The strategies designed by the performing arts to keep the activity moving are multiplying. Y Living Teatro is precisely one of those many initiatives that aim to expand the possibilities of the show in a context of restrictions through a cycle of short works that can be seen live through Zoom on Saturdays at 9 p.m..
Created by the Chilean production company The Cow Company, the proposal arrives with a local version that will be directed by the actor Peto Menahem, and with weekly premieres with interpreters and varied themes and the added particularity that there will be only one performance of each piece and talks between the cast and the audience after the presentation. Tickets can be purchased at Alternativa Teatral (more information on Instagram: @livingteatroar).
This Saturday it will be the turn of Conspiranoico, written by Chilean author Rafael Gumucio and starring Valeria Lois, Carlos Portaluppi and Peto Menahem. Three “flat earthers” who deny the pandemic meet for Zoom to agree on their different truths in a delusional exchange. “Rehearsals are so much fun,” Menahem adds. “Our characters do not believe in the Covid and they get together to prepare a document, but that becomes impossible because they begin to collide with each other since each one has their own conspiracy theory. When they meet, the character that Carlos plays is already offended because my character has the chinstrap on (laughs). And they are all professional skeptics who when they cannot find arguments to refute reality, they invent them ”, expands the director and actor who will also act in the different plays, as in the case of God, which will be presented on Saturday 22.
In that second story, also created by Gumucio, Menahem will be accompanied by Lula Rosenthal and Diego Reinhold, who will take on the role of two health workers who, exhausted by the daily battle against the virus, meet in a virtual way and invoke, without imagining it, the same God who appears on the screen and sparks a discussion about their responsibility in the health tragedy. “Lula’s character is very believing and Diego’s character is very atheist, and I play God who appears in the middle of their conversation to defend himself and transfer his powers to them so that they can do everything they think he can do,” adds Menahem about the plot.
And although both titles that inaugurate the cycle directly address the situation, the actor clarifies that not all the material that can be seen in the following weeks will have the same tone. “There will be works that will not talk about the pandemic, but in all cases they will take this context as a circumstance so that a meeting can be carried out by Zoom, since that has to do with the impossibility of being with others in person. Some stories are very hilarious, and others are a little more dramatic and also very tender. But in all of them there is humor ”.
The actor, with a solid track record in comedy, was introduced to the project in 2020 when he was summoned by The Cow Company team to join the cast of some works. “There was the idea of bringing the format here, and I had loved the experience, so for me this is an opportunity to get in touch with them again and also to do things with friends and with people that I really like. Act. And since we are not doing theater, we treat ourselves to this. For me it is a party ”, he assures while highlighting the live modality of the functions.
“The fact that the works are not recorded relates them to the ephemeral moment of face-to-face theater. Plus, once the show is over, we will be talking to all the spectators. Going to their houses for a while and having them come to ours is something very moving. And although I do not think that this is the theater to come, it has always happened to us when leaving a function that they asked us to go on tour to other places, but that sometimes becomes very difficult, and the virtual format is a way of being all connected no matter where we are ”.
The rehearsals for Zoom are combined with long days of filming for Menahem who these days shoots his last scenes for the film Hail, the new national Netflix production, directed by Marcos Carnevale, and for the series Melody, the girl from the subway Y Almost happy (second season). And although the theatrical activity is suspended, the actor adapts to that limitation with Living Theater. “What drives me out of loneliness and despair is seeing all the people who take the limit as a creative tool, as it always happened when we did theater without any resources. That moves and motivates to go to a better place. Can’t leave after eight? Can’t go to the theater? Well, let’s do something else, until that can be done ”.
– .
