Renidero by Carlos Gimenez / Festival Latino Puts an Accent On Global Themes / By Nan Robertson, July 31, 1987, The New York Times

"The director is Carlos Gimenez, celebrated for 

his richly visual staging"

IT'S not Christmas yet, but a pinata filled with rich artistic gifts is about to burst on this city. The 11th Festival Latino in New York - the biggest Latin American cultural event in the United States and one of the most important showcases anywhere for Latin talent - begins tomorrow. Fifty thousand people attended the festival's events last year, and at least as many are expected this time.

It will run through Aug. 23, and will feature the best of Latin American, Spanish and Hispanic-American theater, films and music at the Public Theater on Lafayette Street, the open-air Delacorte Theater in Central Park and the Metro Cinema on upper Broadway. Joseph Papp of the New York Shakespeare Festival is producing the festival.

''This is not an ethnic festival,'' said the co-director, Cecilia Vega, in her office at the Public. ''This is an inter-theatrical event whose messages cross all borders.'' Mr. Papp described Ms. Vega, born in El Salvador, as the person ''who keeps the thing together.'' He called her ''the clear-headed and practical one'' who arranges visas, air tickets, hotel space and all other logistical matters for the several hundred Latin performers, crew, directors and producers coming here. Mr. Papp described her co-director and husband, Oscar Ciccone, as the ''dreamer'' who makes the esthetic decisions.

All seven stage presentations, most with simultaneous interpretations in English through headphones, will be at the Public. So will the Tribute to Argentine Cinema, with 21 feature-length movies spanning four decades of one of South America's most influential film centers. There will be a free concert at the Delacorte and a movie festival at the Metro with works from nine Latin American countries, all subtitled in English. Fifty hours of Spanish- and Portuguese-language television programs will be shown over Manhattan and Paragon Cable's Channel L. 

Leading off the Festival Latino this weekend is a modern classic of Latin American drama, Sergio De Cecco's ''Renidero'' (''Cockpit''), performed by La Comedia Cordobesa, which includes some of Argentina's most noted performers. The director is Carlos Gimenez, celebrated for his richly visual staging. Based on Sophocles' ''Electra,'' it was first performed in the early 1960's. It is a tale of uprooted, dueling gauchos threatened by industrialization, and is set in a turn-of-the-century slum in Buenos Aires. (In Spanish, tomorrow through Thursday at 8 P.M.; simultaneous English interpretation available at some performances.) 

'Political Farce' With Music Among the theatrical stars participating are Fernando Allende, Mexican heartthrob of movies, television and records, in his New York stage debut, and Norma Aleandro of Argentina, the heroine of ''The Official Story,'' which won the 1986 Academy Award for best foreign film. Mr. Allende, a Los Angeles resident who has appeared on the ''Miami Vice'' television series, will be the lead of Carlos Morton's comedy ''Pancho Diablo.'' He said it tells the story of how the Devil, fed up with an eternal bum rap in Hell, reappears as an undertaker on the border between the United States and Mexico. It was written, and will be performed entirely, in English. Mr. Morton, born in Chicago and now living in Laredo, Tex., ''five minutes from the Rio Grande,'' is a Chicano - a North American of Mexican descent. Mr. Allende sees ''Pancho Diablo'' as a ''political farce'' with music. He said, ''Everybody had to cross a big river to get to this country.'' He said the play describes the search, despite hunger and war, ''for that divine heart in all of us.'' Performances will be at 8 P.M. Wednesday through Aug. 9.

Ms. Aleandro, who scored in a one-woman show at the Festival Latino in 1986, will play the title role in ''The Senorita From Tacna,'' by Mario Vargas Llosa. She will appear with her nine-member company. She portrays Elvira, a spinster in her 90's, whose fantasies about herself and her family's past become the obsession of her grandnephew Belisario. Ms. Aleandro's acting last year in her one-woman program was so visually eloquent that one critic removed his English-spouting headset halfway through the show. ''Language,'' he wrote, ''almost did not matter.''

