This season a new facet of Nicolás Cabré will be known. He debuted as a director with the comedy Tom, Dick and Harry written by Ray Cooney and his son Michael and premiered in London in 1993. Now on the Multiteatro stage will be Mariano Martínez, “Bicho” Gómez, Yayo Guridi, Mercedes Oviedo, Gabriela Sari, Rodrigo Raffetto, Jorge Noya and the special participation of María Valenzuela. They will run from Wednesday to Sunday, with two performances on Saturdays.
In this dialogue we discover two leading men –Cabré and Martínez- of a specific age on TV and prime time who are now parents. As Cabré will affirm: “Today being bigger, we are more aware”.
—How did you become a director?
NICOLAS CABRE: I was always a bit into it. When it was my turn to act, I would ask, propose and I was lucky to be with directors who have allowed me to. I knew that at some point I was going to decant my interest in directing. This happened very naturally. Mariano (Martínez) wanted to do a play with me, but I am acting in a woman hurts me and I gave him this play thinking that he might interpret it and I might direct it. He didn’t know who had the rights, I suggested that he look for them to work together. He met with Tomás (Rottemberg) and Juan Manuel (Caballé) and it turned out that Juan had the rights. Almost a year passed.
—What interested you in this play to go back on stage?
MARIANO MARTINEZ: I loved it as soon as I read it. You realize how she takes you. She laughed at me and I even read it to my eldest daughter (Olivia, 13 years old), who also had fun with what she read to her. She loves acting and helped me pass lyrics. In addition, the insistence of Nico (Cabré) who told me that he had to do it weighed heavily.
“Is this the time to make comedies?” Does the public need them?
C: Today people are not for dramas. It seems to me that he needs laughter, even for a little while. Getting rid of problems and laughing is appreciated. This is a moment in the country when laughter is listed and goes on the stock market. When we did different television programs, such as Son amores, the public would come up to us on the street to thank us. It was 2001 and they stressed that during that hour they laughed.
M: Today we share from the networks some of those moments from those cycles of more than twenty years ago and people continue to have fun and appreciate what we did. They keep agreeing and that doesn’t happen with all genres.
—Sometimes the actor who makes humor is devalued…
C: It’s a complicated genre, it’s not simple. You don’t do two or three antics and people laugh. These are other times, I don’t know if tragedy is more or less complicated, comedy has its rhythm.
—What characteristics does Cabré have as a director?
M: For me it is my ideal to be directed by Nico and integrate this cast, with these companions. Today I am like at Disney, like on a birthday, very happy. I have a lot of confidence and I see the talent he has as a director. The tranquility that he demonstrates to convey to us what he wants. He knows how to lead the group forward. In all these weeks of rehearsals we had a great time and that we are eight actors on stage. I say it in private and in public: it’s brilliant.
—They say that directors are a bit psychologists and also parents…
M: And a little yes, he has patience because he takes us forward with our insecurities. Sometimes some understand before others what to do. He knows how to express himself well and makes no one feel bad. To be able to lead you have to have a certain gift to do it.
—Why open in summer in Buenos Aires?
C: It seemed essential to start the tour here, if it goes well we can go to Mar del Plata later. I thought it was good to start and bet on Buenos Aires, where spectators from other provinces can also see us. I am lucky to feel very accompanied, from the producers to the cast. Everything is designed for containment. We seek among all, from minute one, that the work can live as we dream it. A comedy worked by weight actors.
—It was released several years ago in London and in France it is considered a vaudeville: do you agree?
C: It has a lot of that rhythm, with its entrances and exits. The play starts with the introduction of the characters and they come and go throughout the show. They are going to see a different Mariano (Martínez), who will be on stage all the time, looking with his character –Tom- to cover holes. I think people are going to laugh a lot. The show is designed for the whole family to see, from an eight-year-old child. We are attentive that everyone can understand it, without problems.
—Is this Tom more difficult than other protagonists you played?
M: What I choose I feel I can do. I have five siblings in my life, which is why I know these family ties very closely. I am disciplined and responsible. Both the films Yo, traitor by Rodrigo Fernández Engler and Humo bajo el agua by Julio Midú were fictions that I wanted to do.
—Are these characters losers?
C: Yeah, they’re fantastic losers, the ones who think they’re alive and then find out they’re not. There’s something cute regarding a loser. It changed over the years, before the protagonist was the one who knew them all and won over women. Today the one who has the most difficulties is the one who conquers the affection of the people. Now the public empathizes with the one that everything goes wrong.
—For an actor who does comedy: is the biggest danger being tempted?
C: Sometimes being tempted is a resource that should not happen. For my part, I hate it. Although the public generally welcomes you laughing and even applauding you, but I don’t like it. Sometimes you can be tempted one day, but for me it is a mistake to look for that complicity.
Do you feel privileged as actors?
C: My brother works with the taxi from Monday to Saturday. I am privileged to be able to do what I do, what I like and enjoy it, in a country where this possibility almost does not exist, but I do not add more value than this. Today my priority goes elsewhere. I try to do what gives me time to be with my daughter. I say no to emergencies. I want to live, I don’t run anymore.
M: I am privileged to be able to do what I like. This project was something sought following. I wanted to do it and I was saying no to many other proposals, although I always appreciated being called, but it was not what I wanted to do. I said no to the three Masterchef, Who is the mask?, and to the hotel reality shows and to the one that will premiere with celebrities, with the leadership of Marley (The Challenge Argentina: the challenge), also to Sex de Muscari. Today being able to be in this work is a privilege, because it is what I wanted to do. I have three children and sometimes it’s hard to say no. People think that one has it easy, but I also play it.
yesterday’s greatest hits
Impossible not to associate them with great television hits such as Gasoleros, Son amores or Los únicos, to name just three of many. “I went from television with channels –remembers Nicolás Cabré- then the independent production companies came and now the platforms arrived. Everything was very different. I think of the time when we recorded on channel Thirteen, then Adrián (Suar) arrived and changed it. Now there are the platforms. Before the processes were different, it took longer, today it changes with absolute speed. I see it for my daughter Rufina, she doesn’t watch television. When she learns something that she shows me three days later, she already left.” Mariano Martínez continues: “They are indeed with the tablet and see what they want, how they want and when they want. But I have no nostalgia for what happened. I don’t think the past time was always better.”
They rehearsed the show in World Cup times and very close to the Obelisk, a place of festivities. When asked how they lived it, they confess. Cabré: “I am very calm. I got hooked almost to the end. I lived it calmly. I love that they won and the joy of my daughter Rufina celebrating. I think it’s wonderful what they did, but I would also have congratulated them if they didn’t win. We changed hours of rehearsals because with the shouts from the street we mightn’t continue”. Martínez will say: “I was always a big soccer fan, but I haven’t been that much for a while. My children were watching the album of figurines and they were passionate regarding each game. When we lost to Saudi Arabia, I think I was one of the few who took to the streets wearing the jersey. The collective joy was spectacular, as in the song where even those who fought in Malvinas are present”.
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