Bridge Theater
The only thing I'm plugging is the Teatro del Puente, literally "Theatre of the Bridge", which literally stretches over the Mapocho River, a fantastic place to watch live theatre in Santiago, Chile. I'm not plugging my nose in recalcitrant opposition to the odious duty of writing something "nice" about Chile, nor do I need to avoid the air here, it's relatively minty fresh, it's only much further downriver that the sewage makes the scene.
Where crosses the Puente, the just-muddy Mapocho murmurs pacifically underway, white noise subtly extinguishing the din of downtown, despite the bridge's central location. The theatre is a former flatmate and the nicest guy in Santiago who, when speaking English, I swear to God sounds exactly like el gato, kinda looks like him too, anyway, he introduces the play with a reminder not to be alarmed at the occasional swaying of the theatre: it's a bridge.
Which was actually really important that he said that because the periodic wobbling felt just like those tremors that are common to Santiago. Furthermore my nerves were on edge because earlier the Transantiago that I was in had crashed on the way into town and I had predicted it. Yes, among the idle thoughts attacking me in the boredom of the ride, the words "This Bus is Doomed" hit, and my attention moved on to other things like the random spats breaking out, natural when humans are pressed together like cattle. Sure enough, the bus crashed with no injuries, but here's the take-away:
I was able to realize that my paranoid mental images of the bridge caving in and dozens of casualties making world news were just that, paranoid, and pumped with manufactured sensationalism that's got nothing on the nonchalance of Premonition. Thus my fear assuaged, I enjoyed the play.
Actually, more than "enjoyed" it, I found Ulises o No a healing experience. The dramatic pulses of mechanized sound, light, the human voice, a bizarre troop of sex slaves to a Pinochet era pervert down on the ground barking like dogs and roaring like lions, song and dance so humorous that it almost knocked some audience members into spastic, uncontrollable laughter, great comedians sometimes achieve those victims.
It was also great to see my friend act live, I'd only seen her on the big screen before. In Ulises o no, she played the part of a mother who's son had left for school one morning and never came back, disappeared by the military junta. Pretty deluded, she stayed in front of the TV knitting all day, watching TV hoping for a message that he's safe, she's watching Don Francisco's Sábado Gigante an all-day Saturday TV marathon of silliness and fun that was extremely popular throughout the dictatorship as tens of thousands were being brutally tortured, thousands killed, their bodies exhumed by at least one Catholic priest and dumped into the ocean.
The comment was made that the script was overwrought with references for pretty much all-Chilean audience, insulting their intelligence but it was fine for me as even then I only got a fraction of the references (Don Francisco at one point says "Not a single leaf in this country moves without me finding out", which in reality Pinochet said that. Get it?), and most of the cultural context had to be explained to me afterwards. What didn't have to be explained was the incredible sadness, beauty and humor of Gabriela's pathetic character, whose moment of truth finds her on the TV set, proudly wearing the red, white and blue of the Chilean flag, calling for her son and shouted off stage by Don Francisco.
There's a ton of theater in Santiago, and it's much less cautious in addressing important themes like this, the psychological fallout of the dictatorship. Mainstream Chilean film is a lot more like Chilean TV, where stuff that matters doesn't get talked about. Machuca didn't even scratch the surface and Patricio Guzman is hardly mainstream here. So unlike film, which is growing but still it's got a ways to go, theatre is extremely alive in Santiago, there's always something to see if you want. Yeah it's said there's a lot of bad theatre in Santiago, but you can say that about New York, too.
Was that nice enough, Chile? Peace Bus! Or perhaps...Justice Bridge? You decide.
Where crosses the Puente, the just-muddy Mapocho murmurs pacifically underway, white noise subtly extinguishing the din of downtown, despite the bridge's central location. The theatre is a former flatmate and the nicest guy in Santiago who, when speaking English, I swear to God sounds exactly like el gato, kinda looks like him too, anyway, he introduces the play with a reminder not to be alarmed at the occasional swaying of the theatre: it's a bridge.
Which was actually really important that he said that because the periodic wobbling felt just like those tremors that are common to Santiago. Furthermore my nerves were on edge because earlier the Transantiago that I was in had crashed on the way into town and I had predicted it. Yes, among the idle thoughts attacking me in the boredom of the ride, the words "This Bus is Doomed" hit, and my attention moved on to other things like the random spats breaking out, natural when humans are pressed together like cattle. Sure enough, the bus crashed with no injuries, but here's the take-away:
I was able to realize that my paranoid mental images of the bridge caving in and dozens of casualties making world news were just that, paranoid, and pumped with manufactured sensationalism that's got nothing on the nonchalance of Premonition. Thus my fear assuaged, I enjoyed the play.
