Ricardo Darín and Andrea Pietra resume their marital affair in times of barbarism

Rodrigo Garcia Buenos Aires, 23 Mar Ricardo Darín and Andrea Pietra are once again artistic marriage. They resume in Spain the play “Scenes from Married Life”, a funny story of “mini daily tragedies” that brings them together with the public after two years of pandemic hiatus and with a world on the brink of war: “My biggest fear is that we are getting used to barbarism. As a species we don't finish learning,” the Argentine actor tells Efe. As if it were the first time on stage, the enthusiasm of re-playing the protagonists of the theatrical adaptation of the miniseries and film “Secrets of a Marriage” (1973), by Ingmar Bergman, is felt by both performers, who in March 2020, due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, had to postpone a Spanish tour that, at last, will begin this March 30 in the Canary Islands. “I think the world changed, the world moved and relationships are different. The big question is, at least for us, what is going to happen in the cinemas we are going to go to, what is the relationship with the audience now, because we are used to having a very direct relationship with the audience because of the type of show that it is”, says Darín, ambassador par excellence of Argentine cinema in the world, during a interview in Buenos Aires, where he was born in 1957. Pietra, who has a long acting career in film and television, attests to the love that his partner awakens in Spain, as he discovered when they went to present the play other times: “people love him and that's why they also get to know me by rebound. (...) Ricardo is a spectacular actor, because apart from that he is absolutely true, every word he says is true. It's beautiful to act with someone like that because you're a better actress.” “DON'T SHUT UP” The resumption of the tour coincides with the global impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a war conflict that the actor of films such as the Oscar-winning “The Secret in Their Eyes” and “Savage Tales” sees as “absolutely unacceptable and anachronistic”, for using force to settle matters that should be settled through diplomacy. “How come we don't all go out to the streets to say that the world stops? We cannot allow this,” he says, after also asking himself who wins from this “nonsense” of so many lives lost. Asked about the work that the cultural world may have at this time, the actor believes that it is not possible to ask this field what societies as a whole do not do: “It is asking too much of culture, art. Of course there are things to do, of course. Not being silent is one of them, denouncing it is another.” “My biggest fear is that we are getting used to barbarism. And then we say: 'Well, let's hope that now this doesn't turn into a nuclear war'... of course, 'so it doesn't get to me'. Someone try to do the exercise of what it means to be in Kiev right now. We don't learn, as a species we don't finish learning. It's hard to find other species that attack themselves like we do,” he reproaches. ALMOST A DECADE OF SUCCESS Premiered in 2013 at the Maipo theater in Buenos Aires with production by Lino Patalano, “Scenes from Married Life”, a version directed by Norma Leandro, has already been in Spain and Latin America with Darín as the male lead and since 2017 with Pietra, with whom he had already worked in film and television. In a timeless context, the story tells, between fun and drama, the marriage of Juan and Mariana, but also their divorce, with situations with which the public can identify “regardless of how relationships change over the years”, whether open or closed or otherwise, summarizes the actress, born in Buenos Aires Aires in 1968. “It's like getting into the intimacy of a marriage and recognizing a lot of things you know. I think putting it in front of the other is also healing,” he adds. Darín highlights the funny approach of these “mini daily tragedies” and does not hide the macho and controversial character of his character: “He has only one thing in my favor, which is one of the things that pushed me to face him, which is that he has beastly sincerity, he doesn't lie. That somehow redeems it a little.” The work criticizes the orthodox marriage structure but between two people “who love each other deeply”, says the interpreter, who highlights the credibility, freshness, tenderness and femininity that Pietra gives to her characters. The new tour of Spain starts in Las Palmas and until May 29 will pass through Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Tenerife, Santiago de Compostela, Palma de Mallorca, Granada, Malaga and Seville. CHIEF rgm/cjn/laa (photo) (video)