The 11th Festival Latino in New York, featuring seven theatrical productions, a film festival and a free concert, will run from Aug. 1 through 23 at the Public Theater in Greenwich Village, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park and at the Metro Cinema on upper Broadway. The festival, which will include presentations from the United States, Latin America and Spain, has been produced by Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival since 1984.
The festival will open with an English-language production of ''Pancho Diablo,'' written by Carlos Morton and directed by Vicente Castro. The show will mark the New York stage debut of Fernando Allende, a Mexican actor who has appeared on the ''Miami Vice'' and ''Flamingo Road'' television series. The playwright was the winner of the 1986 New York Shakespeare Festival National Contest for Latino Plays. ''We wanted to present the best Latin talent in the United States,'' Cecilia Vega, a co-director with Oscar Ciccone, of the festival, said yesterday, in announcing the program. ''Pancho Diablo'' will run through Aug. 7 at the Public, as will all the theatrical productions. The Argentine actress Norma Aleandro, who appeared in a solo show at last year's festival, will return in the title role of Mario Vargas Llosa's ''Senorita of Tacna.'' It will run Aug. 14 through 23.
In contrast with last year's festival, which included 34 productions given brief runs, this year's will provide greater exposure for fewer plays. Ms. Vega said that an emphasis had been placed, in choosing the participants, on the established reputations of the companies and their directors. Most of the productions in the festival will offer simultaneous translations.
The other theater productions include ''Las Bacantes,'' presented by La Cuadra de Sevilla, a Spanish company under the direction of Salvador Tavora, from Aug. 1 through 9; ''The Tragi-Comedy of Calixto and Malibea,'' a production of Venezuela's Rajatabla Company, directed by Carlos Gimenez, from Aug. 10 through 17; ''The Cockpit,'' presented by the Argentine company, La Comedia Cordobesa, from Aug. 1 through 6; ''The Clowns of Hope,'' staged by Claudio di Girolamo and produced by the Taller Teatro Dos, of Chile, from Aug. 19 through 23, and Las Bohemias, a female musical group from Puerto Rico, in ''Concerto in Hi-Fi,'' from Aug. 20 through 23.
Singers from Cuba and Puerto Rico will highlight a free Concert for Peace and Friendship, at the Delacorte Theater on Aug. 10 at 8 P.M. The film program will include a tribute to Argentine films at the Public, and a Latin American film festival at the Metro Cinema, on Broadway at 99th Street. All feature films have English subtitles.
Tickets for the theater events at Festival Latino go on sale July 9 and are $15. All of the films are $5. For general information on the festival, call 598-7155 after July 9.
MEXICO CITY— For the Latin American theater, the headlines on today's front page have become as rich a source of inspiration as the hallowed classics of Lope de Vega or Garcia Lorca. Exile, revolution, political repression, the foreign debt and drug trafficking are themes that are increasingly capturing the imagination of Latin American playwrights and directors, and it is precisely those concerns that permeate the works that will be performed at the monthlong Festival Latino at the Public Theater in New York, which begins this week.
In all, seven dramatic plays will be presented at the festival, some in Spanish, others in English or with simultaneous translation provided. A majority of the works are new, while a few are adaptations of novels, short stories or recognized international classics, recast to make them more pertinent to Latin American audiences. But whatever their origin, their principal objective is to address the social and political reality around them.
''The headline in a Chilean newspaper can be much stronger for us, may the gods of literature forgive me, than a work of Brecht, because it is something that belongs to us and resounds in our innards,'' said the Chilean director Raul Osorio, leader of the Investigative Theater Troupe that will present the allegorical ''No Mas.'' ''If a friend of mine has been tortured and he tells me about it, that has more force than literature. Our reality is much stronger, both more tense and intense, than any fiction I can find.''
This year's festival, the 13th, has a distinct Caribbean flavor, with two of its plays originating from Venezuela and others representing the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Colombia, along with Mexico and Chile. In addition, three musicals written by Cuban-American playwrights are on the festival bill, as are a series of six films called ''Dangerous Loves,'' based on short stories of the Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and the annual ''Concert for Peace and Friendship,'' this year featuring Dizzy Gillespie and jazz and salsa players from the Caribbean.
''Our goal is to develop a truly Latin dramaturgy, and in order to do that, we must always try to address themes with which our public identifies,'' said Cecilia Vega, who was born in El Salvador and is the co-director of the festival with Oscar Ciccone, a native of Argentina. ''Last year our theme was human rights, and this year we also have a pronounced orientation toward problems that relate to daily life.''
