About the play:
A young couple’s
sedentary life is interrupted by the arrival of a guest. The three reveal
their needs: to be heard, to have a witness to their existence, to have
something to talk about the next day… A constant search for friendship,
affection, solidarity, and above all, identity, by beings of a questionable
past and an uncertain present.
From the director:
Our
Houseguest: Mario Diament
We are now closing our 2001-02 season; a season that gave
us all kinds of surprises and propelled us down unsuspected paths. With the
end of the season, we also close our tenth year of lunar activity and soon
move into our new home, our “Casa de la Luna”, which will be open to all of
you, our very dear friends.
And so we finish a season in which we sought our theatrical
identity, and we’re sure this finale could have no better ending. By
presenting an author of Mario Diament’s quality, with his work El Invitado/Houseguest,
we are truly delving into our identity!
This is the theater of Mario Diament – and especially his
Houseguest: a return to the headwaters of a theater of quality and
timeliness. This is a theater that mirrors us and strips us bare, at the
same time it tenderly embraces us.
El Invitado/Houseguest is a play that could have been
written in any Hispanic country, but it is also a work that gives us the
latitude to investigate the most interesting and forceful dramatic currents
in today’s Latin American theater.
Thank you for joining us today, thank you for the affection
and company you’ve gifted us with this season, and a very special “thank
you” to “Our Houseguest: Mario Diament.”
Mario Marcel
About the author:
Mario Diament
was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A veteran journalist, he worked as a
reporter, editor, foreign correspondent and columnist for several
publications in Miami, Madrid, New York, Geneva, Tel Aviv and Cairo.
During the years of the Argentine dictatorship he was
managing editor of La Opinión, a newspaper directed by Jacobo Timerman that
strongly opposed the military government. Mr. Timerman was arrested in 1977,
and the paper was taken over by the Army.
Mr. Diament is the author of several award-winning plays
that have been produced in his native Argentina as well as in Latin America,
Spain, Israel, Yugoslavia and the United States. He has also written for the
cinema and television, and is the author of several books of fiction and
non-fiction.
Most of his plays were produced in the U.S., and published
in Modern International Drama. Story of a Kidnapping was presented in New
York, Los Angeles and Washington DC and featured at the Joseph Papp Public
Theatre in New York during the Hispanic Theatre Festival. Houseguest,
produced by the Los Angeles Actor’s Theatre in 1982, won the LA Weekly Award
for Best Play. Equinox premiered simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles.
Lost Tango was directed by Joseph Adler in 1994 at the Hollywood Boulevard
Theatre. The Book of Ruth, commissioned and produced by the New Theatre in
March 2000, was nominated for a Carbonell Award and won the Streisand
Festival of new Jewish Plays in San Diego, CA.
Besides the current World premiere of Smithereens at the
New Theatre, several of his plays will be seen this year in Washington DC,
Romania, Portugal, Spain, Israel and Argentina.
He currently lives in Miami, where he teaches journalism at
Florida International University and writes a weekly column for the
Argentine daily La Nación. Mr. Diament wishes to thank his wife Simone for
her invaluable help, advice, and companionship.
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