“Marica somos todos.”

An interesting statement, that roughly translates as “we are all queer”. Yet read it again: apart from the literal meaning of Marica, deriving from Maricón, (meaning homosexual), the slogan of this one-man play hopes to dig a little deeper than that.

Marica is an epilogue to director Pepe Cibrian Campoy’s struggle for rights; an artistic outlet, through explaining and pondering on the death of a famous poet, writer, theatre director and role model: Federico Garcia Lorca.

But more than just a play, Marica is part of the real-life journey of creator and sole protagonist Pepe, whose campaigns for gay rights took him to the Senate prior to the passing of same sex marriage laws in Argentina in 2010.

“This homage to Federico is at the same time dedicated to all of those who, throughout the history of humanity, were sacrificed one way or another; for thinking and being different,” Pepe states in the programme.

Much controversy continues to surround Lorca’s death. It is widely believed that the Spanish poet was killed by a Marxist group on the brink of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 due to his outspoken liberal views. Some historians allege that his sexual orientation were a major reason behind his murder.

In his theatre work, Pepe attributes the death of Lorca to his political views and sexual orientation. Even still, the intricate text tampers and plays with this, questioning life, death, unrequited love and other people’s feelings toward Lorca (and Pepe himself) throughout the monologue.

The play is performed in one act, with Pepe playing all five characters: Federico Garcia Lorca, his father, mother, his murderer, and friend Salvador Dali. The script itself is very moving and can be unsettling in parts, for example, when the role of Lorca questions his death before it occurs (“Will they cry for me on the day that I die?”).

Each line in the play is detailed and poetic. In another moment, Lorca’s personal insecurities and feelings toward his killer are revealed: “Maybe he might have applauded or rejected one of my works or, what’s more probable is that he wouldn’t have even known who I was… I would want him to cry more for me, more than anybody, because of him I have cried more than ever in my life.”

Another particularly gripping scene surrounds Lorca’s killer and the poet having a full conversation before he is murdered.

Pepe Cibrian Campoy {Photo: Alejandro Palacios}

The master acting by Pepe is what makes the show. He is able to draw passion, anxiety, sadness and emotion to the characters the whole way through the play and cleverly distinguish between them. Dressed simply in a white shirt and white trousers, with but one prop – a wooden chair – above the literal extremity and dramatic content of the story itself, Pepe manages to communicate across with intensity, the complexities of discrimination against people because they are different.

It is clear that this play embodies Pepe – who is as humble and down to earth off the stage as on it – and his personal views are displayed in a very sensitive fashion. Inside the small and intimate Teatro del Cubo – a beautiful and perfect venue for this play hidden the cobbled backstreets of the Abasto neighbourhood – were pictures of Lorca, collections from different periods of his life. The sense of adoration for the Spanish playwright and poet was clear.

The content hits close to home for all of the Argentines who waited so long for the homosexual marriage law to be approved in Argentina. Pepe is seen as a pioneer not just in the theatre world – he is one of Argentina’s biggest and most famous theatre directors and writers– but due to his efforts on spreading the message about gay rights.

With audience members including the likes of Maria Rachid, the former vice-president of the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, and now legislator for the City government, it is clear to see that Pepe has influenced above and beyond the four walls of the theatre.

Having experienced the more musical side of Pepe Cibrian Campoy’s work as a writer and director in the world of Argentine theatre (including Dracula and Excalibur), it is refreshing to see a whole new side to his skills as an actor.

This play managed to delve deeper into the issues of homosexuality, society, feeling, overall being different and being discriminated against. Even if your Spanish is not fully up to scratch, it’s definitely worth a look into, especially if you’re a fan of Lorca.

My hat goes off to Pepe. This is a thought-provoking, wonderful production.

A Brazilian actor died on Sunday, after accidentally hanging himself while filming, a hospital in Sao Paolo has confirmed via their website.

27 year-old Tiago Kilmeck was playing Judas in “The Passion of Christ” when the accident happened. On the Friday of Semana Santa, Kilmeck hanged himself by accident while filming the suicide of his character, according to invesigator José Víctor Bacetti.

It is thought that the actor confused the ropes he was using. He was also unconscious for four minutes before he was assisted, as onlookers believed he was just playing his part.