José Tejera y Aura Rivas
The play most likely to be familiar to New York audiences is an adaptation by the Fundacion Rajatabla of Venezuela of Mr. Garcia Marquez's novella ''No One Writes to the Colonel'' (Tuesday through Saturday). Set in a decaying Colombian port, it focuses on a retired military officer who has patiently been waiting decades to receive the first payment on the pension due him for services to his country. At the same time, the old man is struggling to emerge from the depression caused by the recent murder of his only son, a cockfighting enthusiast whose prize rooster is now the colonel's only prospect of making enough money to go on living.
''This story is one of tremendous topicality for Latin Americans, who hope that their hopes will not come to naught,'' said the director Carlos Gimenez, who adapted the story to the stage with other members of his Caracas-based company. ''All of us in Latin America are always waiting for a letter that never comes, always hoping that something will come along to change our destinies and the unjust fates of our countries.''
When Mr. Gimenez first read Mr. Garcia Marquez's novella, ''it read to me like the saga of a tragic personage, like King Lear,'' he said. In translating the story to the stage, he has emphasized that tragic aspect with a set he describes as ''permanently immersed in a climate of rain.'' As time passes and the colonel's quest seems further and further from fulfillment, the walls of his house crumble and his sadness at the death of his son grows into hallucination. This proud man, who refuses to wear a hat because ''that way I don't have to take it off to anyone,'' is even forced to exchange greetings with his son's murderer, who continues to roam the streets unpunished.
''This is a tragedy about daily life, about the common man who believes that happiness and joy are possible in the midst of a social landscape as terrible as ours,'' Mr. Gimenez said. ''When things happen to us in Latin America, it is never by halves. There is no equilibrium, so when it rains, towns get inundated and disappear, and when we have a revolution, half the population dies.''
Ultimately, however, the play ends on an optimistic note. When the colonel's wife chastises him, saying ''You can't eat illusions,'' he corrects her: ''You can't eat them, but they do nourish you.'' As we take leave of the colonel, he is sitting in a rocking chair at his window, hoping the next mail delivery will bring the letter he wants.
The script developed for ''El Paso, o la Parabola del Camino'' (''El Paso, or the Parable of the Path'') by the Candelaria Theater Company of Colombia begins much like ''No One Writes to the Colonel,'' with a group of people waiting hopefully in a small, desolate Colombian town, this time stranded at an inn by the breakdown of their car. But before the play ends, a clandestine arms shipment has been exchanged for a suitcase full of money and one of the innocent bystanders has been killed by two mysterious strangers.
Video VHS : Cinta VHS Material visual Material de archivo : Español (spa)
Resumen:
A production of Shakespeare's The tempest presented by the Venezuelan theater group Rajatabla, as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival's, Festival Latino in New York. Three performances, taped over three evenings, are included.
These videos separated from the New York Shakespeare Festival collection, *T-Mss 1993-028. Videocassette one: 167 min. Videocassette two: 165 min. Videocassette three: 166 min. Copy of program is available. Video and sound quality are fair.
Créditos:
Set and lighting design, Marcelo Pont-Verges and Augusto Gonzalez ; costume design by Hugo Marquez, Marcelo Pont-Verges and Gabriel Flores ; original music by Juan Carlos Nunez ; sound by Eduardo Bolivar ; artistic production, Jorge Borges, Andres Vazquez, Gabriel Flores ; technical director, Freddy Belisario ; associate producer, Jason Steven Cohen.
Reparto:
Erich Wildpret, Jose Tejera, Nathalia Martinez, Daniel Lopez, Jesus Araujo, Rodolfo Villafranca, Norman Santana, German Mendieta, Hugo Marquez, Aitor Gaviria, Ramon Goliz, William Cuao, Cosme Cortazar, Anibal Grunn, Ricardo Martinez, Hector Becerra, Ismael Mongagas, Gregorio Milano, Ivezku Celis, Alejandro Faillace.
Notas de producción:
Videotaped at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park on three evenings ca. August 1991. Exact dates of performances are unknown.
New York Shakespeare Festival in association with New York Telephone and with the cooperation of the City of New York, Joseph Papp presents Fundacion Rajatabla in ; directed by Carlos Gimenez ; adapted by Ugo Ulive ; Festival Latino directors, Oscar Ciccone and Cecilia Vega ; Rajatabla's executive producer, William Lopez ; [video producer, the New York Shakespeare Festival].
Resumen:
A production of Shakespeare's The tempest presented by the Venezuelan theater group Rajatabla, as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival's, Festival Latino in New York. Three performances, taped over three evenings, are included.
NOTE: In Córdoba, Carlos Giménez directed more than 20 plays and he win two prize in Poland in 1965 with El Otro Judas.
The american producer Joseph Papp produced two plays with Carlos Giménez: The death of Garcia Lorca (José Antonio Rial) and The Tempest (Shakespeare) in New York.
