Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[blank]
Tina Srebotnjak: Now, I'll turn things over to our partner at the Toronto Star, because
of course this is the Star Talk in partnership with that newspaper, and I'll bring up Bob
Hepburn, who is the director of Community Relations and Communications.
[applause]
Bob Hepburn: Thank you, Tina. A non-profit winery?
[laughter]
BH: Oh, I love that. Thanks for coming out on what is a really miserable night. We've
been doing these Star Talks through with the library for about four or five years now,
and we've had everyone from Rick Mercer to Margaret Trudeau. For the last two summers,
and again this coming summer, we're taking Star Talks on the road to Stratford, where
we interview actors right on stage, right after the performance. So, take a look at
this. It's a really fun event and Stratford Festival people love doing it. So, my role
here tonight is to introduce Richard Ouzounian, he is going to formally introduce creators
of Arrabal. Richard has worked in the performing arts and arts journalism for 35 years. In
that time, he has written, directed, or acted in more than 225 productions, and he's served
as artistic director of five major Canadian theatres and has been an associate director
of the Stratford Festival.
BH: Richard has taught and/or directed at the University of British Columbia, Simon
Fraser, University of Winnipeg, George Brown College, and Sheridan College. And since the
year 2000, he has been the Chief Theatre Critic for the Toronto Star. Richard is prolific.
He does celebrity profiles, did Celine Dion on Saturday for in our paper. He writes travel
and restaurant features for us, as well. He has also hosted a weekly CBC radio program
on musical theatre and has served as creative head of arts programming at TV Ontario. And
in his spare time, and he does have some spare time I'm told, he has written six books. Toronto
Life called him "The city's most influential critic." I'd go further and say Richard is
Canada's most influential critic. Please welcome choreographer Sergio Trujillo, Tony award
winning playwright, John Weidman, Oscar winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla, and Richard
Ouzounian. Thank you.
[applause]
Richard Ouzounian: I'm gonna bring the gentlemen up one at a time, because they are so spectacular.
Usually, I get one terrific person to talk to at these events, tonight I have three.
So, I'm gonna talk fast, so you don't have too much of me. When it comes to writing a
musical, there is the book, and the great author William Goldman said, "You know, writing
the book for a musical is like putting the cake in flour. No one comes out and says 'What
great flour!' but try to make the cake without it." And the gentleman we have here tonight
is probably one of the master millers of flour in contemporary musical theatre. He has written
the book for three of the most interesting musicals I can think of among many others,
and I cherish them. They are Pacific Overtures, Assassins, and Contact. And the man who can
do all of that deserves all of our attention and applause. John Weidman, please.
[applause]
John Weidman: Thank you.
RO: Now, John and I have met only once before, our next guest is someone who I've had the
very great good fortune of knowing for... Oh gosh, maybe about 15 years now, I think.
We both were working at the Stratford Festival. I was directing a show and he was choreographing
another one, and we used to share cars back and forth in the city. And, I thought he was
this really nice guy, and then about three years later, he became this really big star,
who is choreographing every show in New York you could find. He has had, I think, three
shows running at once simultaneously, four on Broadway. The one that you probably all
remember the best, and know, it is still playing endlessly around the word is Jersey Boys.
And he is the gentleman who is the major creative force here tonight, and he'll tell you a lot
about it. Sergio Trujillo.
[applause]
RO: And then, someone who I did not know at all until a few minutes ago, and I'm thrilled
to have here, is an incredible composer, a man who has his fingers in so many different
types of music, that he is obviously the only person who could possibly do a piece like
this, which delves into tango, into extreme modern music, into elements of music theatre,
everything. He also... I guess would probably come across your radar if you're not into
some of the more pronounced Latin music he does, is the man who had the phenomenal distinction
of winning the Oscar of two successive years in a row for best score, for Broke Back Mountain
and Babel. Could you welcome Gustavo Santaolalla.
[applause]
RO: And I get to say, the order tonight is predicated in the fact that Gustavo is going
to play and sing later in the evening, so you have that to look forward to enormously.
Sergio, let me fling the ball at you first. Where did it start?