The play will be performed in Spanish, at the Public from Aug. 14 through Aug. 23 at 8 P.M. Simultaneous English interpretations will be available at the performances of Aug. 14-16. Classic Theater, Modern Film

The festival's other theatrical productions are Spain's Cuadra de Sevilla performing an adaptation of Euripedes' ''Bacchae,'' with Manuela Vargas, actress and dancer; Venezuela's Rajatabla Company in ''The Tragicomedy of Calisto and Malibea''; Chile's Taller Theater Two workshop in ''The Clowns of Hope,'' and Puerto Rico's female musical group Las Bohemias in ''Concerto in Hi-Fi,'' a re-creation of Las Damiselas, a true-life female band of the 1940's, with songs by Sylvia Rexach, one of Latin America's most beloved composers.

The new movies at the Metro Cinema include the winner of the best-film prize of the 1987 Latin American Film Awards: ''A Successful Man'' by Humberto Solas, a Cuban director. It will be shown Aug. 7 and 8 at 7:45 P.M. and Aug. 14 at 10 P.M.

The fourth annual free Concert for Peace and Friendship will be held at 8 P.M. Aug. 10 at the Delacorte, and will feature two stars of Latin America's ''New Song'' movement: Lucecita Benitez of Puerto Rico and Pablo Milanes of Cuba. Tickets are available only on the day of the concert.

Photo of Aristides Manira in ''El Renidero,'' which opens the three-week Festival Latino tomorrow night. (Oscar Gonzalez Aguirre); Photo shows, left to right, Ivonne Coll, Fernando Allende and Sully Diaz perform in Carlos Morton's play ''Pancho Diablo,'' beginning Aug. 5 at the Public. (Martha Swope Associates/Carol Rosegg) (Pg. C23).

By Nan Robertson

July 31, 1987

The New York Times

Source: The New York Times

Carlos Giménez and `El Coronel`: “Powerful Tale Of An Individual`s Struggle Emerges In `El Coronel`” / by Richard Christiansen, Chief critic, The Chicago Tribune, June 03, 1992

"For all that, it is not a glum or boring stage piece, thanks to the theatrical imagination of Carlos Gimenez, 

who adapted the 1957 novella and directed it for his company, Fundacion Rajatabla of Caracas. 

The overriding atmosphere of the production is that of a dream, a stylized panorama in which an angel 

of death, bearing an umbrella against the rain,  becomes a recurrent symbol."

``No One Writes to the Colonel,`` the Venezuelan production being presented here for the International Theatre Festival, opens with a crack of thunder, a swirl of rain, and a silent funeral procession marching solemnly across the stage.

In this highly ritualistic adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez`s novella, being staged through Sunday at the Steppenwolf Theatre, the sense of futility and dreariness in the backwater town of a remote, forsaken land is immediately established.

Even when the rain machine is not in action, there is an aura of dank, sweaty despair in the air. Rotting humidity seems to be everywhere as characters swat the mosquitoes that buzz around them and drench themselves in cold water in order to avoid the paralyzing heat.

The skeletal colonel of the title and his birdlike wife are two creatures on the verge of extinction, their bodies wracked with hunger and various ugly physical ailments. Their home is a hut of corrugated steel, their furnishings consist of little more than a hammock, a bed and a few rickety chairs.

Still in mourning over the death of their only son, killed while he was handing out political leaflets, the colonel and his wife are slowly starving to death. Down to his last few pesos, the colonel waits in vain for a pension promised to him 15 years ago for his services in the civil war. The only hope for him is to sell his son`s prize cockfighting rooster to the town`s diabetic, bloated political boss, but he is reluctant to part with the bird because it symbolizes a pride he does not want to sell off.

``El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escribe`` (its Spanish title) is an unusually dark and grim work by Garcia Marquez, Kafkaesque in its presentation of a nightmarish force that is strangling the helpless individual.

