Theater and dictatorship: how to watch jokes and blacklists

(It is possible to listen to the podcast “Medio siglo de teatro”. by clicking here)

In 1979 Carlos Rottemberg He lived in a unit with his family on Rivadavia Avenue at 4900, in the Caballito neighborhood. For five years he lived as a cinema and theater manager. He was not a teenager emancipated by his fathers to sign checks. At 21, he was a tough man.

One black morning in 1979, the contractor’s family and the building’s neighbors greeted the steering wheel with sufficiently clear and serious threats. In the third episode of the “Medio siglo de teatro” podcast, Carlos Rottemberg recuerda How the shows were produced in the period that started in 1976 and ended in 1983.

The leaflet, written in italics and with instructions in a typeface with some independent people, reads as follows: “Part of the war number 622. Señor Carlos Rottemberg produces artistic performances in his Teatro de Pinamar, characterized by the participation of elements that are apologetic Marxist. Son of Ellos Mercedes Sosa, Luis Brandoni, Marikena Monti and Moncho Mieres. We continue in this attitude, we will proceed to “fly” the department as first (sic) medicine. Señor vecino, do not receive a subversive apañador in your building”.

In fact, Rottemberg, who had a hall in Pinamar, signed a contract for that year in 1979 with singer Mercedes Sos (a month after going into exile), Marikena Monti, Luis Brandoni and his guitarist Moncho Mieres. Enter Estaban “forbidden”.

During the dictatorship, there was repression, desapariciones, blacklists and terrorism in the state. Without the embargo, the theater survived.

“We’re used to bomb alert calls that force us to suspend functions, as well as Gamexane tablets that we can use to desolate rooms. There were businessmen who, out of conviction or fear, did not oppose those who were ‘banned’, but we did not wonder – as now – who they thought politically. But I want to be absolutely true to reality. Actors, authors and directors were banned where they were most active in the theaters. Because of course television was public and regulated, cinema was massive… so the place to work was the theatres. I keep the memory of the continuation of life, it is worth saying, we are ready to start after functions, like today and we have projects”explains Rottemberg.

It is impossible to mention dictation without mentioning the phenomenon of Teatro Abierto.

It was a form of artistic protest against the military government that began in July 1981. The program included 21 short works that were performed in three daily functions at the El Picadero Theater. There were national authors and directors who behaved like ungrateful people for politics. It was a way of bypassing the regime’s censorship: it was the result if all available records were sold. However, the following day, the El Picadero theater was set on fire by people from the dictatorship.

Before the destruction of the place where the Teatro Abierto was set up, the dueños of the other rooms were made available to the organizers. This is how Rottemberg records it: “With Guillermo Bredeston, who at the time were tenants of the old Tabaris theater, we were one of those who, like Alejandro Romay dueño from El Nacional and other entrepreneurs, offered to continue the cycle. The Open Theater Commission chose us to follow it in Tabaris”. Therefore, Rottemberg was the partner of the defective actor Guillermo Bredeston, with whom he had a great friendship.

When dictation is said, it is also mentioned Luis Brandon He has a long-standing friendship in which he has great trust. Remembering that with the return of democracy, Brandoni began to express the result of “Made in Lanús”, a work about exile during the dictatorship, in which he starred alongside Patricia Contreras, Marta Bianchi and Leonora Manso. Rottemberg told her that the theater in Mar del Plata was not in a position to receive the public she hoped for, and Brandoni disputed this: “I’m into you or I’m not into Nadie, because in the wording, the only one who always loved you. And if those who are calling me now don’t tell me the theater.’

Rottemberg talks about those dark years in which the curtains were raised in the third episode of the “Medio siglo de teatro” podcast.