Carlos Giménez (born in Córdoba, Argentina, on April 13, 1946, Aries) is the founder and director of the Caracas International Theater Festival, together with María Teresa Castillo, one of the major drivers of culture in
Venezuela, who has not hesitated to support him since 1971, when the first
festival was held, and who then hired him as Art Director for the Caracas
Athenaeum, an institution she has helped create and of which she is the
president.Carlos is also the founder and director of the Rajatabla
Group, with which he has traveled around the world, winning hundreds of
awards, and which put Venezuelan theater at the center of the global theatrical
stage.
Working
as a director since he was a teen, in 1965 he participated in the First
Nancy Theater Festival with his group El Juglar. He was
19 years old and he achieved something impossible at the time: without any
previous performances in Buenos Aires, he gained international exposure
directly from Córdoba to Europe. After that, they traveled to Poland, where the
group shared the Honorable Mention with East Germany in Warsaw
and received the First Prize in Krakow. Back in Argentina he
faced the indifference of the capital's theatrical world towards his
achievements in Europe. In response, Carlos created in Córdoba the First
National Theater Festival, but was excluded from its organization in 1967,
when political repression was starting in his country. This event decided him
to abandon his home country.
This
interview took place in the context of the Pirandello Festival, which is held in every auditorium and every
space within the Caracas Athenaeum, and which he is in charge of organizing.
According to Carlos Giménez, the “main idea for organizing the Festival
comes from the need to connect theater as a social event within the community
it is inserted in”—in this case, the significant Italian immigrant
population—, to involve private business in cultural activities, to take
culture to all social classes, all aspects in which Venezuelan theater has
stayed a bit on the sidelines. With this purpose, the Caracas Athenaeum plans
to organize annual festivals about other important figures in world
theater.
If you
had to create a minimal autobiography, what aspects of your life would you
choose?
My
arrival to Venezuela in November 1969. Because this defines a lot, not only
professional aspects in my life, but also personal aspects, that is, what I was
going to do with my life and my career.
Then, as
this event divided my life in two, going back to my experiences in Argentina,
one of the most important moments was my high school graduation in 1964 and my
departure to Europe. There I discovered a world that was completely unknown to
me and I was dazzled by it, which meant, at least for me, that I was not going
to stay locked within the parameters set by the city or the country I was born
in. I realized there was a mismatch between what I wanted and what my
environment, my habitat, gave me.
During
that time, I met Jack Lang, who is the director of the World Theater Festival
in Nancy, and now Minister of Culture in France, so that was how in 1964 I came
into contact with international festivals, which was going to be really
important, because Jack Lang invited us to participate in 1965 in the First
World Festival in Nancy. This invitation also extended to the group of people
who at that time were in Europe without having constituted the El Juglar group
yet - the creation of which is another important moment in my life, even though
El Juglar never had neither the influence nor the impact that Rajatabla has had
in Latin America. This participation was extremely important if we consider
that this group that went to the Nancy World Festival and to festivals in
Warsaw and Krakow, Poland, in 1965, was a provincial theatrical group that had
not left Córdoba to go to Buenos Aires, but to participate in these really
important events.
Moreover,
1965 was the year when all the movements which would have a huge impact in the
theatrical world started all at the same time, like Nancy, Grotowski, Eugenio
Barba, Jack Lang, Els Joglars from Barcelona and La Comuna from Portugal. In
Poland, we presented a play which won one of the awards of the International
Theatre Institute (ITI-UNESCO), called “El Otro Judas” (The Other Judas) from
Abelardo Castillo, one of the most eminent Argentine intellectuals from that
time and director of “El Escarabajo de Oro”. With this play that I directed we
won the Honorable Mention together with East Germany in Warsaw and, in Krakow,
we received the First Prize.
How important
was your success in Europe for your career?
It was
crucial. That moment and then the cold reception we had in Argentina when we
presented the same play decided me to leave my country.
And did
you come directly to Venezuela?
No, I
started in 1968 with what would be another fundamental event in my life: a tour
by land from Córdoba to Caracas, which took us 3 months. We went to the
main mining centers in Bolivia, where we presented our shows. I vividly
remember the experience we had in Chorolque, a peak that is 5,000 meters
above sea level and has the highest tin mine in the world. There, since there
was no electricity, we performed using the miners' lights - that is, surrounded
by 40 miners who provided us light with their helmets while we performed a
children's play. This tour meant a terrifying discovery of Latin America, not
just skin-deep. We came into contact with utter poverty in Latin America. We
also performed in fishing centers in Peru, we did a wonderful tour around Peru,
we performed in Colombia and in 1968 we arrived at the Manizales Festival. In
this festival, we presented a play called “La Querida Familia” (The Dear
Family), a baroque anthology by Ionesco, and the jury formed by Ernesto Sábato,
Pablo Neruda, Jack Lang, Miguel Ángel Asturias, awarded us the prize. However,
we still couldn't get to Venezuela - we only managed to do that after
participating in the Second Manizales Theater Festival in 1969, where we met
Omar Arrieche, Director of the Barquisimeto Educational Experimental Theater,
who got us a visa to enter by land.