For all that, it is not a glum or boring stage piece, thanks to the theatrical imagination of Carlos Gimenez, who adapted the 1957 novella and directed it for his company, Fundacion Rajatabla of Caracas.

The overriding atmosphere of the production is that of a dream, a stylized panorama in which an angel of death, bearing an umbrella against the rain, becomes a recurrent symbol.

It`s a dream landscape, pierced by church bells and illuminated by bursts of lightning, that contracts and expands through the corrugated partitions that are silently swiveled about by the actors in order to enclose a room in the colonel`s home or open up the whole stage.

One doesn`t need a translation to appreciate the inventiveness of the staging, nor, for that matter, does one need to be a slave to the flat, simultaneous English translation of the Spanish dialogue that comes over the headsets handed out by the ushers.

The best strategy in absorbing this short, 90-minute work is to arrive a little early and spend a few minutes reading the synopsis printed in the program. With that general guideline in mind, one can follow the action without distraction.

The acting by the 15-member ensemble is well worth one`s attention.

Aura Rivas, as the colonel`s wife, is a small, stiff little thing, clucking over her troubles and pecking about the house in her misery.

Jose Tejera as the beleaguered colonel, on the other hand, is a scarecrow figure of battered dignity, his lean, grizzled face marked with a drooping mustache and his body clad in ill-fitting black suit and scuffed shoes.

When, at play`s end, he sinks slowly to the ground under the weight of his misery, he becomes, through the power of his physical presence, a figure of great sorrow and great endurance.

`EL CORONEL NO TIENE QUIEN LE ESCRIBE`

A play adapted by Carlos Gimenez from the novella by Gabriel Garcia Marquez;

directed by Gimenez, with scenery and costumes by Rafael Reyeros, lighting by Jose Jimenez and Reyeros, and music by Federico Ruiz. A production of Fundacion Rajatabla of Venezuela, presented by the International Theatre Festival of Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. Opened Tuesday and plays again at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Running time: 1:30. Tickets are $26 to $32, with discounts available for students and groups. Phone 312-644-3378.

THE CAST

Coronel                            Jose Tejera

Coronel`s wife                  Aura Rivas

Sabas                              Anibal Grunn

Post Office Employee       Francisco Alfaro

Doctor                                       Daniel Lopez

Lawyer                             Pedro Pineda

Alvaro                              Aitor Gaviria

German                           Erich Wilpret

Alfonso                             Jesus Araujo

Sabas` wife                      Pilar Romero

With Norman Santana, Gabriel Flores, Alejandro Faillace, Jose Sanchez, Rolando Jimenez.

Simultaneous translation by Jorge Busot.  

By Richard Christiansen

Chief critic

The Chicago Tribune

June 03, 1992|

Original Source: The Chicago Tribune

CARLOS GIMÉNEZ AND BOLIVAR: "RIAL'S 'BOLIVAR' AT THE FESTIVAL LATINO" By D.J.R. Bruckner, The New York Times, August 17, 1985

 And the direction by Mr. Gimenez, not to mention his painterly use of lighting, should tell anyone 

why this man, who is not yet 40 years old, is considered the greatest director in Venezuela.

''They will not remember my ideas,'' Simon Bolivar cries out at the moment of his elevation into a godlike hero, ''and there will not be a shadow of the truth left about me, but only a statue.'' The sorrow that washes over one at that moment in ''Bolivar,'' presented by the Fundacion Rajatabla of Caracas, Venezuela, at the Festival Latino in the Public Theater, is a tribute to the dramatic vison of its author, Jose Antonio Rial, and its director, Carlos Gimenez. Their command of the audience's emotions in this revolutionary play is complete.

