Mar 17 2008
Casus Belli
I’ve been away for the past few weeks, visiting exotic places like Costa Rica (well, being a Latin American myself, the adjective sounds stilted at best) and Houston (now, that’s exotic for a Latin girl!). I’ll post more on that later. Today I wanted to revisit the blog and inaugurate a new category I had neglected for quite some time: Theatre (yes, British spelling it is). I have just come back from a play called Ora X: L’Inferno del Dante, which I understand is written, directed and played by Matteo Belli, an Italian actor from Bologna (I may not have gotten that one right, it’s the information I was given). The Internet has been generous enough to include an Italian review of this work, and the link on the name mentioned above will guide you to it, if you are interested. This play was offered at the Teatro Cervantes in Buenos Aires, and the last show was yesterday night, March 16th 2008 (you probably missed it here…). I had not been to the theatre in a long time, but today it simply had to be. It was the effect of an interesting and enthusiastic review of this man’s work at one of the top local newspapers, La Nacion that prompted me to take my car and simply drive to the theatre for the ticket. The show was at 21.30, and I loved it. I’m not very familiar with Dante’s Divine Comedy, so this acted like an introduction and a return to what I once heard or even dared discuss with some literary experts, not that I am one. After all, this hypertextuality business really works, because once you’ve read someone, you’ve really read many other people, backwards and forwards. The power of networking was in the literary world way before the business world discovered its application! In short, I loved the play, this is a tremendous actor who deploys his mastery of comedy, drama, plasticity, voice and timing in a 120-minute show. I salute yet another example of the few accidents that can take place in Buenos Aires — seeing quality shows that are not made to reach the average audience. Yes, some people left the room before the show ended, others complained about the length, and very few people bought the DVD when they were leaving. But perhaps that sadly illustrates the fact that Argentina has decided to lower the bar of expectations and challenges, and that people just want to be spoon-fed whatever could put them to sleep comfortably and easily. And I don’t think Belli is to blame for that; only the people and what they let happen are.
