven remarkable actresses: Laura Aneyva, Cinthia Guerra, Clarisa Hernández, Nadia Marchione, Luciana Sanz, Florencia Savtchouk and Sol Tester.
Deeply influenced by the universe of Lewis Carroll and his Alice, Quién sabe Marta explores the way women approach love and experience loneliness through surrealistic images and playful situations. Even if the play has for moments a gloomy tone filled with existentialist reflections, the overall sensation is that of hope and eagerness to move forward. And one of the many reasons for this is the presence of beautiful songs (the remarkable selection goes from Talking Heads to Mary Poppins, from UB40 to the Ramones) and spirited choreographies (accompanied by suggestive video images projected on a wall screen, designed and directed by Martín Berra, with Dalmiro Zantleifer in charge of the animations) interspersed along the play. The videos have their own leading role, so much so that Marta is introduced through a clip of her walking in the city.
Quién sabe Marta is absolutely choral and each actress has its own moment, with one scene dedicated to each feature of Marta, “a woman who seems to be the distillation of the best and the worst of every women,” as the press release says. These Martas share certain traits (they all wear enormous glasses, caps, knee-high socks and carry a small chair or a tiny stool) and they are all dreamy girls: they develop an imaginary world where they feel protected and comfortable, especially regarding men and everyday relationships. In this universe, they are free to fall in love, be passionate, get mad with everyone, be sad or happy. They may feel like a fish or a bird, like the hurried White Rabbit or the Queen of Hearts of Alice in Wonderland, like a singer, like a guerrillera or a greengrocer, but they are always truly endearing.
Quién sabe Marta is full of great moments, but the beginning of the piece, when Marta has an interview for a job, is worth highlighting. It is a clerical job in a typical office where she clearly does not fit, but she gets it anyway. In this dynamic and witty scene (as in others), all seven Martas meet in one situation and synchronize their answers, the perfect example of the one character split into seven actresses concept. Also worthy of mention are the unexpected reaction of “Bird” Marta when she realizes she has fallen in love with some guy from the office, or how “Fish” Marta suddenly starts dancing when she feels under a lot of pressure. In these cases, the costume design by Sol Soto (also in charge of the set) and the light design by Omar Possemato really shine.
Marta is cast out of pre-established standards she shows herself authentically as she is, avoiding simulations and generating great empathy with viewers. Quién sabe Marta like Sólo lo frágil deal with fragility and vulnerability and how people (especially women) try or manage to feel happy in spite of being alone. Indeed, the piece does not lack humour and has an optimistic ending that shows a transformation in these Martas, who decide, showing great strength and courage, to leave their old life behind and face a new journey, which lies in finding the Marta they want to be and to assert her (their?) own unified self.
Sólo lo frágil and Quién sabe Marta also share the quality of being surprising and unpredictable. Leaving aside fashions or standards already set in BA’s independent theatre circuit, their creators really dive in what playing and dreaming means, somehow going back to childhood games. As the older sister says in the ending of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, also Alice “would in the after-time, be herself a grown woman”. She envisions “how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own childlife, and the happy summer days.”
Where & when
Quién sabe Marta: Wed 9pm at Teatro del Abasto (Humahuaca 3549). $35.
Sólo lo frágil: Sat 12am, Sun 6pm at Timbre 4 (Av. Boedo 640). $40.
