Claudio Tolcachir: "Love is insisting, not resigning"

• Claudio Tolcachir "I am not interested in giving lessons"

Two boys on stage. They love each other, they talk to each other, they share their time. They rub, but they don't touch each other. Because the reality is that everyone is in a corner of the world: Madrid and Australia. Phone calls, skype , messages ... it seems like they were there next door. They themselves believe it and the viewer of Next too, but Claudio Tolcachir (Buenos Aires, 1975), author of this work premiered at the last Autumn Festival and who will remain at the Abbey Theater until November 22, is responsible that this illusion falls apart and rearms in a purely theatrical game.

Next is, like all Tolcachir's works, an approach to the core of our humanity. Something so everyday in these times that the actor himself converted into a playwright experienced in his flesh. «When we started with this play, my partner [actor Gerardo Otero] was in Buenos Aires. We were waiting for our first daughter, who was getting pregnant in Chicago , and I was looking at the ultrasound and talking to the pregnant woman, while they operated my father's heart in Argentina, ”he says. «Therefore, the germ of this work was crossed by that division of pieces, between body and soul ...».

While one of the two lovers on stage lives the parties of the Madrid night in summer, the other lives badly in the winter of a country whose language he does not know. "The challenge was to play with the viewer's imagination," Tolcachir says. «That these two bodies were living together , sharing space, but telling a totally different universe».

It is (another) sign (more) of the times, Tolcachir reflects. «Now you can have the illusion of sharing a walk, of being able to have dinner, even of sex, with someone who is very far away. But when the communication is cut, it suffers, ”says the playwright. It is that division, "in which you are present in one place, your head is there, but your heart is in another " that generates the drama.

However, Tolcachir was not interested in doing apocalypse about the dehumanization of new technologies and social networks. "I wanted to address virtual relationships, but without prejudice or preconceived ideas ," ditch. The anguish is more intimate, closer, he insists: "As it becomes more desperate for the two characters the need to meet, it also becomes desperate for the viewer that they meet personally."

Instead of focusing "on the technical elements that separate us," the author is committed to a conciliatory integration . «These two characters would never meet if it were not for the possibilities granted by technology. The same can be seen in people who, if they lived in another era, might not be able to relate in the same way. How many times have we met people who are brilliant on Twitter, but then they can't even look you in the face in a face-to-face conversation , ”he reflects. «And maybe this is: that the person who is going to save your life is an Argentine immigrant without papers in Australia».

That is to say: loneliness. And, in addition, in an environment that is quite the opposite. "Theater is a ceremony where we all have to be present," emphasizes Tolcachir. «Each of the spectators completes the colors, the distances, the trips. And that communion between the work and the spectator is something unique. For two reasons, ”lists the playwright. «The first, by that power of the viewer's imagination, which is something that I fully trust. As in your intelligence and sensitivity. And the second, for the actor's body, which is something almost magical to me ».

Hence, he is not very interested in the explicit. «I prefer when one is not clear about the conflict. The moment I see the weapons, when they want to produce that laughs or fits me, I resist, ”he confesses. "I prefer when I feel affected by an emotion and I don't realize how they succeeded." That is, according to, precisely art: «Achieving a truth complex and human enough that the viewer feels that the work dialogues with his own life».

Next is also a very special text within the trajectory of Timbre 4, the company founded by Tolcachir in the hardest part of the Argentine post-Corralito crisis. The playwright actor settled in his own house. The way for the spectators to reach the room was precisely to press that button number four. «This work was born relaxed, in the best sense of the word. Because it speaks of persistence . I did not need to break or criticize anything, but only to put light on all the people who, today, insist, ”he says.

Because that is precisely what the characters do here. "Although it is hard, pathetic and painful, although the relationship is impossible, they insist, try and expose themselves, " proclaims the author. "And that's love," he concludes. "I am very afraid of resignation, which I think is very good for certain places of power to have ourselves delivered and accepting that things are as they are, that they cannot be changed." Nor is he especially interested in these broader, socio-political speeches, but there is some of that in those who are increasingly sunk and do not give up on their efforts. "It is wonderful to try to find someone who wants to build , to protect each other and generate something that changes."

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