Sergio Trujillo: Oh my goodness. Three years ago, three-and-a-half years ago, I received
a call from Scott Zeiger one of the producer chairman of BASE Entertainment, which has
produced various shows including Jersey Boys in Vegas and he said, "I have a project that
I'm interested in you working on and that's using the music of Bajofondo." And I immediately
jumped up because I had actually found that CD, the first CD of Bajofondo 12 years before
that, while I was researching some music for a ballet I was choreographing for a company
in New York called Ballet Hispanico. And I found this CD and I thought, I had listened
to the music, and I was blown away 'cause it was tango, but it... Like I had never heard
it before. It was electronic, it was rock, it was... And more important, it was very
theatrical and every song that I heard, as I listened to it the first time, I just imagined
various stories that could be told through this music. So, I said someday I wanna do
something with this music. So, cut to 12 years later, and I met with Gustavo in New York.
Actually, I first went to the concert, they were performing at... Where were you guys
performing? Highline Ballroom.
Gustavo Santaolalla: Ballroom.
ST: And I just... So, one thing was... Hearing the music for the first time and I mean, listening
to it in my CD and then watch them perform. I just, I couldn't believe the power and the
force and all of the things that... How this music affected me and so, and John was there,
and we were just both ecstatic about the possibilities that this music offered. And so, Gustavo and
I met the next day and we immediately, immediately hit it off. I mean, it was like one of those
connections that... That was just, it was incredible. We call each other brothers 'cause
there's something really special...
GS: Well, we found out later that we were born on the same day.
ST: Oh yes. And the same day.
GS: Not the same year, but...
ST: Yeah. August 19th, we're both Leos. Anyway, so we met, we talked. We talked about the
different possibilities of what it could be and we... Gustavo had a treatment, an idea
that he wanted, of a story he wanted to tell and I said, "Well, why don't I go to Buenos
Aires, and we can start to discuss." And so that was the beginning of it. That was November
of three years ago. That was how it all started.
RO: So, you had music. You had the idea you wanted to tell a story. At what point in the
process John, did you start helping to shape things?
JW: Well, I got the same phone call that Sergio did. I mean, Richard referred to "Contact,"
which is a show I wrote, I guess about 15 years ago now, the primary storytelling vocabulary
of the piece was dance, I did with Susan Stroman, although it had a lot of dialogue in it. And
so, the person who gets the phone call when somebody has a dance musical in mind is me.
Like clockwork, once every five years, somebody calls me and asks if I wanna work on a dance
piece. And Scott called me. I had worked with Scott before. He asked me if I'd ever heard
of Bajofondo, I said, "I hadn't." He said, "Well, come down to the Highline Ballroom
and listen and see what you think." And just like Sergio, I was completely blown away by
Gustavo's music. I listened to some of it, a recording before I went down there, but
to watch these guys in performance, the energy and the intensity and the uniqueness of this
sound and of this band was really thrilling, and it felt as though it had a kind of drive
that would absolutely be compatible with a muscular story of some kind. And Gustavo had
already designed the outline of a story, which Sergio and I had been, started to sit down
and talk about, we think, "What if we did it this way? What if we did it that way?"
But that was the beginning for me as well.
RO: Now what happens, and this is where I get fanatically interested in this story is
that instead of making it just something old romantic, or we're in Argentina we're doing
the tango, and blah blah blah. You guys settled on... You went to the elephant in the country,
the major political incident that has happened in recent years, which was the "Dirty War"
and with the generals and decided to use this as kind of the thing that informed it. Sergio,
do you want to start? Or Gustavo, tackling that?
GS: Well, I've always been very interested in the concept of identity as an artist and
reflecting who you are and where do you come from, and that's on one side. So, I was always
very interested in the fusion, in whatever I did as an artist or producing other artists,
that somehow that concept was present. And I always worked most of my career mixing Argentinian
and Latin American folk music with rock, hip-hop, electronic, all that. But tango was always
something that I was very respectful. It's a genre that is very sophisticated on one
hand and then it's very popular in Argentina, and it was something that I'd always wanted
to do something with.
GS: And that's how... I'm going a little bit even further behind how Bajofondo started.
It started because it was a moment in my life that I thought I'd really wanted to do something
different with this genre. I got together with my friend Juan Campodonico, he's from
Uruguay. So, the band is actually half Argentinian and half Uruguayan, and we both have anyhow,
we share parts of that dirty history, as almost all countries in Latin America. And we lived
through some really tough years. I grew up during those years, and it was very hard to
see, not only people, have witnessed the disappearance of 30,000 people at the hands of the government,
but somehow being a victim of it, I mean I've never got hurt, but I was in jail since I
was 15 years old many times just because I have long hair or I was at a rock concert
or I was playing and by the time I was 20, I was pretty popular there. So even when they
took me to jail, they knew who I was, but they still made my life impossible.