The actor, left in a coma, was subsequently taken to hospital where his condition gradually worsened until his death. Police are now examining the safety of the equipment, and how the accident occurred.

Actor and radio DJ Fernando Peña died yesterday from cancer of the liver at the age of 46. Death has always been on the doorstep for Mr Peña, who declared eight years ago that he was HIV positive. In his radio show ‘the Parking Metre’ which was broadcasted from the clinic where he received chemotherapy, he often joked about his “bad blood”.

Despite living in a state of imminent death, Mr Peña lived life to the full: “Of course I care that I am dying, but it is more important to have a good life.” Once, when he nearly lost the battle to pneumonia, he took the valiant step of stopping all cancer treatments whose side effects prevented him from living the life he wanted.

His desire to live, and to bring to life fictional characters was reflected through his work in the theatre, where he was protagonist of ‘Dialogue between a prostitute and her client’. He also became the protagonist of his own reality in a documentary that filmed him struggling with two fatal diseases. Ironically, it was his way of removing the drama from death, and making his illnesses better known and understood.

An artistic, passionate character, Mr Peña often mused about his own suicide, but the reality is he was no coward; he faced cancer until his body could take no more. “People who live a passionate life die young. This is how I imagine my suicide: driving in a car at 50 mph, happy and distracted, until I come crashing into a pillar.” Death did not find him distracted, but very much alive in the present moment, fighting until the very end.

Mr Peña’s acting career took off on an aeroplane where he worked as a steward. It was always something that he had dreamt of doing and his lucky break came when he was announcing American Airline’s emergency procedure. Mr Lalo Mir, an established radio DJ, recognised the voice that would succeed in captivating the listeners of Argentina and took Mr Peña on board. Mr Peña said that he would have liked to have shouted, “the whole world knows me”, to his mother, a woman who never believed in her son’s talent.

The radio DJ confided how he did not believe in happy endings and he often felt misinterpreted when people accused him of being provocative: “I would love to stand on the Obelisk and tell everyone: ‘Let me finish, but listen to what I have to say. I am a romantic… and my provocative nature is ultimately beautiful.” An expected death, but a sad one nevertheless.

Most men hit mid-life and buy a sports car, but Arturo Goetz, an Oxford scholar, professional polo player and economist who helped to reduce global starvation, bought himself acting lessons instead.

The investment, as you would expect from an economist, proved a sound one.

Within months of completing the course, he was starring in Argentine soap operas and being stopped in the street. Thirteen years on, at the age of 64, he has been in more than a dozen films, including this year’s big hit, ‘El Nido Vacío’.

While there exists no set formula for success, you can’t help but think that the rare combination of artistic flair and scientific rationale has gifted this man with a seemingly innate ability to achieve… whatever!

Despite joining his parents on stage at the age of 12 in a play produced by the Friends of Shakespeare Amateur Dramatics Society (to which his 88-year-old mother still belongs), he was encouraged to pursue a more serious career, which led him to Buenos Aires Catholic University to study economics.

“I can imagine my parents’ faces if I had told them I wanted to be an actor. It just wasn’t done in those days. Instead I became an economist, working for the ministry of trade under Onganía’s military dictatorship in 1966, while belonging to CET, an amateur dramatics society,” he said.

After three years, Arturo applied for one of two British Council scholarships Argentine civil servants were offered each year, and won a grant to complete post-graduate studies at a university in Britain.

“I moved to England in April 1970 with my wife, who was only 19 at the time, and a polo playing friend, with the intention of starting at a university in September,” he recalled.

“Prior to starting, I had arranged through friends to go and play polo for this rich businessman in Yorkshire whose dream it was to play in the Cowdray Park tournament against the likes of Prince Philip and Prince Charles. He wasn’t particularly interested in polo; he just had this one objective: to build a winning team that would enable him to get changed in the same changing room as the royal team.

“The problem was we couldn’t stand the guy, his dogs or his wife. He was absolutely miserable. During the tournament he rented this great place near Cowdray Park but sent us to Bognor Regis holiday park because it was cheaper. Every room had a speaker which would blare out every morning: “Wakey wakey everybody, it’s 7.15am and time for breakfast.” It was terrible, so we decided to rebel. We went on strike and said we weren’t going to play. He soon moved us.

