Norman Briski: “Good art can be on a napkin”

The year 2025 is coming to an end, but Norman Briski continues his theatrical projects in his own theater Cáliban in Mexico 1428. On the one hand, he stages the play Maxidonio. The mysterious Puchero by Vicente Muleiro with five actors on stage who bring part of the texts and life of the writer Macedonio Fernández. On the other hand, he also directs the play Sexágono, which he wrote himself, in which Nicolás Litvinoff and Delfina Viano play the main roles. He also does Free Stone, where he presents his defense of a Palestinian state, also with text and production. Restless and astute, as always and even now, at the age of 87, he vigorously defends his positions on literature, on our country and on world conflicts.

—Why were you interested in doing a work on Macedonio Fernández?

—In Argentine society we all-powerfully believe that a little creativity, invention and humor are missing. But Macedonio is the example of this: of the unprecedented, of the ridiculous, and would have been unknown if it had not been for Borges, who understood that Macedonio changed reality, with the impudence in the use of the word. Macedonian has a latency in the field of literature and subtle culture.

—To what extent would this work about an unprecedented author also have something unprecedented?

—We see Macedonio as a promoter of new forms, aesthetic innovations. This excited Borges because the literature of the time had its currents and semiology of a very exclusive and European nature. Macedonio stands out for its breakouts and difficult entry opportunities into this market. We make a review of Macedonio, which implies an abbreviation, a prerequisite in order to quickly recognize the intensities of the dramaturgy. At the pace of the scenes, the actors with shortcut skills manage to make this bet as graceful as a kind of waterfall of apparent information.

—What is Sexagono like?

—Sexagon is the complete opposite. It is the chronicle of a postmodern love story. It denounces the productive system and what screens and meaningless speeds do to us. Maxidonio brings up a topic for thought. Sexágono allows us to recognize ourselves in new illnesses, alienations and prejudices. He also laments the lack of affection transferred to machines. It is a story almost rescued from scenes of my daily life and that of the actors, about the emptying of solidarity, the constancy of affections, about the absence of attachments.

—How did you build Piedra Libre?

—It is a work based on stories from fellow Palestinians about what genocide means in the Middle East and how I defend the idea of ​​a Palestinian state. It’s not about any avant-garde, but about (a character) who is a son of this land, who sees it becoming a desert, and who sees his children, brothers, parents and children in the worst moment of their enormous struggle. For many today, however, it is the act of giving dignity to this hurting planet.

—Have you seen the earth metaphorically turn into a desert in our country’s past and/or present?

“We should talk about the Mapuche people, who have been constantly harassed by the Argentine state since Roca, and how the Palestinian people suffer in other, more hypocritical ways; they are trampled on as if they were not Argentinians and should disappear. It is not a comparison with the same landscape, but shame is not the exclusive property of the Israelites, but today a serious systematic genocide is being carried out against the Mapuche people. The shapes of our country remain in relation to its colony. Today, with civilian complicity, as in the days of the military dictatorship. Beyond the names of the protagonists, the civilian complicity wanted to kill us and achieved the disappearance of the 30,000. Today, in a few weeks, Argentina will become a neo-colony, a city in economic and cultural dependence. “At last,” someone would say, “we can be Americans”: this is the subjectivity of a part of our society that rejoices in the colors of American films.

—Faced with this diagnosis, there are people who are sad; other people, outrage. Are there alternatives to these reactions?

—Purchasing power is on the side of sadness or depression, which would give the Lacanians a lot of work. If we remove the class of those who can afford the luxury of sadness, we should at least turn to anger: a dangerous insurgent pursuit. I am a socialist. I think of National Socialism. Yes, left-handed. In the immediate past there are good heroes, good people, good mobilizations and good demands. We are not in the cemetery crying for life, but we are in life to have the opportunity to be poets and to look for the forms of good art that can be on a napkin.

—Who are the heroes you have in mind?

– I’m looking at Che without a doubt. I also have a man here at the pharmacy who seems like a hero to me when he says, “Take this instead, it won’t hurt your stomach.” There is a micro-heroism. There are many ways to be heroes, for example when, like this morning, I meet people who have no interest other than playing with theatrical material, no economic interest, no possibility of being profitable. The key to being an actor is a heroic key. I am a fictional hero, but I am in the act of heroism. A lot of young people come to rehearse. With that I console myself, fall in love and take the bus.

—Are you traveling by bus?

– Yes, all the time. Especially 102.

—Do people recognize you, greet you, after your very long and popular career?

—The so-called humble people, or those with lower consumption ability (and consuming together is not nonsense), those who have the purchasing power not to make ends meet, are more cautious. As soon as you enter Santa Fe Street you will be asked for photos and autographs. But if you go to my daughters’ school on Rocha Street, they never came up to me and said, “Hello, I saw you on TV.” They are careful and okay. They don’t want to deal with it.

—Is the “insurrectionary effort” you were talking about earlier, say the revolution, a current thing or a museum thing?

—The things in museums are the things that last the longest. There are many things in museums. Where are Rosa Luxemburgo, Macedonio, Homero Manzi, Discépolo? There are those who say: “You are vintage.” And I probably am too, because I’m many years old now and have seen a lot. But I don’t have them in the museum. They are my ghosts and some touch my shoulder. If you are alienated, don’t go to a museum, go to any canvas. Anyone who believes that we will live from consumption should look every day that the war goes by to see where the market, which is our new god, is developing. Nowadays people travel a lot in gondolas as a distraction from their sexuality and their interest in mystery. But that will pass, like many new things: the radio, the telephone. As a poet who couldn’t walk would say, “Look at the clouds passing by.” At some point I was able to experience the power of the uprising. Insurgency is a feature of our country; Few countries had the rebellious character of Argentina. The uprising is measured only by unpredictability and discontinuity: it cannot be calculated.

—What place does theater have in everything that is happening today?

“Theater is a game, a very beautiful and divine children’s game, because it is very difficult to grasp in its complexity and ability to surprise us. The enemy of theater is its explanation.