GS: So it came to me when we started, when we started with Bajofondo, I started mixing
all these things that I was being very, very attractive to the world of dance. And I had,
long time ago, an experience with a great Argentinian choreographer, Oscar Araiz. Many,
many years ago. But I've always been very interested in the world of dance. And I thought
this music really, it would be great to do something. And at the same time parallel to
that, I've always felt not really very fond of the typical tango shows. As you know when
you're growing up in Argentina, you get the chance to see the real tango. And then you
get always the version for tourists or some things that get put together and go around
the world, but not really expressing the deep sentiments of tango or our people.
GS: So I thought the combination of this music with a story that really will tell something
real and truthful about what happened in this country could be really something else. And
so I set myself to try to make this happen. I had an idea of a story but just as Sergio
and John told, I mean I met with Sergio the following day to a performance and it worked
just like that. We felt that we found each other, and at the same time, we were conscious
that we needed the help of somebody to that story put it in shape and see what was working
well, and John had been instrumental and fundamental to make that happen. And really we found ourselves
collaborating in the most delightful and fruitful way. I mean it's been really a wonderful trip
to this together and take it to this place. We've been working now for several years to
make this happen, and we're very excited about the possibility of offering the show here
in Toronto.
RO: There are so many different issues with a particular war in the time with the generals,
but what I think is come out to everybody here is the whole issue of disappearing ones,
the people who just vanished. And then there were the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
GS: But we had our... I mean a guy that was at the head of the military junta, Jorge Rafael
Videla, who actually coined that term. He came on national TV and said these people
are not in jail. These people are desaparecidos. They've disappeared. Imagine that for a family
or something who don't know at least if your son or your daughter is in jail or if he has
been killed, at least just disappeared.
RO: And like stuff happens isn't it? [chuckle] A word that kind of diminishes the situation.
GS: Yeah. So, that created a big resistance from part of the population. Some people that
were truly victims in the sense that they were not even involved in an armed war against,
but they just thought differently about the government, then they were also wiped out
in the most horrendous, torture and everything that you can imagine. But there was a movement
that grew up, a grass-root movement that's been also very important in the history of
our country that now has branched into different movements too, which was a movement originated
by the mothers of the people that disappeared.
GS: So they started demonstrating in front of what is our White House, but there is the
Pink House. Every Thursday, they start to just to walk around. They found this iconic
emblem, which was a white handkerchief in which they embroidered the name of their sons
or daughters. Some of them have lost several of their kids, and they hang the picture of
them. I mean if that wasn't enough of a tragedy or horrible situation, there was a horrendous
individual named, Astiz, that actually infiltrated the mother and killed the founder members
and got them killed, right? But the movement continued anyhow, and it was something that
somehow they couldn't stop. Those people have now being re-vindicated and for the first
time in Argentina, we just got to 30 years of democracy without a military coup. This
is the first time in Argentina's history that we have 30 years of democracy. I mean if you
think about it. [chuckle]
[applause]
GS: I mean whether people agree with the government or don't agree with this government, and it
is not about a political party. The fact is that it will be great to have diversity and
have other political parties in power, but it is remarkable that we, as a country, would
just... I think for the first time that we have 30 years. And mothers have been re-vindicated
and somehow the people that have committed those atrocities are now in jail. They have
been judged as common delinquents 'cause there was a trial right, when democracy came back,
and they were found guilty, most of these people. But somehow another government that
continued that government, they were given amnesty, so they were all free. Actually,
they never really served time.
GS: Now all these people have... They're in jail. They've been judged and whatever, whoever
they found and they tracked them even outside of the county, they're being brought to justice,
which for us it was very important, because somehow it gives reparation, and it gives
a sense of closing to our story too. Even if it's not a happy ending and it's a true
closing of the story. You know that what happened to those kids or to those people, which is
part of the story, Arrabal finds out what was the true story, what happened to her father,
and now these people that somehow had been responsible for the disappearance of these
people are in jail like common delinquents like what they are, you know, criminals.
RO: John, with all this rich history, I guess you don't want to sit and turn it into a historical
narrative, but how do you tackle this elements of the story and dance.
JW: Oh, one of the things that I think you're aware of from the conversation that has taken
place already is that from my point of view as a writer, the task here was not to design
a story and sort of apply it to somebody else's experience and somebody else's sensibility.
This show has bubbled up from inside Argentina, through Gustavo, through the cast, all of
them are Argentine. And my task was to come in and try and be helpful in shaping and designing
the story, rearranging elements, adding new elements, but Gustavo's presence was always
the touchstone for what was appropriate, what felt right, what didn't feel right. We're
all familiar with people who write plays or musicals about stories that take place elsewhere.
