Argentinian Splendour

I cannot imagine the neighbours in our block of flats getting together like this to sing and dance in historical costumes every Friday and Saturday. Our neighbours cannot even face talking to each other about their mutual noise complaints, preferring to send handyman Pedro instead. But we live in a busy street in the anonymous centre, Congreso, and this is La Boca, a mainly working-class and much more hands-on kind of place. La Boca´s most famous son, incidentally, is Diego Maradona, whose old football team, Boca Juniors, still inspires religious fan worship across the country.

Translated, the title of the performance means something like „Argentinian Splendour“. A musical history of Argentina of the last eighty years, it is funny and moving and the enthusiasm of its hundred-strong amateur cast is awe-inspiring. It is a „people´s production“, with actors of all ages who say they are „neighbours“. Taking place in a converted warehouse the company bought with funds from shows on streets and public squares, its three hundred red plastic seats are sold out. Barbecued sausages and burgers, sandwiches, homemade cakes and salads are on sale outside.

The show starts with the iconic 1920s and 30s Tango scenes that made Buenos Aires so famous. A varied cast of local folk who meet, drink, dance and do politics in the social club of the name of the title is introduced through scenes in the club´s bar and a series of hilarious call and response choruses.

Inevitably, The Girl From The Rich Family falls in love with The Dashing Rebel, a socialist in a sharp suit and pomaded hair who soon incurs the ill will of the local establishment figures and even sooner gets his girl pregnant. It is the fate of this daring couple and their son through the next fifty years of military coups, attempts at democracy, exile and return, repression and hope, that gives structure to the patchwork of historical snapshots that characterises the performance.

The social club´s members´ divisions, of course, reflect the divisions in wider society, and so we witness rich old ladies whispering their agreement with conservative dictatorships while trade union youths fight over whether „peronism“, a doctrine that mixes nationalism and social justice, means socialism. Breathtaking is the silent arrival of the nameless destitute, the „cartoneros“, in a shopping trolley during the portrayal of the economic decline of the 1990s. Ubiquitous today, the image of youths going through rubbish in the search for paper is now as iconic as that of the Tango dancers.

The show finishes with an underdeveloped Mad-Max style vision of the future, but by then it has well won me over. The melodies are catchy, the comic potential of some of the actors huge and the issues real. But most of all, it was a passionate performance by an ensemble cast who really do appear a... wait... community.