That is ironic, given that the play is a searing indictment of all authority. The concept is simple. Guards in a modern Latin American prison order their political prisoners to enact a dramatization of Bolivar's life to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth in 1983. Inspired by a poet among them, they choose to depict not the Great Liberator in his glory but the sick Bolivar in his last days, in pain and tortured by doubt. ''What will history say of me?'' is an unnerving question from such a man. But it was in the minds of the prisoners, who put it in the mouth of the hero and the mouths of his friends and enemies, all of them questioning history and the reality behind it. Only a historian who appears at times to lecture everyone claims the authority to lead: ''The present must correct the past. You are to reduplicate the history I give you, and obey.'' But even he has to confess his authority derives only from power, announcing that ''order is here now, coming on black horses, surrounded by smoke and steel.''

But ''Bolivar'' is not just intellectual drama. As the prisoners' play proceeds and historical figures from the Spanish colonial past as well as from the turbulent present move in and out of it, the 18 episodes are punctuated by choruses sung to music reminiscent of passages in operas by Alberto Ginastera, the devotional music of Olivier Messaien and hymns of the Roman Catholic Church. At times the ragged jail uniforms of the prisoners are replaced by the armor of conquistadors, the regalia of viceroys and the billowing gowns of 19th-century socialites as the characters move among processions of candle bearers, altar boys swinging smoking incense pots and soldiers carrying huge flags brilliantly lit by horizontal shafts of light from the wings. The prisoners' play becomes a baroque oratorio.

The dramatic power of the religious symbolism saturating the play is enormous. Emerging out of the suffering of Bolivar is a vision of the passion of Jesus. The guards strip Bolivar naked, throw an old sheet over him like a cloak and throw dice at his feet while his historical enemies and competitors, ranked on benches like a panel of judges, fiercely hurl accusatory questions at him. As death approaches, his mistress, Manuela Saenz, washes his feet and wraps him in the sheet, like Jesus' shroud. Later, stripped and tortured herself, in a passionate recital of her love for Bolivar, she conjures up not only Mary Magdalene anointing Christ's feet, but the Virgin Mary holding her son's body.

Overall, ''Bolivar'' is a somber spectacle, but there are canny comic moments of political satire. Claims to virtuous authority by different officials tickle the audience. At one point an aged Manuela appears, reciting a litany of Bolivar's enemies and one realizes she is calling her dogs. And a little play within the play, in which three male prisoners dressed as rich women of Bolivar's time gossip about him, is hilarious.

Mr. Rial seems fond of plays within plays. The prisoners' play is a play within a play. And inside that, other little plays multiply until, like mirrored globes scattering light in a dance hall, they reflect the dramatist's ideas in so many directions it is impossible to catch them all. That is a weakness. In fact, the overall complexity of ''Bolivar'' is troubling. At several points, as characters from different eras confront one another, the viewer is left confused about the basic arguments of the play. And toward the end there is a series of repetitions of political arguments through successive moments of history that seem excessive. The complexity is probably greater than someone without Spanish can guess, since the playwright says he uses four levels of language. The Public supplied simultaneous translation through its infrared sound system, but no translation could convey that kind of subtlety.

The 19 actors of the Fundacion Rajatabla who perform this splendid theatrical spectacle are as disciplined, energetic and graceful a troupe as one is likely to see anywhere. Daniel Lopez as the poet, Pilar Romero as Manuela and Roberto Moll as Bolivar give performances that haunt the imagination. And the direction by Mr. Gimenez, not to mention his painterly use of lighting, should tell anyone why this man, who is not yet 40 years old, is considered the greatest director in Venezuela.

The Cast BOLIVAR, by Jose Antonio Rial; directed by Carlos Giménez; lighting by Mr. Gimenez; scenery and costumes by Silviainés Vallejo; production, Jose Tejera. Fundacion Rajatabla's production, presented by Joseph Papp. At Circle in the Square, 159 Bleecker Street.