I mean Julius Caesar wrote... Rather, Shakespeare wrote, "Julius Caesar wasn't Roman," but this
was an opportunity to work with somebody from the inside out on something that was deeply
felt and authentically Argentine, and if you do what I do, which is to write books for
musicals, which is like putting the flower on a cake.
[chuckle]
JW: The real satisfactions that you get from the work have to be drawn from the process
of creation. Because if the show is a hit, there's an old saying, "They don't call them
booksicals, they call them musicals."
RO: Yeah.
JW: And there is a reason for that. But the process of working on this was unlike working
on anything else I've worked on because of the collaboration with Sergio and because
of this authentic Argentine core, and it's been thrilling and I must say, to me when
I first heard Bajofondo's music, it's got an intensity and an energy that felt as though
it was compatible with the kind of story that Gustavo has described. It's got a pulse and
a drive to it, which is really electric, and it made the balance between a story that has
a political platform but which is also a coming-of-age story of a young girl who gets outside the
house and sort of discovers what life can be about. It felt as though there was a perfect
marriage between that story approach and the music that really initiated the project.
RO: So Sergio, how does it all fit together?
ST: Well, I just wanna piggyback on what John was talking about. It's been a really unconventional
way of creating a piece of theatre because you and I talked about a couple of months
ago and one of the reasons why I wanted to do the show in Toronto aside from it being
my home was that I felt like I needed to put it in front of a North American audience that
could... It was basically our place where we could try out and find out what works and
what doesn't work first and foremost. But because it's an unconventional piece, it's
a dance theatre piece that began with the music because the music was the inspiration
of it, and Bajofondo is a rock group. They're passionate, the music is raw, it's in your
face, but it's also beautiful. It's like all of a sudden, you could be hearing these incredible
chords and then all of a sudden just a beautiful violin will sweep in or a bandoneon will come
in. So it started from there and as we were creating this piece, I always have to remind
myself that that was the seed. That's where it began. And then the dance took over.
ST: So how could we take that music and create a dance vocabulary that could fit that? Because
it's not tango, it's not like traditional tango, it's not like the kind you see in a
show, in a tango show. It has its own thing so we have to create a vocabulary that Julio
Zurita, who is my choreographer on the show, who is absolutely brilliant, he comes from
the contemporary world, modern and contemporary world, and has created just a language that
absolutely fits Bajofondo's music. So we took all of those, and then the story, the sweeping
story of this coming-of-age story set against the background of a political period of a
historical moment in Argentina's history. And so, unconventionally, when the producer
approached me, I've been working on it, they said, "So we're going to do it in New York."
and I said, "No, we're doing it in Argentina. We're doing it with Argentinians, with Argentinian
musicians." And luckily Scott and Jenna, our producers, were courageous enough to take
it upon themselves, to let us travel there. I mean, I've been going back and forth seven
times already and by the way you have to go to Argentina, it's unbelievable. It is everything
that they talk about, it is like visiting Paris in Latin America. It is... I have fallen
in love, I have found my home. I'm Columbian by origin, but Argentina is my home, I mean
Argentina is my home. It's absolutely magical.
ST: So we got to Argentina. It was great about all of this is that I have never, so I've
done, Jersey Boys and Memphis and all of these other, Next to Normal, original shows, but
I've never worked like this before, and I've actually, it's actually been, something that
I was looking for, 'cause you spend all of these years working on Broadway shows, and
there is a format and then this is how you do it, but all of a sudden I got to Buenos
Aires, and I just felt sort of so uninhibited and I could do, everything was up for grabs.
And so we created the show, we actually rehearsed the show in this place called the La Cathedral;
La Cathedral is the cathedral. It's this, it's a tango Bar, they call them 'milongas',
which is where you go and dance. And it's this warehouse that is worn down, the floors
are hardwood floors. It's like, I call it the Latin Moulin Rouge, it feels like that.
It's just a decadent, it's amazing and dark, and there are chairs that are picked up from
the garbage and tables that are makeshift and they serve amazing food, amazing wine
and drinks and people just go there and dance.
