Two years without the director Agustín Alezzo, master of actors

Actor, director and above all acting teacher, Agustín AlezzoIt was one of the great references of the national theater. This Saturday marks two years since his death, which occurred on July 9, 2020, at the age of 84. Alezzo had been hospitalized for a photo of the coronavirus.

During his long career Alezzo has directed more than 70 plays, including The Witches of Salemwith Alfredo Alcón and Leonor Manso; I am my womanwith Julio Chavez; wolf romancealso with Alcon; master classwith Norma Aleandro; the cherry tree with Maria Rosa Gallo and Roberto Carnaghi, and Jettaro!by Gregorio di Laferrere.

Trainer of great actors and actresses, Alezzo has always been synonymous with prestige in the trade and among those who have passed through his school are Julio Chávez, Jorge Marrale, Alicia Bruzzo, Muriel Santa Ana, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Paola Krum, Oscar Martínez, and many others.

a great vocation

Born on August 15, 1935, his first contact with the theater dates back to the age of three, hand in hand with his mother who took him to see a show. Since it was a text for adults, he thought that little Agustín would understand nothing. However, for Alezzo that experience left a mark that will mark him forever.

“I was very impressed and got the images of that show. I was totally fascinated by it,” he said many years later.

Educated by French priests, Alezzo did not know his father, who died very young, two months before his birth.. That’s why he was raised by his mother and godparents, who were the ones who instilled in him his love for the theater. Following family mandates, he studied law for three years but in the end he left the world of law to be an actor.

Subsequently, in 1972, he left acting to devote himself to directing and teaching theater. “Directing is an extraordinary task because it means creating a world on stage. And teaching means following the growth of a person, which is also something extraordinary,” she said.

Alezzo He recounted how proud he was to see those who had passed through his school as teenagers shine. “I have known Leonardo Sbaraglia since he was 14. I have followed him all my life. I have also seen Emilia Mazer and Julio Chávez grow up, who was very young when he started with me,” he recalled.

The Stanislavskij method

He, the master par excellence, in turn, He was a pupil of Lee Strasberg and a disciple of Hedy Crilla, who has always defined his great referenceIn the 1950s he participated in the New Theater of Alejandra Boero and Pedro Asquin, he also joined the Juan Cristóbal Group, together with Carlos Gandolfo, and in the 1960s he was part of the La Máscara theater.

The teacher and director was one of those who introduced the famous Stanislavsky method in Argentine theater. “Stanislavski did not invent anything. He observed the great actors of his time to see what was happening to them,” he explained.

According to Alezzo, “the difference was, essentially, that they lived situations. The method is not rational because its starting point is sensitivity. There were actors who always did, beyond Stanislavski. Great actors are always been like this. “

For this he also clarified his way of teaching was simply to accompany. I don’t have a technique. I accompany a learning, I observe the difficulties and I try to teach them to be organic on stage, not to be false. May they not let themselves be won by the exhibition in front of others, “she said.

And he clarified: “The actor has only one tool which is his body and his partner, in some cases. That’s where he should focus his attention.“According to Alezzo, the key to a good performance is that the actor or actress move around the stage as they do in life.

Debut with Borges in the audience

Motivated by his teacher, Crilla, and his friend and colleague Augusto Fernandes, he made his directorial debut in 1968 with The lie, by Nathalie Sarraute. Did you ever remember, in an interview, that he never managed to recover the costumes for that play, of which he had also been a producer, from the dry cleaners, because the money from the tickets sold was not enough for him.

However, he had the best memory of that opera because, among the spectators, he had had a luxury one: Jorge Luis Borges. And that was part of the satisfaction of offering a job.

For some years Alezzo lived in Peru, where he worked as an actor, and on his return he fell ill with tuberculosis. “During the months I was in bed, I wrote a play for fun, but I didn’t like it at all. I never wrote again,” he said to explain why he stopped becoming a playwright.

In the 1970s he also directed several theatrical pieces in a television series; pieces by Henry James, Eugene O’Neill, Carlos Gorostiza, Noel Coward and Pedro Orgambide. Soon after, during the last military dictatorship he became part of the disastrous “black lists” of forbidden intellectuals.

It was then that he took refuge in his studio to teach and created the Repertorio group, with which he performed dozens of shows. Nonetheless, Alezzo decided not to go into exile to accompany his sick mother.

“I was an only child and being on a list scared me. But my obligation was to stay,” he said. “Fear is inevitable and if you live in it, you do nothing. Even with fear, you have to do things.”

With dozens of awards and recognitions, Alezzo also directed the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art and for years his El Duende school also served as an independent theater hall, which in 2017 had to close due to the economic crisis. However, when she was healed, she was once again at risk, due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, and had to receive external help.

tireless reader

Always known for his humility and simplicity, Alezzo declared himself a lover of jazz and literature. In his house all the walls were covered with books and those who knew him say that he never rested: there were no weekends or holidays.

Passionate about his business, he ate only to feed himself and smoked cigarettes. On the other hand, the aftermath of a stroke had left one foot immobilized.

His love of the theater had also made him an avid spectator. “I’ve seen it all. The great performers like Milagros de la Vega and Pedro López Lagar … I’ve seen him ten times in panorama from the bridgeby Arthur Miller, “he said.

Precisely, Miller along with Tennessee Williams and other English-speaking playwrights such as British Joe Orton and Edward Albee were among his favorites.. “I would never organize a fascist work or one with which I disagree with the subject it touches”, she assured.

Travel and other previews

In the 1970s he was invited to the United States by the State Department, following his work as a director The Witches of Salem. And in 1998 she also received an official invitation to go to Moscow for an event with those who worked with the Stanislavsky method.

Of that trip he recalled with particular enthusiasm the meeting with the English director Peter Brook, one of the most important of the contemporary scene who, for those things of fate, passed away this week at the age of 97.

“The theater has taught me to live, to know myself better,” said Alezzo. “Every play, every actor and every character brings you face to face with worlds you might not otherwise have known.with questions that I would not have asked myself by having a normal life “.

With dozens of works performed both in the official theater and in commercial and independent circuits, for Alezzo there was only one theater. “It’s good or bad, wherever it is. The only difference is that in professional theater you get paid. And in the other, you’re the one paying, “she said.

Here because, his passion did not distinguish between an audience full of audience or one with only a couple of spectators. “I’ve come to work with less than ten people in the room. But I’ve never felt like a failure. Failure would be to have done something I don’t like. And I’ve always done jobs that I liked because, in the end, for me, theater is always a journey of initiation“.

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