Poet                                   Daniel Lopez

Samuel Robinson            Jose Tejera

Piar/Sucre                        Javier Zapata

Simon Bolivar                  Roberto Moll

Manuela Saenz                Pilar Romero

Mantuana                         Helena Naranjo

Mantuana                         Mira Parra

Woman soldier                Maria Elena Davila

Choir boys                       Luis Garban, Daniel Uribe and Juan Rodriguez

Choir boy/Mantuana       Jorge Luis Morales

The official/Bishop         Francisco Alfaro

The scholar                     Cosme Cortazar

Guards                             Pedro Pineda, Luis Malave, Anibal Grun and Robert Stoppello

Photo of a scene from ''Simon Bolivar'' (Miguel Gracia)

By D.J.R. Bruckner

The New York Times

 August 17, 1985

Source: The New York Times

Roberto Moll, PIlar Romero, María Brito

'Calisto,' (& Carlos Giménez) at the Festival Latino By D. J. R. Bruckner, The New York Times, New York, August 13, 1987

"the director, Carlos Gimenez, delivers a drama of such burning eroticism that it is hard to tell whether the smell of fire in the auditorium comes from braziers on stage or the bodies of the actors. Characteristically, Mr. Gimenez creates a spectacle with the sweep and chromatic grandeur of a Gericault painting and sends characters whirling across it in a mesmerizing dance, but without blurring the complex plot lines"

LUST, greed and deception pervert innocence in the 15th-century Spanish work of Fernando de Rojas usually called ''La Celestina,'' and turn the garden where two teen-agers meet and fall in love into what the girl's father calls ''a lagoon of slime, full of snakes.''

In an adaptation of it - under its original title, ''The Tragi-Comedy of Calisto and Melibea'' - given its world premiere by the Fundacion Rajatabla of Venezuela in the Festival Latino at the Public Theater, the director, Carlos Gimenez, delivers a drama of such burning eroticism that it is hard to tell whether the smell of fire in the auditorium comes from braziers on stage or the bodies of the actors. Characteristically, Mr. Gimenez creates a spectacle with the sweep and chromatic grandeur of a Gericault painting and sends characters whirling across it in a mesmerizing dance, but without blurring the complex plot lines. (The clear simultaneous translation provided helps a great deal in that respect.) Here the voluptuous Renaissance language of the original is often translated into action; what de Rojas's characters only described or dreamed, these do - as when the lovers speak of one another's beauty while each is being bathed and stroked by a servant. Even their eating and drinking are thrillingly sensuous.

It is all innocent until Celestina, the crone who brings Calisto and Melibea together, turns their love into a lust that lures the Devil from hell thirsting for flesh and souls. Alexander Milic makes this Celestina a kind of Juliet's nurse turned rapist, witch and bawd who corrupts the youths and inflames the greed of Calisto's servants into a murderous fury that engulfs them all in blood. From an uproariously comic figure in early scenes Mr. Milic transforms the woman into an evil presence more menacing than the greasy demon looming behind her.

The Rajatabla company, which has appeared in two previous years at the festival, seems more impressive each time it returns. Its members share not only the discipline of a fine ensemble, but a spirit that is entirely theatrical and wholly enchanting. 

Flammable THE TRAGI-COMEDY OF CALISTO AND MELIBEA, adapted by Manuel Sabido and Margarita Villasenor; based on ''La Celestina'' by Fernando de Rojas; directed by Carlos Gimenez; translated by Melia Bensussen; set and costume design by Rafael Reyeros; lighting by David Blanco; sound design by Eduardo Bolivar; artistic production, Armando Africano; executive producer for Rajatabla, Williams Lopez; assistant director, Robert Stoppello. Presented by Joseph Papp. At the Public Theater/LuEsther Hall, 425 Lafayette Street.