ST: So, that's where I rehearsed the show, and so in creating the show, it wasn't like
I had a proscenium and I had a stage. I was actually rehearsing in that tango bar. And
for me, somebody who's looking for a new way of expressing myself, a new way of discovering
who I am as a choreographer, director, it was like a playground. I was doing things
in it that I would have never done, had I had the pressures of having doing a Broadway
show, where you think, "Oh my God, this is a specific audience that is coming to see
the show, they are expecting a certain things." So, because it has been so unconventional,
the music, the dance, the story, and the setting of it, it has liberated us, and I think it's
worth discovering. We're creating a piece that I hope is unique in its own identity.
I don't want to get pigeonholed into a being, a musical, because it's tricky as a dance
theatre piece that tells a story purely through dance and music. And if there is any spoken
or anything sung is all in Spanish. So, for a while there I called it a tango rock opera,
but there was nothing being sung really, so even though there is one song, but it's...
So in its identity, but what it is, is a theatrical experience, a dance theatre piece using the
music of Bajofondo with phenomenal dance, a coming-of-age story with a political backdrop
of the dirty war.
RO: Again, another thing that reflects how different this story is in different levels,
let's take the title. When most people hear it, they think it's the great author, and
they say, " Oh yeah! I love his work," you say, "No, nothing to do with it," right? What,
there is a couple of meanings to the title, aren't there?
GS: Arrabal is basically, it's a term that you use for... It's a term that you'll find
in a lot of tango lyrics, because it refers to sort of an underworld or a world that grew
around the city, those are the arrabales, l'arrabal, so where people, there's definition,
when they sometimes they have built a wall around cities and stuff and people have placed,
established it somewhere little bit out of the city, that can be the arrabal. So now,
it's a term that, but arrabales can be a feeling, a sentiment, You can say, I come, I carry
the arrabal with me. So, it's a real broad term that you can use it in different ways.
But originally that's what it means. It means like a suburban neighbourhood of a city and
that's where a lot's of the tango was born originally, where the people came from the
countryside and mixed with the people of the city, and the first origins of tango is like
the tango that you hear in Gardel recordings and stuff, those are all with guitars, because
they were all people that were coming from the country side, they were actually almost
like folk musicians colliding with urban landscape and creating this new music.
RO: Does arrabal have any connotations, like in America, in North America, we say "Oh yes,
we have the ghetto" or "we have the suburbs" and those words bring meanings with them.
Does arrabal have a level of meaning?
GS: It has, it's definitely a word in our culture, in Argentinian culture, because I
know they have arrabal too in Mexico, in other Latin American countries. But in our country,
it's a term that is very related to tango, usually poor neighbourhoods where people fight
to make a living and that's what it is. So in this case Arrabal, it's a nickname that
Rodolfo, Arrabal's father has given to his daughter. That's her name, Arrabal.
RO: You just mentioned a twist in the plot I wanted to get you John. We know we have
this girl and we know we have the history, but how did they two work together. The girl
is not in the past, is she?
JW: No, one of the things that I think you can do when you're telling a story without
language, one of the things you have to, when you're telling a story without language is
to strive for absolute clarity, but also stories that are linear, I think are much easier to
deliver without language than stories which are more complicated. If you take this Robert
Redford movie, "All is Lost" is a good example. There's no language in the movie at all, but
the story really follows him from the first disaster on his boat to the end. We start
the story in the past and follow the story through one night in Argentina and then we
flash forward 18 years, and at the end of the 18-year period Arrabal who is a baby in
the beginning is now a teenager, 18 years old, and we then follow her from that point
through to the conclusion of the piece. So that's the structure of it.
RO: Sergio, is it... You're right now working here, everything that began in Argentina with
everything being so indigenous and working closely, now you're in Canada, is it different
to work with these people here? How are they working?
ST: Well actually let me... Before... Just want to mention something that one of the
things that was important as I was mentioning, this place, La Cathedral was to actually bring
that to North America, to bring it to Canada, so in our design of the set is actually very
close to what La Cathedral looks like, it's very much inspired by it, 'cause I want to
share that experience with everyone 'cause I think everyone should go there and experience
this place. Sorry just remind me because I got... I was so excited about saying that
I forgot...
[laughter]
RO: It's working now with all these Argentinian material in Toronto.
ST: But I brought all the Argentinians with me. So when we're in... It's actually... So
now it's... It feels like... To me it's like... I tell them now you're in my territory 'cause
now you're in my home, I was in your home and now they're... So... No, I feel very much...
I mean now... It's actually been so unconventional creative team because there is a... I've been
working with my designers who are... Some of them are from New York, some of them are
in Argentina, and some of them are in Canada, and so it's been absolutely chaotic in terms
of like figuring out when we have a meeting is all... Thank God for Skype. At the Panasonic
Theatre in that space right now I feel like the UN, so coming to Toronto, my hometown,
bringing in visitors, Argentinians, my family from Argentina and then bringing them in all
of the rest of my team who are from America, Canada and Argentina it feels like... So it's
again unconventional and somehow incredibly balanced.