“His other great idea,” he added, “was to rent a helicopter for the day of our big match and fly into Cowdray Park, landing right in the middle of the park with his Argentine team. He was a real show-off. We told him we were going by car because we didn’t like helicopters. Anyway, he achieved his objective: we got changed in the same room as Prince Philip and he never played polo again after that.”

What Arturo didn’t realise was that the application deadline for Oxford had long since passed, so he found himself at Glasgow University, where his son was born and where he spent a year before finally taking up a place at Jesus College in Oxford to read economic history. As a sideline he imported and sold polo ponies from Argentina and with the proceeds bought an Oxford cottage for 10,000 British pounds where he and his wife had their second child.

“I didn’t really live a college life because I was a post-graduate student, with a wife, two children and a thesis on the history of Argentine industry to write,” he said. “I did, however, captain the polo team and play college football. Although there was this amazing atmosphere of excellence at the university, I remember there being a lot of competition, a lot of intellectual snobbery and false modesty. What was fantastic, however, was that you could be standing next to a Nobel Prize winner in the queue at the bank.”

When Arturo’s marriage started to deteriorate, his wife and children moved back to Argentina in his final year of school.

“With my marriage falling apart I didn’t finish my thesis, and instead left Oxford and started applying for jobs while the divorce went through,” he said.

Moving to Switzerland, he worked for the World Trade Organisation before moving to Rome where he took up a post at the World Food Council, as well as rekindling his passion for acting.

“I spent the best years of my life in Rome. I loved it like a second home and joined an English theatre group and a polo club. I used to go to work in the morning, go to the polo club at lunchtime for a game and some lunch and then return to work. It was my job to try and see to it that fewer people died of hunger in the world, so I travelled extensively, doing something that felt incredibly worthwhile.”

In 1983, Arturo returned to Argentina where he advised the first democratic president, Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín, on economic policy.

“[Alfonsín] was campaigning for the presidency at the time and he asked me to present him with an economic plan no longer than two paragraphs. I went away and came up with two paragraphs entitled ‘Pan y Trabajo’. The idea was to provide those who most needed it, a free, high-calorie food package containing milk, lentils, rice and sugar etc.

“The second part of the plan was to generate employment among this particular sector of society. Sadly the plan was implemented on a scale two times bigger than I had advised, while the second part of the plan was ignored, so while free food was indeed distributed, there was neither employment generation nor regional development, so we ended up back at square one.”

Arturo eventually remarried and established a non-governmental organisation with his second wife.  They worked with small Patagonian communities and proved, on a micro-level, the efficiency of his economic plan, before he returned to CET, the drama group of his adolescence.

“When I turned 50,” he recalled, “the mid-life crisis kicked in and my wife suggested I take acting more seriously. I suppose I was a bit fed up with spending so much time advising rich people on how to become richer.

“I asked around and found an academy run by Augusto Fernández, a well-respected teacher, who put me in an advanced class because of my previous experience. At the end of the course I told him I wanted to take it seriously and he gave me the telephone number of a television channel, Canal 9. I went along with my portfolio and ten days later they called me with a small part in ‘La Hermana Mayor’, for which they paid me $75. They soon called me again, this time with a better role, as priest in a soap opera, and then three months later with another part in the same soap opera, but this time as a degenerate, wife beater and philanderer. It was this part that brought me my first taste of fame, as people would stop and shout at me in the street.”

Since then he has made 15 films, including one this year, ‘La Sangre Brota’, which won Le Prix de la Jeune Critique at Cannes. He’s currently working on three more films.

“I’m very pleased with how things have gone, I can’t complain, I’m only sorry I didn’t think of doing it before. I’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of things. I edit books, too, but I can’t go into that now, I’m late for lunch with my mother,” he added before rushing off on foot.

If only you had bought that sports car, Arturo.

Photo courtesy of Pablo Rotemberg

Pablo Rotemberg is currently starring solo in ‘El Lobo’ (The Wolf), an award-winning self-directed theatre performance which combines dance, music and drama. He talks to The Argentina Independent.

How have you trained for this performance?

