1999

NEW MILLENNIUM

THEATER WITHOUT BORDERS

2000

9th

Season


Hello, How Nice to Meet You


by Roberto Cossa (Argentina)
Directed by Mario Marcel

About the play: A comedy from the Argentine Grotesque, where high comedy meets nostalgia… a dreamer, an idealist, who believes in equality and love among men – although he greets and embraces so many people that he forgets those who motivated his first greeting: his family.

From the director: Forty years ago Roberto “Tito” Cossa walked through the great doors of Latin American theater with his play “Our Weekend”, and for forty years this untiring witness has offered us one of the most precise images of society that exists. His plays, many as true to life as documentaries, push the limits of Hispanic America and its Theater, elevating the craft to higher heights, within a young and restless theatrical movement.

Teatro de la Luna – in its few years of existence – is possibly the theater that has most generously shared with Washington audiences the works of this talented author, opening its doors with “Yepeto”, later showing in other seasons “You Don’t Have to Cry”, “The Grandmother”, “Far From Here”. Today we are closing our millennium season with Cossa’s latest play “Hello, How Nice to See You”.

This play, which comes out of the grotesque genre, discretely makes plain a society, a system, a government, and, ultimately, a family. It is my heartfelt wish that this play touches all with its honest effrontery. This play is our homage to the great defenders of justice, to those who risk even their integrity to leave behind a song of freedom, and to Roberto Cossa, for this unforgettable theatrical legacy, for being in one way or another… El Saludador.

Mario Marcel

About the author: Roberto “Tito” Cossa was born in 1934 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into a family of actors. After establishing a fruitful career as a journalist, Cossa began his theatrical career in 1964, capturing the frustrations and impotency of man, with his first play, “Our Weekend”. Cossa is recognized as one of the most significant writers for both film and television between 1965-75.

In 1977, (one year after the military coup in America) Cossa shook the foundations of traditional theater with his new play, “La Nona”. Replete with black humor, the absurd, and the grotesque, “La Nona” (The Grandmother) sketches a theatrical profile of what was Buenos Aires in that time. Following that decisive moment, Cossa became a dominant voice and is considered as one of the best of Latin American authors and one of the most important Argentinean playwrights in recent times. We name Tute Cabrero, You Don’t Have to Cry, Gray by Absence, The Crazy Uncle, No One Remembers Frederick Chopin Anymore, Far From Here and Yepeto amongst his most important contributions. Cossa’s works are, most deservedly, numbered amongst the classics of Argentina.

Most recently, Cossa has penned this comedy, of the Grotesque genre, in which appears El Saludador, a dreamer, an idealist who believes in equality and love, fraternity and solidarity. Despite many “hellos” and embraces… he forgets who motivated his first hello – his family. As always, Cossa’s  theater takes us on a constant search for human dignity.

Cast

El Saludador……………………… Mario Marcel

Marucha………………………….. Ruth Jasiuk

Vicente…………………………… Santiago Murillo


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