On the Buenos Aires billboard there are two works that bear his name in the “direction” category. One is Knock Knock, which has already been on the bill for 13 yearsnow in the Multiteatro Comafi and, the other, is the goddess of fortune, in the Astros. But at 88, Lía Jelín is not satisfied: “I would do more things, but the producers don’t give me a ball”, He says.
Unstoppable, energetic, long-winded and funny, she clarifies: “I have many ideas, many projects waiting, looking for spaces”, I count. “Indeed, The goddess… It took me a year of looking for a producer and adaptation work with the author Víctor Winer”.
Jelín, a dancer and choreographer by training, has a career in which nothing is missing: worked in television with Tato Bores, among others; in dance he did it with Oscar Araiz and, in theater, with Jaime Kogan, at the Teatro San Martín. That, among many stalls, trips and projects. Because if Lía doesn’t do something, she gets bored and even less does she stay put.
Although he directed everything (among others, Confessions of women over 30, Aryntains, Monologues of the vagina Y the closet), over many decades, the last works have been comedies, a genre in which he is at ease, even if political correctness has not played in his favor lately.
“I think there’s a little bit of hype with the subject today, and for comedy, you need a dose of mischief,” he says. “Those boundaries have become thinner because the codes are changing. And the fun of comedy is grabbing at each other’s weaknesses.”
As an example, the director recalls the comment someone made to her, saying that she was perverted because she had chosen an actor because he was “ugly”, “These are nonsense, I chose him, of course, because I consider him talented “.
In the recently presented work, Ana María Cores plays a seemingly “normal” mother who one day decides to confess to her son who she really is. But in between appears the question of compulsive gambling and, on the other, the need to love and be loved. The cast is completed by Juan Paya, Marcelo Sein, Manu Biaggini and Fernando Lupiz.
“In this play, the theme of blows also somehow appears. But the most interesting thing about this work is that it is not linear, but rather that it takes several turns of the ram and this makes it unpredictable. I liked it for that ” , he says. ‘Besides, I looked for the truth, as always, in both a comedy and a drama.’
Moreover, the impressive success of Knock Knockaccording to Jelín, “maybe it’s due to the fact that I’ve never worked on it as a comedy. I have always looked for anguish, pain, fear. But what happens in comedy is that, before a moment of pain, a joke immediately follows, and so on throughout the text,” she explains.
The successful French comedy Laurent Baffie is about the encounter of six characters suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who coincide in their psychiatrist’s office. The show has survived several casts, during these 13 years and the current one, at the Comafi Multiteatro, is directed by Ernesto Claudio and Diego Pérez.
“In theater there is no acting. It is not about do of, because that’s where you see the threads, it’s about really doing,” says the director. “I believe that on stage what matters is”I feel, therefore I exist‘ because it’s all emotion.” And he adds: “That’s why, even if it seems the opposite, doing comedy is the most difficult thing”.
The Lia method
With more than fifty years of artistic creation, Lía says yes found a very personal way of working. “If the work moves me or has something to say or if it has to do with me, I take it. I trust my unconscious that, after so many years of analysis, something knows more than me.” And he goes on to explain: “Then I pass it on to the actors so they can learn it and internalize it like the Lord’s Prayer.”
Good results also have to do with how you work. “From there, we started to see the expressive possibilities that scenes have, and we tried them with different types of music or with objects. The goal, in rehearsals, is to go deep inside each one, to be able to say the words without having to think about them, but to live them”.
This passion for the theater explains, in part, the flame that keeps the director alive and active. “Theater has been around since time immemorial since speech began much later and the body was and is the most primitive form of expression, from love to hate, from pain to joy.“, I count.
“And although the millennial and different religions have tried with every means and form to repress the vital force of the body and the modifications of the gestural expression, in different times, the emotion that crosses the body and then passes into the word, is always alive”, he specifies.
For this reason, for Jelín, there is no way to dethrone the theater of artistic expression. “I always argue that there is no representation or performance, but that the hour and a half you spend in the theater is a parallel reality that has the very strength of life”.
And he concludes: “Theatre is something so elusive that many find it difficult to understand it precisely. You can’t kiss for a screen and the theater lets you, because he’s flesh, and that makes him irreplaceable.”
According to the director, his motivation to continue working, at 88, is part of his personality. “It comes from life, from art, from desire, it’s something natural. I’m not always in a good mood, but when I get down, watch TV, I try to distract myself.“. And so new ideas and desire appear.
With his name on the canopies, he stands out: “I never thought I’d be in Corrientes street, and with two operas, but it’s something that happened and I’m happy.”
the goddess of fortune has performances on Saturdays and Sundays at the Astros Theater (Av. Corrientes 746), e Knock Knockat the Multiteatro Comafi (Av. Corrientes 1283), from Wednesday to Sunday.
Source: Clarin