Well, basically what I studied the most was the piano. I started as a child; I went to the conservatory. It was almost a family inheritance. I was about to go abroad to study further, but I kind of collapsed and I decided not to go. So I started trying different things: I went to university and I tried to study different things, even gardening. I didn’t really know what to do. My family members are all academic people, so there was a bit of pressure in terms of studying. In the 1990s I found out about Manuel Antin’s Film University. I had loved film since I was a child so I started studying to become a script writer. While I was there one of my friends invited me to take part in a theatre class with Ricardo Martiz, a director. I was a shy piano player then, but I went. And it was such a breakthrough. Another friend of mine who was a dancer invited me to come along to ballet lessons, so I went, and that’s when I started.

How old were you?

I’d finished high school, so about 19, so kind of old to start dancing. So I started studying all over the place, here and there, classes and more classes. I had financial help from my parents because it was very expensive. I did theatre, dance… different things. So it ended up being sort of everything. Dancing means dedication, years and years of training, and I didn’t start dancing as child like many of my friends, so I tried to find a way to express myself through what I’ve done. I don’t pretend to dance like someone who’s had a formal education.

Speaking of which, there’s an interesting mix of genres in your play.

Yes, there is. I think I take things from wherever I can. That’s my style. Although now I have to face a big challenge: I have to put on a play for the San Martín Theatre Ballet. I’m really excited, but these people are ballet dancers in the traditional way. My material is really personal and it’s hard to transmit. It’s hard but it’s exciting. Last year I did my first play as a director in the Centro Cultural Rojas and it was an amazing experience.

Tell me how you started as a director.

Alejandro Cerbera, the director of the Centro Cultural Rojas, called me to do a play, but I was doing some other play, and it was too much. So I suggested it. I was a bit scared of not being able to see in others or what I can express, what I know works for me, I just wasn’t sure I was going to be able to see that in others. Until then I had been either directed by others or had self-directed my own play.

And what is it like, to be both the actor and the director of your play?

It’s very weird.

Doesn’t it take away your objectivity, or the distance you need?

Photo courtesy of Pablo Rotemberg

It’s strange because there are some things I feel I’m never going to like completely, and because I’m really obsessive and give myself a hard time because I can’t really see myself. But I tape it and I watch it later time after time. Sometimes I rehearse in front of the mirror and I think, ‘This is so messy!’ I just forget what it looks like. But I have help from my assistant. It’s hard because you might lose the distance, but as I learned from my experience as a director in the Rojas, you can also lose it from the outside. But there is a certain indulgence to the self-directed plays, that’s the price you pay, and I think it all depends on your ability to go the distance.

It sounds like quite a challenge.

It is difficult, yes, but I am kind of a loner. I like working on my own.

‘El Lobo’ is a play about falling out of love. Is there a story behind it? What led you to write it?

Not in a conscious way, I think it’s about all my frustrated love. I think it is more a synthesis of how I feel about love, because in general, love makes me suffer.

At some point in the play you try to get over things, to clean up the mess but it ends up being worse…

Yes, I think it’s typical from the anguished souls, kind of like revolcarse en el fango, I’m a very romantic person, in terms of the 21^st century, I’m drawn to all of this darkness.

What else is left to learn?

Singing!

But you sing in the play.

Very badly [laughs] but I’d like to sing for real, I’m taking lessons now. Music is the best place I can be.

What will you do when you retire as a dancer?

I don’t really think about that, I’m still in shape, but I’ll probably become a sort of full-time director.

What do you feel when your audience reacts, when they laugh, for example.

Yeah, people laugh, I know the beginning it might sound funny but I think it is tragic as well. But certain things are meant to be funny in the play. To me humour is indispensable, actually that oscillation from humour and tragedy.

It happens a lot on stage; sometimes we make fun of the things we couldn’t tell any other way. When I am about to fall into solemnity, I need to rescue it.

I am really aware of the audience reaction; last night for example, it was the first time that anybody laughed when I jumped on top of the sink, or when I walked as a wolf. Usually nobody laughs there – I was surprised.

Right then on stage?

Yes. I’m really aware of everything when I am on stage. Sometimes people laugh because they feel kind of awkward – I mean I do show them my arse.

Why naked?

