Roberto Cossa died: five fundamental works by one of the greatest Argentine theater authors

Roberto “Tito” Cossaone of the glories of Argentine theater, died at the age of 89.

Born on November 30, 1934 in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa del Parque, his parents – a dental mechanic and a housewife – wanted to baptize him “Tito”, but they could not due to prohibition issues. However, his life gave him revenge and he was known by that nickname almost all of his life.

Life also granted him the gift of speech and reaching out to people, with its recognizable people from past and present Argentina. Here, five of the fundamental works that had Roberto “Tito” as their author.

goatherd tute

Sosa, Parenti and Bruni, three cartoonists, co-workers and very good friends, one day are notified that the company they work for is entering into a “rationalization plan” and they are forced to decide which of the three He is the one who must leave his job. Suddenly their lives begin to be altered by this situation, ending up revealing the truth of who they really are, knowing their miseries and their greatness.

The work was made into a film by Juan Jose Jusid in 1968, with a cast made up of Pepe Soriano, Juan Carlos Gene and Luis Brandoni.

In the original, it had been a television script. And he arrived at the theater in 1981.

The Nona

A tragicomedy, to which the figure of Pepe Soriano is inevitably associated as its protagonist, and which became a classic.

It takes place in Argentina, in the ’70s, with a climate of social and political instability. A family struggles to put daily bread on the table. And at that table is La Nona, insatiable, with a voracious appetite, which forces all the members to have to work more and more, and seek desperate measures and at the limit of reason to survive: from the excessive work of the father and head of the family, even his brother’s wildest ideas.

La Nona has iron health and is killing her relatives, which also works as a political metaphor.

The old servant

A bar, in a neighborhood in the south of Buenos Aires, in the ’30s. The sirens sound outside.

At one of the tables are Alsina, an intellectual poet and admirer of Europe, and Balmaceda, a former boxer, man of the people, who have played 202,928 trick games. Both have exceeded 50 years and are almost the age of the political crisis in Argentina on the date of their release.

Then two imaginary characters appear, Carlitos, accompanied by Ivonne, an old French prostitute. Carlitos, a typical singer from the 1930s, who returns after having lived in Paris for 40 years. He is also a writer of lyrics, who has not yet managed to write “his” tango, and that is why he returns to achieve it in his city, where he looks for an old servant, who will receive him upon his return. A return to the iconic figure of Gardel, who is present throughout the entire work, in which comments on the socio-political reality of those times intersect. Perón, his first triumph, later his exile, the bombings of Plaza de Mayo, his return from exile after 18 years, and everything that happened afterward.

Gray of absence

In Gray of Absence, the theme is immigration, uprooting and adaptation to a new country. The axis is that of a family of Italian immigrants who in turn emigrate back to Rome;

The family has an Italian restaurant, the “La Argentina” trattoria, with typical dishes from our country. Everything is combined with the lack of money, the most painful memories and daily humiliations.

The lack of identity also arises, with a granddaughter who uses Madrid idioms and a grandson who tries to make himself understood, who, on the phone, tries to understand in English. The play was seen in the Open Theater series, which challenged the military dictatorship.

Yepeto

It is a dramatic comedy, with a realistic tone, like many of the works of Roberto “Tito” Cossa.

It tells the story between a writer and teacher in his fifties and a young athlete, who meet several times in a short period of time.

They are united by their love for the same woman, a teenage literature student, the former’s student and the latter’s girlfriend.

It brings into play the struggle between the physical and the intellectual, wisdom and beauty, youth and old age, presence and absence.

And despite the fight for the love of that absent woman, a friendship is built between them.