Actually, more than "enjoyed" it, I found Ulises o No a healing experience. The dramatic pulses of mechanized sound, light, the human voice, a bizarre troop of sex slaves to a Pinochet era pervert down on the ground barking like dogs and roaring like lions, song and dance so humorous that it almost knocked some audience members into spastic, uncontrollable laughter, great comedians sometimes achieve those victims.
It was also great to see my friend act live, I'd only seen her on the big screen before. In Ulises o no, she played the part of a mother who's son had left for school one morning and never came back, disappeared by the military junta. Pretty deluded, she stayed in front of the TV knitting all day, watching TV hoping for a message that he's safe, she's watching Don Francisco's Sábado Gigante an all-day Saturday TV marathon of silliness and fun that was extremely popular throughout the dictatorship as tens of thousands were being brutally tortured, thousands killed, their bodies exhumed by at least one Catholic priest and dumped into the ocean.
The comment was made that the script was overwrought with references for pretty much all-Chilean audience, insulting their intelligence but it was fine for me as even then I only got a fraction of the references (Don Francisco at one point says "Not a single leaf in this country moves without me finding out", which in reality Pinochet said that. Get it?), and most of the cultural context had to be explained to me afterwards. What didn't have to be explained was the incredible sadness, beauty and humor of Gabriela's pathetic character, whose moment of truth finds her on the TV set, proudly wearing the red, white and blue of the Chilean flag, calling for her son and shouted off stage by Don Francisco.
There's a ton of theater in Santiago, and it's much less cautious in addressing important themes like this, the psychological fallout of the dictatorship. Mainstream Chilean film is a lot more like Chilean TV, where stuff that matters doesn't get talked about. Machuca didn't even scratch the surface and Patricio Guzman is hardly mainstream here. So unlike film, which is growing but still it's got a ways to go, theatre is extremely alive in Santiago, there's always something to see if you want. Yeah it's said there's a lot of bad theatre in Santiago, but you can say that about New York, too.
Was that nice enough, Chile? Peace Bus! Or perhaps...Justice Bridge? You decide.
posted by Chileno @ 9:55 PM
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4 Comments:
Soon, you'll know Santiago better than I do. It is hanging my head in shame that I admit I never made it to the "Teatro del Puente".
It's true that there's a lot of good theatre in Santiago. There's more bad theatre, but then tickets tend to be cheap, so you can take risks.
Speaking of risks, I have a pet theory that it's precisely the need to convince financiers and a bigger team of people that dilutes much Chilean cinema until it's a pretty bland finished product.
I did, however, really like Machuca. In its defence, Andrés Wood is not a historian, telling the story is not his personal responsibility, and his film doesn't scratch the surface because it's centred on a kid's experience of those times, just on the thresh hold of developing his own political awareness. It's hinted at, but we leave him before it fully forms.
You make me wish I could have been there to see the whole thing. Bus crash and all.
Well, teatro del puente was out of commission for a while as I understand, and Freddy put a LOT of work into getting it back on track, he's done an amazing job, the theater is really comfortable and elegant, there's a cafe and you can view the...well...Telefonica tower. But that's Santiago's fault ;-)
I don't mean to knock Machuca that much, but rather point out what it's not, and there should be film filling up that gap but there isn't, at least nothing that has penetrated much. I'd like to see something like Miguel Litin's film, I forget what it was called, the one he did about the workers' movement in the nitrate towns but he had to film it in mexico, it was kinda like a western, and had dark torture scenes. It was filmed in the seventies so it was kinda like the crucible, using the witch trials to talk about mccarthy, this used the nitrate towns to talk about Pinochet. Tomás, you showed me that movie, what was it called?
Thanks for the props GM!
Ok, Chile ows you one :-)
http://stage6.divx.com/Rincon-Chileno
You can see here the famous" batalla de chile "in HD streaming.
The contents of the site are quite random in time, and you may found some ols stuff of the 70's as "el topo" from A . Jodorowsky and other rare pearls.
stage6, a gold mine :-) enjoy.
PD : and of course http://www.cinechileno.org/
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