RO: Again, you've hit on something, the Mirvish have four theatres, and we've got the very
nice Ed Mirvish, Royal Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and then there's the Panasonic which
is scruffy to use a nice term, but when we all heard that Arrabal was coming, we thought,
"Oh, it's gonna be which of the other three theatres?" And they went, "No, it's in the
Panasonic," that obviously was your choice, that was your demand actually to be in a place
like that right?
ST: Yeah I did... It's like what I've said to you, this show is not a proscenium-type
show, the... In the show, the audience actually... Some of the audience gets to sit on stage,
because in a milonga, the tables surround the floor and in La Cathedral that's how we...
That's how I staged the show, there was not... There was no stage, it was all on floor level
and the cast, the actors are... They go into the audience and the audience at one point
is asked to dance, and there's no pressure but they're very... Because I wanted as though
story is being told in a milonga and so that space fit beautifully, and one thing that
we discovered when actually when I got here last week was that the Panasonic's height,
it's so high that... But we've actually embraced that, we haven't... And we haven't hid anything,
it's actually the rawness of it that really has been incredibly useful, and I think will
be... It'll really enrich and help our story.
RO: Yeah, it's hard actually to imagine that this show will ever look better any place
than it does in the Panasonic, it looks as though the auditorium was designed to bleed
into the set.
GS: It fits perfect because even the height of it, that milonga is called the Cathedral
because it was a 100-year-old warehouse and it's made of wood and it has a super high
ceiling, this milonga in Buenos Aires, so this has that feeling too and the fact...
The walls have... The walls in the theatre interact with the set and everything and it's...
The place is truly perfect for the...
RO: Again, I'm curious, how do you combine the ethics of the various styles of music?
That you're gonna want to have spontaneity and you're going to want to have freshness
but yet, doesn't it have to have a certain sameness for theatre every night?
GS: Of course it has but that's something with bajofondo, this is important too, we
are a band, and we make records every tour. For this particular case, I had to cast like
another bajofondo orchestra, but in what we play, either the orchestra bajofonderas which
are the guys here or the group. We have a structured timeframe for the songs, but there's
always room there for us to add something every night, there is a space to make it fresh
and that's what we do, part of the music of Bajofondo is a combination of that sophisticated
perhaps writing and composing and sequencing with an element of freshness and energy that
comes from the moment that the music gets played live. So our records I think have been
very well received actually and while you're through with the American Grammy's but Latin
Grammy's a few months ago, we got two Grammy's with our last record, but it's a different
experience when you hear that music live. It's a totally different experience. Not that
one is better than the other one, but definitely live has that extra energy, that I think a
show like this really benefits. I mean you could have done this show with recorded music,
and it would have worked. The choreography is beautiful, the set, the story is there,
but I think the fact that you have the musicians playing that music live also adds... And they
are on stage too. They're not in a pit. You know they are part of the show.
RO: What's the full size of the company?
ST: 21, Jenna, 21? Oh, 22. I missed it by one, see!
RO: All on the Panasonic stage.
ST: Yes.
RO: Okay.
S?: On stage and off the stage too.
ST: And the audience... They get to be on stage, so it's quite a large cast.
RO: Let's pause for a second. Are there any questions from the audience, before we push
onwards? Come to the microphone, please. Yes?
S?: First of all gentlemen, welcome to Toronto, this is very exciting. It's great to have
people of your talent assembled like this. My question is for Sergio. Sergio, I recall
that you were on the road, I worked on "Kiss of the Spider Woman," by the way, and I recall
you were on the road as a chorus member, is that correct?
ST: Yeah.
S?: And for people who don't know, the character Valentin of course is an imprisoned revolutionary,
and it's set during the era of the Desaparecidos in a big song after that, of course.
ST: Yes.
S?: They all come out with the pictures and the candles. So there's your root to the issue.
Now, was that your first introduction to the issue of Argentine politics and the Desaparecidos,
and if not, or if yes, how did it grow now that you're doing a whole show based upon
that?
ST: Well, you know I grew up in... I was born in Columbia, and I was there until I was 12
years old, so actually between 1976... Up until 1976 because my dad was so incredibly...
My family stayed back in Columbia, so I was very much aware of the politics at the time.
