And the future of Bolivian theatre

As seen at the La Paz Fitaz festival, Bolivia enjoys a wealth of talented directors, writers, actors and actresses. Their abilities have been on display in various locations around the city and have largely captivated their audiences; for years, this festival has helped to inspire future generations of talent – be it acting, writing or directing, costume or stage design. However, as Eduardo Calla describes, today a noticeable lack of young raw talent paints a questionable future for Bolivia's theatrical sphere.

Eduardo Calla is one of Bolivia's most talented directors and writers. Aged 31, he is already well known as the cofounder of the production company Escena 163, formed in 2004. Productions such as Buenas Influencias: Bonitos Cadáveres, Di Cosas Cosas Bien... (Oh my country is très jolie!), and most recently, Mátame Por Favor, have enjoyed applause from audiences and critics alike. Compared with the wannabes of today, Calla had a relatively easy rise to success. Fortunate opportunities as a novice catapulted him into the writer and director that he is today, bypassing the proverbial starving artist phase which characterises many a young creative's fight for recognition. In 2000, he was made aware of a project called Tintas Frescas, an initiative created by the French government, in which Latin American countries were given the task of putting on a French play in France. Through this, he was made known to author and director Hubert Pescolas, who later selected Calla to undertake a period of residency in Marseilles, during which he wrote his first play, Extaciones. Calla credits this time as his 'formation period': through the access he was given to many different styles of theatre, he was able to develop his own writing style. From here he returned to Bolivia and continued in the same vein, soon reaching the level of renown that he enjoys now.

But his good fortune is rare, and Callas is concerned at the dwindling numbers of emerging talent in Bolivia. 'It seems to me that right now there is a generational gap in theatre, where the youngest people working are around thirty years old.' Thirty may not seem old, but theatre is an industry that thrives on raw talent and needs aspiring youngsters to provide fresh perspectives. Calla's theory on why there are few hopefuls makes sense; 'there aren't any young people that are creating productions, because the reality is that people need a job that allows them to make money. It's also because today's generation are much more pragmatic and less idealistic, and theatre is an idealistic vocation. For young people, it's practically impossible to start to work purely in theatre because they either have to start with a very conventional commercial production or they need to respond to the requirements of an institution that pay them for their work.'

This would suggest that for young people in Bolivia the difficulty of 'making it' lies not in competition, as is the case in many other countries, but in finding the confidence to dedicate themselves entirely to their craft. When scholarships and governmental assistance are not provided, very few people believe in their skill enough to leave regularly paid jobs behind and to rely solely on income from theatre. Even Calla, one of Bolivia's success stories, is unable to do this, having two further separate sources of income on which he can depend if needs be. Nevertheless, the opportunities he had in his youth kickstarted his career, giving him the confidence to progress to where he finds himself today. The question that provokes concern is why programmes like Tintas Frescas are no longer as readily provided for the next generation of talent. There is little chance for the industry to develop when very few resources are dedicated to the guiding and formation of fresh faces.

Ironically, however, Calla argues that this is where the unique distinction in Bolivian theatre lies. Lack of funding, either governmental or private, means that writers and directors have more freedom to experiment: 'Very few institutions support us…I think this gives our Bolivian theatre the opportunity to take real risks, because when you don't answer to anybody except your own work, you have more chance to gamble artistically.' This seems to be the one advantage that comes from a lack of support for Bolivian theatre. Young people who manage to produce work are free to let their imaginations roam without restriction from sponsors. Their work is true innovation. As Calla says, Bolivia has no defining theatrical style, and this is largely due to the freedom that characterises it.

It seems that a balance is required: one that allows the creation of original theatre in Bolivia, yet also provides assistance to young amateurs that cannot afford to pursue their theatrical dreams. Calla's experience proves that the equilibrium can be found. Hopefully more stories like his will ensure the future success of Bolivian theatre.

 
4 out of 5 stars

Directed by Luis Miguel Gonzalez Cruz, 30 Grados de Frio premiered in La Paz on Wednesday, 28th March, in El Teatro Municipal. The play was a success, received with rapturous applause and standing ovations on its close. It was performed by the Spanish collective El Astillero, which was brought together in 1993 by the writers Raul Hernandez, Juan Mayorga, Luis Miguel Gonzalez and Jose Ramon Fernandez. The four used the collective to perform both personal and external works before an audience, thus engaging the wider public in a socio-theatrical discussion. In 1995, they were enriched by a surge in membership: new professionals in visual arts, acting and stage direction allowed them to become more boundary-pushing in these areas and make dramatic interpretation the focus of their work. The writing collective has been performing for FITAZ since its creation eight years ago.

The play is based on Cartas de Rusia, by the famous 19th-century novelist Juan Valera. It tells of the relationship between the Duke of Osuna and Valera himself, the Duke's thensecretary: the pair travel to St. Petersburg together, undertaking what is a long – and, as we are repeatedly reminded, very cold – journey, studded with romance, betrayal and the odd moment of enlightenment. Far from being a dry historical drama, the play is a light comedy with the pair acting as a Hispanic Laurel and Hardy in an attempt to win the audience over by a laugh or three.

The play deals with their developing friendship as well as with their trials and tribulations concerning their diplomatic ties to the Russian aristocracy. Set in the winter of 1856, Gonzalez shows us two men who are completely out of their comfort zones in a classic culture-shock experience. This is epitomized by the highly comedic kissing scenes in which the Russian Duke plants fullon smackers on a less-than-pleased Duke of Osuna, who spends most of the play spitting this foreign saliva out across the stage.

