And finally the big night has arrived. Juan José Campanella and his partners gave themselves the pleasure to cut the ribbon and usher in the Politeama Theater, with dozens of members of the artistic community in the audience (actors, directors, producers, journalists) and a special guest – “almost my aunt”, as director of The secret in their eyes-: Ms Mirtha Legrand.

About what in 1958 it became a free lot in the center of Buenos Aires, the winning Argentine director by an Oscar Juan José Campanella has once again built a theater that was officially inaugurated on the night of Tuesday 21 June, with the desire to be a meeting place after the pandemic.

Actors Luis Brandoni, Mauricio Dayub, Lizy Tagliani, Roberto Moldavsky, Oski Guzmanentrepreneurs Carlos Rottemberg and Gustavo Yankelevich (responsible for the first staging of the Politeama, the comedy La Verdad), the Minister of Culture of the Municipality Enrique Avogadro and many other representatives of the artistic world attended the ribbon cutting with which the legendary hall was inaugurated.

Of course, they took the ticket and the applause Mirtha Legrand, young 95 years oldwho arrived with his daughter Marcela Tinayre to enjoy the theater and the staging The truth.

pure history of the city

Intended to be released in 2020, the Politeama theater was trapped in the long confinement due to the covid that Argentina suffered. But two years later, Campanella aspires to insert himself more vigorously into the theatrical circuit that surrounds him in the famous via Corrientes.

The theater was initially inaugurated in 1879, in the presence of Domingo Faustino Sarmientothe hero who had already been President of the Republic and then Senator for the province of San Juan.

Among those who lived in the room (“their ghosts, who are among us”, Campanella revived) there are artists like the brothers Armando and Enrique Santos Discépolo, Narciso Ibañez Menta -who directed us dirty handsof Sartre, in which the famous Alfredo Alcon– Y Tita Merello (Mirtha Legrand recalled Campanella as she gave the keynote address).

And also the popular comedian Pablo Palitos, who had in the room two representatives of his family, now actresses: his daughter Graciela Pal and his niece Manuela Pal.

Campanella’s desire

“It seems to me that after the pandemic, and especially the quarantine, people need to meet again, go back to the activities of the community in which we are with others. I need it and I think many do too, “Campanella said.

Alongside the seats, Campanella emphasized that, unlike the cinema, the theater “is recovering all over the world”.

“Maybe because in the theater you don’t just meet with the public, but you also meet with the actors. We are all part of this and it is like a celebration that feels much more joyfulmuch happier because even the act we came to see is in person with us “, he explained.

Buenos Aires offers dozens of operas both in the large Corrientes Street theaters and in the smaller alternative theaters, which work at full capacity. It is, without a doubt, a theatrical city.

Campanella, 62 years old won the Oscar in 2010 from The secret in their eyesThat it also earned him a Goya Award. In his filmography they are also highlighted The son of the bride, The fable of the weasels and the animated film foosball table. On television in the United States, he has directed episodes of the series doctor house Y Law and orderMoreover.

But he believes that theater is inseparable from his being.

“It is very difficult to say what the place of theater is in my life and what the place of cinema is. Because it’s like saying my mother’s place and my son’s place, or my wife’s and my brother’s. Each of them occupies 100% of the placer. They are like gas, not like bodies, they mix and take up all the space, “he says.

The target

Campanella intends to realize this union in this new room of the Politeama, with capacity for 705 spectators and which will also be used for the screening of films.

“We hope that this theater, in addition to being the place where you come to see a certain performance, transforms the same room into a place you want to go to,” he says.

The theater, whose original name Politeama has been kept, is one of the oldest in the city of Buenos Aires. Created in 1879, it was demolished in 1958, but its destruction caused such rejection that a law was enacted requiring the reconstruction of a theaterand nothing else, in the place where there was one, explains Campanella.

“Politeama is a type of theater in which there were many disciplines. They were theaters that could change configuration. In this, in the original, the seats were raised and it was a ballroom, you could have a circus … All that was the policeman, because he had many forms, “he says.

“We also want to do many disciplines. It will not be different in form, but there will be a screen, there will be a cinema, some of the poly prefix will continue to be validated,” he adds.

On stage Campanella stood out for his adaptation and direction Lezama Parkwork by Herb Gardner who, in addition to presenting in Argentina, brought to Spain in 2019, with Luis Brandoni and Eduardo Blanco, a great friend of the director and also present at the reopening of the theater.

But the emotion of the new theater does not make him forget what he calls his “most terrible fear”: that the cinema and its theaters have been left behind.

“Sometimes in my worst fears because I’m a movie person, sometimes I say What if cinema were a 20th century thing, that technological advances made people prefer to watch it at home?“He wonders.

“It’s a fear I have. I hope people come back, but the production systems are already reacting so that that doesn’t happen. Films that aren’t big deeds or superheroes, presumably big shows, have a very short window. programmed to appear on television at the same time as the cinema, so they make it difficult for the public, ”complains Campanella.

Work and more guests

to the function of The truth (directed by Ciro Zorzoli and protagonist Tomás Fonzi, Candela Vetrano, Mery del Cerro and Agustín Cachete Sierra) also attended by actors such as Darío Barassi, Pachu Peña, Emilia Attias, el Turco Naim, Gustavo Luppi and even the technical director of Boca Juniors, Sebastián Battaglia. Everything is ready to celebrate what was an unforgettable night for the Argentine theater.

Source: AFP / Nina Negron

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