I knew, even as a child, we all knew about it. My first... So, I knew about it. My experience
in the theatre, yes, was in "Kiss of the Spider Woman," and it did inspire... I think for
me, what I admire about "Kiss of the Spider Woman" was the idea that Kander and Ebb and
Terrence had taken this very tricky idea and inspired, of course, by "Kiss of the Spider
Woman"... Who is the author?
S?: Manuel Puig?
ST: Manuel Puig.
GS: The funny thing is that Puig and Babenco... Babenco in also both Argentinians. You know,
Babenco lived in Brazil and developed his career in Brazil, but he is originally Argentinian,
and so is Puig.
ST: So doing a show like that, living in it everyday... I mean actually, there was a moment
in the show where... Should I tell them about the torture?
S?: Yeah.
39ST: Where somebody... Just a little bit of background. The main character gets tortured
and I myself was actually in the show, in "Kiss of the Spider Woman," I used to get
tortured, and at one point I actually die after I get tortured, and I climb up the fence,
and every night I would have to kiss Chita Rivera, you know a really long passionate
kiss before I died in a hang. But what that show did, that experience did, was it did
inspire a wanting to tackle material such as that. I knew that while I was dancing,
I knew that my dancing life had a shelf life, in that, I knew that I was going to choreograph
and I knew that I wanted to direct. And so, those kinds of themes, those kinds of ideas
were very interesting to me, and I think so as part of my sort of my ethnicity, my just
growing up in it, knowing about politics, living in a country where people are incredibly
outspoken and there are curfews and things that we are very lucky we don't experience
in Canada. So, all of those experiences have influenced in me wanting to tackle material
such as this one. So yes, yes to some degree.
S?: Thank you.
RO: Next question. Please come to the mic.
S?: I have a musical question to Gustavo? Tango tradition, one of the traits of the
music is it's kind of tied in its articulation that in itself is tied to a very malleable
use of time and rhythm, and that's the instrumental tango that we all heard from the 40s on.
GS: Correct.
S?: It just has this really back and forth, pull and push, that's what makes the groove
of tango just work. So when you work on the other side with musics like drum and bass
or like [musical instrument].
GS: Right and it's more... Rhythmically more...
S?: They're pulsating, in a synchronous kind of pulse.
GS: Yes.
S?: How is the process trying to work with both those aesthetics because at some point
it seems like it's totally irreconcilable. But what is the process to actually make them
work in a sense that it doesn't make sense?
GS: Got it. Well, there's a couple of things. First of all, we always try to make sure that
people understand that we don't consider what we do tango with Bajofondo. We try to make
the definition. We say, "Well, it's probably contemporary music of El Rio de la Plata."
You know, that part of the world, in which we combine everything that somehow has influenced
us since we were kids, the music that our parents listened to the music that we grew
up listening, the music that we listen so it's from Juan d'Arienzo to Astor Piazzolla,
from Manuel Trujillo to Radiohead, or to Chemical Brothers, or Boards of Canada. All these elements
sort of come together in the music of Bajofondo, but we for example, there's an example of
one of the pieces in the... It is actually part of Arrabal that is called "[Spanish term]"
in which we actually play with that element. We actually were playing with sort of a rhythmic,
hypnotic sequence. And suddenly, we stop and it goes totally free time, totally sort of
out of time of the tempo that we were playing. And then, we recapture again that kind of
groove.
GS: So, we think that, that element of going back and forth of the tango is fantastic.
We applied it in that song. But Bajofondo really doesn't do tango, so, it's a combination
of everything. Although in the show, there are a few moments in which there is traditional
tango, and the band plays with it too. I mean we have some moments in which you get that
type of pacing. It is part of Arrabal too.
S?: Thank you.
RO: Next question? Well, that leaves us more time for a concert.
GS: I don't know if we would call it as a concert, but...
RO: You're gonna...
GS: I'll have to play some songs for you if you...
RO: Some selections? Do you want to say anything in advance about the music?
GS: About what I'm gonna play?
RO: Yup.
GS: About what I'm gonna play?
RO: Yup.
GS: Yeah, sure. Well, I've been lucky enough to, first of all to now be working with this
great collaborators. But I had the chance to get in the work, to work in films. I grew
up as a singer/song writer, and I started making records as a producer and as an artist
not that long ago, but when I was 16 years old. And I never thought about it. I always
loved movies, but I've never though that I was gonna end up somehow involved in making
music for movies. And that happened really, kind of not by accident, but without really
me planning it. One thing led to another one, and suddenly I was doing Amores Perros. And
suddenly, Alejandro Gonzá*** Iñárritu was saying, "You should meet this friend of mine.