I think it has to do with a very high level of exhibitionism, this showing everything. If I was to literally transcript that, I think it would really mean: I take everything off and I show you who I really am. It’s grotesque that you can see inside of me, but it’s also spiritual.

Why get dressed again then?

Well, he actually dresses on top of the dirt. On top of something he hasn’t really worked out. But he dresses to play the piano as well, and the music is so dark, it comes from the darkness, it is so romantic, it continues in this dramatic state. I am really into that world anyway, the romanticism, the living dead, actually the play I did last year in Rojas was about that. Last year I did a course of ‘Teatro No’, Japanese traditional theatre, and some ‘kabuki’ as well. I wanted to go straight to Japan and learn more! ‘Teatro No’ has such a level of concentration of the expression, of the energy, poetry – it was astonishing. And all the stories, which are kind of a stereotype, repeat the structure of a soul in pain that comes back to earth to sort out its unfinished business. That’s why they use the masks, it’s like a phantom and the human being disappears behind it. I’m so drawn to that world.

Photo courtesy of Pablo Rotemberg

The darkness is really rich and has a lot of good things in it that it’s good to rescue.

It’s all darkness in the end. The world is in a terrible way after all. And I wonder, ‘What do I do to make it better?’ Do I just satisfy my vanity? But that’s because the world is atrocious. I am very sensitive and I can’t rationalise all of it, but from what I studied – history, etc – the world has always been an atrocious place. Last year I got obsessed with dictatorships for example. Perhaps from a superficial place, I admit, perhaps even naïve. I got obsessed with the music and the aesthetic concept. Not even dictatorships in my own country, my family is Jewish, and the Nazis fascinate me, but from a respectful place. I mean, because I’m Jewish I can use a German national anthem in one of my plays, like I did last year. Otherwise it would seem like something irreverent.

What was the public opinion response to that?

None. Beyond my personal story – my family’s really – I’m interested in the music and the aesthetics. But sometimes I feel like I am transposing the rules.

So you dance, you sing, you play the piano, you act – all on this small platform. How big is it exactly?

Three metres.

It must be hard to handle the stage space.

No, it’s not. I really enjoy using every impossible corner. Actually I’m scared now as I have to direct a ballet company on a big stage like Teatro San Martín. I’m going to have to start thinking big.

El Lobo is on every Friday until 25th April at Camarín de las Musas, Mario Bravo 960. Entrance is $20, and the show starts at 11.30pm. For tickets please call 4862 0655. 

Photo courtesy of Iván de Pineda

Iván de Pineda has been Argentina’s top male model for over a decade. He has worked for the biggest names in the fashion industry – Jean-Paul Gaultier, Versace and DKNY. After several years living in London, Paris and New York, he’s back in Argentina, and last month released ‘Cuando ella saltó’ (‘When she jumped’), his second film, but his first in the starring role.

So you’re going to move into acting and away from modelling?

I’m always curious about doing different things. Hosting TV shows, moving into the film industry. It’s all about evolution and taking the next step. We’ll see…

What’s it like to play the lead role?

Unbelievable. The film industry is marvellous, it’s the best ever: interacting with the other actors, the directors, the photographers – an unbelievable experience. And it’s exciting being the lead role – everyone’s eyes are on you! You’re a star and everyone is running up to you, it’s so much fun.

But you’re used to having all eyes on you anyway as a model…

But in a different way. As a model you get eyes on you on the runway or in pictures, not performing as a different person with a different personality, experience and feelings. It’s a completely different story. As a model, especially as you become more well known, everyone is always watching you, they know you. They’re not just looking at the clothes; they’re looking at you.

In both acting and modelling you’re being scrutinised. How does it compare between the two disciplines?

In a way modelling is like a primary school for acting. For most photographers, their work is an art. They always think about their work: they have a story behind what they are going to shoot, which teaches you a lot. Then there is the relationship between you and the camera. And this is where modelling gives you a slight edge, because you’re already used to the camera – you’re not afraid. It’s so much fun especially getting to play different roles, someone completely different. Watching yourself on the huge screen, your body, your eyes – you are yourself, but not yourself.

Models who convert to acting are usually treated with scepticism. Did this faze you at all?