It was impressive to observe how deftly the actors manipulated their surroundings, transforming the staging around them to create new scenes and new characters. The narrator, for example, morphs with ease into about five different people, ranging from a rather camp Italian chef to a demanding horseand- carriage driver, who repeats in rather self-conscious asides, 'and all of this I'm saying in Russian', to an already enraptured audience. In the performance I attended the opening five minutes of the play were unfortunately tainted by about three trailer-perfect ringtones going off in succession – followed by the usual tittering and exaggerated 'Ssshhs' from angered audience members. But the singular audacity of the actors soon dissipated the tension and swept us straight back to the windy Russian steppe.

The performance is charmingly unpretentious, with the actors changing scenes and dress right in front of us. The staging is classically minimal: a few chairs, a table and a couple of clothes railings for quick dresschanges. The intimacy of having just three actors on stage, none of which are ever allowed to rest backstage, means that the rapport between the audience and the characters is one of increasing solidarity and trust. Their laughter becomes our laughter. Their endearing self-deprecation is a joy to watch as it succinctly shattered the false illusion that we must take ourselves (and life) seriously.

We become children again as we delight in back-to-basics physical theatre. The narrator makes onomatopoeic horse-hooves noises by tapping a wooden block in a decisively galloping rhythm; he shakes a series of supposedly wall-hung pictures in an effort to recreate the movement of the Spain-Russia train carriage. It is humour at its most slapstick but for lighthearted entertainment at the end of a busy working day, it is just what an audience wants.

As the play draws to a close, Valera sits atop the wooden table and speaks to us as though we were childhood friends. He reflects that 'this world is a dance', inviting us to enjoy what the present moment has to give us because we don't know what the future will hold. The play as a whole is a testimony to this: we are called to delight in what we see and experience around us – life as an ode to living freely. This freedom is released through the joy of laughter, and as shown by 30 Grados de Frio, there is nothing more uplifting than laughing collectively.

1 out of 5 stars

Bolivian director Diego Aramburo took on Shakespeare's classic Hamlet in a new collaboration with the Teatro de los Andes on March 27, with little success. The fundamental problem lay between Aramburo's dark, morose style of direction and the theatre company's reputation as lighthearted, colourful and humorous – three things which Hamlet is not. Although Shakespearean tragedy can have funny moments, with such a reduced script (only 90 minutes long), the play failed to be either lighthearted or heartwrenching. Although Aramburo said the performance was important for the Teatro de los Andes because the company was faced with the same existential problem as the protagonist – To be or not to be, a motivating force for the play's production – the fusing of the two styles was the play's downfall.

As the audience took to their seats, they were greeted by Hamlet's father's corpse laid out on a bleak and empty stage, and immediately a sombre tone was set. The main prop – a door that was also used a table – was used extensively and creatively, allowing for the minimalist approach that characterises Aramburo's directorial style. The other props were metallic, which, combined with the spotlights, created the harsh and sinister mise en scène that Hamlet usually bears. The protagonist opened the play with an emotive soliloquy lamenting the death of his father, whose face he then mysteriously eats. The significance of this is unclear, although it may relate to the portrayal of Hamlet as an aparapita, who while eating concealed himself from other people and willed the death of a bishop (here, Claudius). More likely, it was just a wacky effect to add to the supposed edginess of the production. Hamlet, a sympathetic figure as he quickly falls into madness, is warped with thoughts of vengeance for his father's murder. The music and lighting contributed greatly to the tension, whilst the minimalist staging (something which Aramburo said is typically Bolivian: no backdrop and a row of thin cotton sheets on either side of the stage) forced the audience to pay full attention to the acting. But all suspense and emotion were shattered when the famous and highly ironic poisoning scene was portrayed as a cholita wrestling match, enacted by two male actors crudely dressed as Bolivia's famous female wrestlers. This scene was certainly for the benefit of the theatre company – which is known for its lighthearted comedy – and was met with considerable laughter, although that too was arguably offensive to both women and cholitas, and it undoubtedly undermined the most dramatically ironic scene of the entire play. The way in which Aramburo attempted to make Hamlet Bolivian was by including dialogue in Aymara – although that, too, was offensive, as Hamlet was seen roaming around the stage, spitting sweets from his mouth, half-naked and certainly mad. The audience (comprised of La Paz's pale middle class, with nary a pollera in sight) thought this hilarious. However, the link between the indigenous people's language and Hamlet's rapidly decreasing mental stability was at best somewhat questionable. A more successful Spanish reference was that of the Día de Todos los Santos, a day on which an offering is made to the dead; this reference was muttered acerbically by Hamlet as he left the stage, rooting the play in a much-desired South American context and also portraying Hamlet´s bitterness as well as his obligation to avenge his father's murder.

The portrayal of Hamlet as an aparapita was not at all obvious from the performance, and only hinted at when the protagonist had a table strapped to his back, which he hauled around the stage, symbolic of the burden of vengeance he now carried; the constant references to alcohol also implied this interpretation, but that greatly undermined Hamlet's madness. This inebriation may also account for the bizarre inclusion of water throughout the performance (at one point in the play, water poured from the table, and Ophelia was constantly pouring water over herself). It is a shame that the production did not make its interpretation more clear, as its symbolic significance could have been an interesting South American twist on an Elizabethan English classic. But the audience wasn't privy to the company's intent, and instead, the production sat on the fence and tried to squeeze Shakespeare's longest play into 90 minutes, attempting to be both funny (in the most bizarre and often offensive ways) and tragic, but finally only being cryptic and opaque. If only the Teatro de los Andes had fully addressed our Prince's famous question and arrived at a convincing, entertaining and comprehensible answer.