He's doing a movie about Ernesto Guevara, "The Motorcycle Diaries" and that's how I
did.
GS: And then, we were presenting that movie in Sundance, and somebody said, "Gustavo should
meet Ang Lee because he's doing 'Brokeback Mountain,' and he should." So, I'm gonna play
a few things. I'm not gonna play something from Arrabal because we need Bajofondo for
that. So, I can't do that. But I will play something from "The Motorcycle Diaries," and
I will play something from "Brokeback Mountain." And then, I will play a song of mine from
Argentina. So, how about that?
44:55 RO: Thank you. While he's getting ready, we have another treat for you. The Mirvish
Organization are making two pair of tickets available to Arrabal. And can I ask Sergio
and John each pick one. So, get your stubs ready.
JW: Okay.
RO: John, take one. And would you read the number please?
JW: 8-1-7-5-2-6.
RO: Very good. We have a winner over there. Great. Tina, you're going to take care of
them? Great. And Sergio, you can pick one.
ST: I am. I reached down to the bottom.
RO: Yeah.
ST: Oh, a lower number. 8-1-7-5, ooh, 1-4. Yes. Lucky winner. Come and pick up your ticket.
RO: Oh, Tina? The other one is ever there. Yup, very good. You saw it here, free tickets
from the Mirvish. [laughter] It'll be in the news tomorrow. Great.
ST: Any by the way, you're not expected to know tango in the show. So, when you are asked
to dance, do not be afraid. It's a very, very impromptu moment. So, you don't have to go
off brushing to take lessons. And we actually offer lessons before the show starts. So yes,
from 7:15 to 8 o'clock. And then, you go segue right into the show.
JW: And you will be getting the lessons from members of the company. This is the most attractive
group of human beings you will ever see in one place at one time. Come early.
RO: And there's wine.
ST: Yes. Yeah, and there is...
RO: Okay.
ST: Yeah, there is. There is... In the spirit of, of course, La Cathedral, during the show,
people can drink. And at moments during the show, not the whole theatre has tables, but
the front part of the theatre has tables. And there's tables on stage. So, there are
specific moments in this show where you can actually order drinks and they'll bring you
wine and beer. So, it's in the spirit of a real milonga, that's what'll happen in the
show.
RO: Excellent.
RO: And Gustavo, over to you now.
GS: Okay. So, thank you so much for being here. This is from... It's called a Ronroco.
It's in the family of the charangos. I use it quite a bit in the scores that I do. So,
this one is De Usuahia a la Quiaca, from the Motorcycle Diaries.
[music]
[applause]
GS: Thank you so much.
JW: The reason to write books for musicals is so that you get to collaborate with something
that sounds like that.
[chuckle]
GS: Can you turn down the monitor a little bit, please? Thank you.
[music]
GS: So this is one is song from Brokeback Mountain. It's called Love That Will Never
Grow Old.
[music]
GS: [singing] Go to sleep, let your sweet dreams come true. Just lay back in my arm
for one more night. I've this crazy old notion that calls me sometimes, saying this one's
the love of your life. 'Cause I know a love will never grow old. And I know a love that
will never grow old. When you wake up the world may have changed, but trust in me I'll
never falter or fail, just a smile in your eyes it can light up the night. And your laughter's
like wind in my sails, 'cause I know a love that will never grow old. I know a love that
will never grow old.
[music]
GS: [singing] Lean on me, let our hearts beat in time. Feel strength from these arms that
have held you so long. Who cares where we go on this rugged old road. In a world that
may say that we're wrong. 'Cause I know a love that will never grow old. And I know
a love that will never grow old.
[applause]
GS: Thank you. Is the guitar sounding out there?
S?: Yeah.
GS: So, just to finish, once again, thank you so much, and thank you bass, and everybody,
and entertainment, and everybody at the library, and everybody at Mirvish. Hope we see you
there at Arrabal. This is a song based in an Argentinian rhythm called carnavalito.
It's called Rio de las Penas.
[music]
[singing]
[Spanish]
[applause]
RO: Thank you.
[applause]
RO: I think we'd all have to agree we're very lucky to have these three gentlemen working
in our city at this moment.
[applause]
GS: Thank you, Richard. Thank you.
RO: So, Gustavo, Sergio, John, thank you for being here, and I hope you return the favour
by going to see Arrabal. Thank you all very much.
GS: Thank you.