Actors always end up doing advertising, doing watch ads or various other campaigns! But of course you have to prove yourself. Prove to yourself, and then to everyone else, that you’re up to the challenge.

Joaquín Furriel is an example of an actor who was unconvinced by models who act. He told Clarín, however, that you dispelled a lot of his prejudices when you worked together, and now he’s a big fan. How does that make you feel?

That’s exactly what I’m saying: show that you’re up to the challenge and you can do things the right way and do a good job, that’s it. People will recognise the amount of hard work you put in.

You told Clarín that one of the hardest things about being a model was standing around all day not having to think…

It’s the worst, especially in between shoots. Just to shoot one outfit can take an hour, an hour and a half, and sometimes you stay in the same position for 25 minutes. It’s like the street entertainers who perform as statues. You’re there for two hours without even blinking. And it’s so boring, especially when conditions are harsh and it’s boiling hot or freezing cold.

It caused quite a media stir when you won the celebrity quiz section on Susana Giménez’s show. Why do you think people were so surprised?

Me, you, people on the street – everyone generalise. For example, it is assumed politicians are all corrupt. Football players, they are one thing, policemen are something else… And it’s exactly the same thing with models. And when something like that [winning the quiz] happens, we are surprised. How come? It is sometimes forgotten that people have a life away from work. I don’t just have a modelling life – I like to read, and when I travel, I always like to speak the language of the country where I am, and learn a different culture. People don’t get to see this and that’s why they’re surprised. But what would have happened had I lost in the first round? Nobody would have been surprised as I’m a model! But either way, I have never felt the need to defend myself. I don’t care. We all have lives. And like being a doctor, when you’re home, you’re yourself, you’re not a doctor, you have another life.

In your life away from modelling, you’ve been dating Luz Barrantes for eight years. How do you find keeping your private life private?

When you find someone who likes the same things as you, someone you can communicate with, essentially someone you love, it’s perfect; it really works, and has done for me. We spent five years not living in the same town. That’s really difficult. But she was always on the other end of the phone when I needed her. Her support was unbelievable…Si querés, podés (If you want to, you can).  It was a good test, especially when you’re at work with girls the whole time…

Does potential media intrusion not bother you, especially in light of the hype surrounding the divorce of Martín [Barrantes, brother of Luz] and Pampita [famous model, Carolina Ardohain]?

I think it’s really difficult when someone gets into that situation and especially when divorce is involved. But I know Martín and the way he is. I’ve known him for such a long time and at the end you’ve got to let things be. The press was so intrusive.

Pampita claimed (amongst other things) that a main problem was that she was never accepted by the Barrantes’ because of her lower social status. You’re from a different background to Luz. How have you found that?

That’s such a lie! They’re a really good family, really great values. Every single one of them is so nice and simple and down to earth. And they are so well educated you wouldn’t believe it.

And Luz’s late uncle, Héctor Barrantes, was married to Susan Wright, mother of the Duchess of York. Have you met Sarah Ferguson?

I’ve met her a couple of times. She’s great, has a great attitude. She’s simple, she’s nice.

In her time, she was a public figure representative of one of the oldest parliamentary monarchies in Europe. The federal model is much more recent. How do you think it’s working in Argentina?

Politics in Argentina is very complicated: People don’t have many options because in the same party there are so many different ideas. It’s not like in England where you have the Labour, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and other smaller parties. Be it Tory or Labour, you know what you’re voting for. They have a core stance which has been there for hundreds of years. And it works. Here that’s not the case.

And how do you see Argentina at the moment? And in the future?

Argentina was always such an expensive country, but for a period of time following the 2001 economic collapse, it was really cheap. Now, for Argentines it is really expensive. But in South America, Argentina is always going to be a great country in terms of power and setting trends, everyone is looking to Argentina. Hopefully Cristina [Fernandéz de Kirchner, the new president] is going to do well. Everyone is hoping that Argentina gets better. It used to be one of the greatest countries in the world not even 60 years ago, but let’s see… We’ll talk next July!

‘Cuando ella saltó’ (directed by Sabrina Farji, starring Iván de Pineda and Andrea Galante) is out in cinemas across Argentina now. See www.cinesargentinos.com.ar for listings.