When was
Rajatabla founded?
On
February 28, 1971, when “Tu país está feliz” (Your country is happy) was
premiered. At that moment we expressed our desire to form a group with a
regular cast, a permanent producer, our own auditorium for the long-term, which
would allow us to evolve our aesthetics and have a very unique repertoire based
on the needs of the group. All of these expectations were surpassed by the
reality of our work. At that time, some important things happened, like the
Caracas International Theater Festival.
Was
Rajatabla already part of the Athenaeum at that time?
Rajatabla
has always been dependent on the Athenaeum in a rather informal way, but with
the success we achieved with our performances—“Tu país está feliz”, “Don Mendo”
(Mr. Mendo)—and finally after presenting the first show we prepared with the
name of Rajatabla, which was “Venezuela tuya” (Your Venezuela) by Luis Britto
García, we became the regular cast in the Caracas Athenaeum.
How
important is the Caracas International Theater Festival considered in
Venezuela?
I
personally believe it is of critical importance, because it consolidates a
whole perspective and a philosophy regarding theater. However, this is a relatively
misunderstood fact in the Venezuelan context, because of the investment it
implies. It's true that it would be really beneficial for the country if the
government invested that money in other important priorities, such as creating
a National Theater School, a National Theater Company, but we know that's not
going to happen. Our country is the empire of consummated facts, of de facto
culture. Furthermore, I believe that this Festival projects and creates an
international relationship for Venezuelan theater, it opens up new structures,
it raises the level of reflection, it powers and qualifies the work of our
creators and it means opening up to incorporate an enormous class to theatrical
activity, especially young people.
We
remember that in 1979 you suffered a serious accident. What did it mean for
you?
That was
another fundamental event in my life. Because through that accident and through
the response and support I got, people's emotional attachment, I established an
important connection with the country.
This year
you're going to direct “Chuo Gil” in the United States. How are you preparing
for this new experience?
With
great enthusiasm, because it means entering the United States professional
theater, with a very important cast, within a different framework and with a
huge production team and an almost mechanical production. It means entering a
state in my profession that is perhaps less human but very interesting to go
through.
What do
you think are the most important values in your theatrical work?
Firstly,
I'm getting more and more terrified of formulas. I find it hard to rationalize
my work method. I can use 4 or 5 of Stanislavsky's concepts, introduce elements
from Brecht's technique, but I'm not an educator, I'm not a teacher.
But are there
specific formulas you reject?
No,
that's something I did at the beginning, but I'm rejecting less and less.
There's an already trodden path that you need to travel sooner or later. What's
wonderful about theater is that inapprehensible sense that you never know
what's going to happen, that intangible element for which an actor might
perform in a completely different way than on the previous day. There are some
topics that I'm invariably interested in, such as timelessness - theater is not
a video, it's not a movie, it's something absolutely temporary in essence. When
the curtain comes down, we know that we've seen a performance that will not be
repeated ever again. Another fundamental topic is that of space and time, and
the reaction to these two elements from the director, the actor and the
spectator. That is why I have paid special attention to staging and to keeping
away, as I believe great creators have done, from acting mechanically, from
reading the text in a literal way. For example, Stanislavski, who made a
comprehensive analysis of actors, did not dissociate the work of the actor
himself from external elements, for example smell - he said he wished smell
would come from the stage. And that is what I call paying attention to reading
plays non-literally.
Why have
you decided to set up “Tu país está feliz” again?
Because
my aesthetical proposition is not dissociated from my ideological proposition.
I want to set up not only that play but also the 20 shows I did there once
again. To perform a kind of live dive to see what happened with everything that
has been done before. Reflecting from a long distance allows you to see things
much more deeply, and personally it allows me to discover what hidden territory
I can tread on to make a new recreation. I've been accused of being reiterative
and it's true - I am a kind of Manichaean who has enclosed himself within a
series of personal codes and I will not be free until I have exhausted them.
They are like the ghosts I accept I'll have until I get free of them.
Note by VMI:
Although all articles about Carlos Giménez say he was born in Rosario, which is
true, when we interviewed him Carlos was very busy organizing the Pirandello
Festival, so he asked us to leave him the questions saying he would answer them
in writing.. He loved writing and he did it very well. And he wrote:
“Carlos Giménez (born in Córdoba, Argentina, on April
13, 1946, Aries).”
People are not from where they were born but
from where they feel they were born. And he
is as Cordovan as he is Venezuelan.
Material visual 
Material de archivo : Español (spa)