Celestina... Alexander Milic; Calisto... Javier Zapata; Melibea... Mariu Favaro; Sempronio... Anibal Grunn; Parmeno... Jorge Luis Morales; Elicia... Ylia Popesku; Areusa... Ana Gato; Lucrecia... Jose Tejera; Shadows... Karl Hoffman, Elio Palencio and Luis Garban; Pleberio... Cosme Cortazar and Francisco Alfaro; Musicians... Militza Nunez and Sergio Petrocelli.

By D. J. R. Bruckner

August 13, 1987 

The New York Times

Source: The New York Times

New York Shakespeare Festival: related television coverage (video recording) "The death of Garcia Lorca" directed by Carlos Gimenez, produced by Joseph Papp, New York, June 29, 1988

 

 

LA TEMPESTAD/ THE TEMPEST, de Shakespeare. Dirección e Iluminación: Carlos Giménez. Productor Joseph Papp. Festival Shakespeare de Nueva York, 2-4 octubre de 1991

.Natalia  Martínez, José Tejera.   Foto: Martha Swope.
Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

La Tempestad (The Tempest) 

Autor:  William Shakespeare

Director  Carlos Giménez

Una producción de Joseph Papp y The New York Shakespeare Festival, para el Festival Latino de Nueva York.

Adaptación:  Ugo Ulive
Escenografía: Marcelo Pont-Vergés y Augusto Gonzalez
Vestuario: Hugo Marquez, Marcelo Pont-Vergés y Augusto Gonzalez

Luces:  Trevor Brown /  Carlos Gimenez
Música Original:  Juan Carlos Nuñez
Sonido: Eduardo Bolivar
Producción Artística: Jorge Borges, Andres Vazquez y Gabriel Flores 
Director Técnico: Freddy Belisario
Productor Ejecutivo: William Lopez

Directores Festival Latino:  Oscar Ciccone y Cecilia Vega
 Productor Asociado: Jason Steven Cohen. 

Producido por  Joseph Papp, en asociación con The New York Telephone y con la cooperación de la ciudad de Nueva York.

Sala: Delacorte Theater (entrada por la calle 81 y Central Park West o la calle  79 y la Quinta Avenida) Central Park, New York


Elenco

José Tejera: Próspero
Natalia Martínez: Miranda
Jesús Araujo: Ferdinand
Cosme Cortázar: Trinculo
Aníbal Grunn: Estefano
Daniel Lopez: Caliban 

Erich Wildpret: Ariel

Rodolfo Villafranca: Boatswain/Spirit 

Norman Santana: Alonso 

Francisco Alfaro: Gonzalo 

Hugo Marquez: Sebastian 

Aitor Gaviria: Adrian 

Ramón Goliz y William Cuao: Black Spirit 

Ricardo Martinez y Hector Becerra: Young Spirits/Sailors 

Ismael Monagas y  Gregorio Milano: Godesses/Nymphs 

Ivezku Celis -Alejandro Faillace: Sailor 

Foto: Marcelo Pont

Foto: Marcelo Pont

Aitor Gaviria. Foto: Marcelo Pont

 Carlos Giménez ensayando la obra en Nueva York

José Tejera. Foto: Marcelo Pont

Foto: Marcelo Pont

Foto: Marcelo Pont

Foto: Marcelo Pont

.Aníbal Grunn.   Foto: Martha Swope.Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

 Foto: Martha Swope.  Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

.  Foto: Martha Swope. Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

 Foto: Martha Swope. Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

Aníbal Grunn (centro).  Foto: Martha Swope. Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

Aitor Gaviria.  Foto: Martha Swope. Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

 Foto: Martha Swope. Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

 Foto: Martha Swope. Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

José Tejera, Natalia Martínez,  Jesús Araujo.  Foto: Martha Swope.
Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

Natalia Martínez, Jesús Araujo.  Foto: Martha Swope.
Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

José Tejera.  Foto: Martha Swope. Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

José Tejera.  Foto: Martha Swope. Fuente: The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

Natalia Martinez, Jesús Araujo.

Fuente: The New York Times  / The New York Public Library / Marcelo Pont

Video: British Universities