From our special correspondent - Behind the backdrop, nothing. Not even in the wings. The digital test corroborates my investigation: not one single speck of regular stage dust is inside the Vraiment Nouveau Theatre of Neuchatel. Here, at least, i won't be blamed for following the Truman Capote's little tracks. Actually there is someone - Truman was among them - who claims that after the final reportage on the Rolling Stones' tour which was written for Playboy by the concise writer from New Orleans in the Sixties, anything plausible will never be possibly told about the dull world of backstage. Of that masterly work of art, a beacon of erudition for every chronicler, i mostly remember the centerfold.
Nevertheless, a few steps on these still littlefeet-free boards are enough for me to prove again that certain emotion: the Vaudeville Golden Era, the swingin' Buenos Aires of sainete, that tour with Saltarìn Higgins, those two weeks at the Chascomous Globe with John Osborne in "Look back in anger" (i was the one the audience looked back in anger).
Time, despite of the strict local traditions, seems to have stopped off in this Canton. There are still several hours before the Tangueros' performance and here in the green-room the buffet is proceeding according to the accurate schedule planned by the House Manager. I take advantage of the circumstances for reading the following notes for my table companions' benefit.

We admit with shame and sorrow that we didn't speak to the nicest or marvellous girls in the audience with that sweet voice which is the gift of our deeply gallant soul. We feel all our disgrace and uglyness and we openly plead guilty and resolve to mend ourselves in future. Shall they remit the harsh punishment of their disdain with a more human understanding of our torment. We have in our defence but one and only reason: we didn't lie!
Carlo Emilio Gadda - The Madonna of philosophers

No toda es vigilia la de los ojos abiertos - Macedonio Fernandez

Our colleague Mr.Trombetta was not entirely wrong to spread this news item from the bastions of Panorama, a weekly magazine of the utmost integrity:

Nueva Compania Tangueros picked out the hardest way, just Nuevo Tango, no glamour, very stylized dance which doesn't come to terms with the showy stuff too much. Two rigorous acts that try sorely even the coarsest insomnia.

Actually, it's a common notion among the critics that Tango belongs to the loud world of attractions or to pyrotechnichs, or to sociology at the most, a pastime for the populacho as we say in Argentina, which is worth a reasonable praise by the most inflexible reviewers only when it doesn't intend to go beyond those Popular Art limits that Mr.Croce and Mr.Gramsci have argued so often about.
Quite another matter is talking of choreographic composition, dramaturgy, dance technique, stylistics, or discussing the active principles that make the patient critic, the audience, or all three, feel sleepy once a day - in the posology of Tango of course, rather than in Contemporary Dance's pharmacopoeia.
It is true that a full house, a so-called box office hit, hides an element of vulgarity that gives evidence against the programme's cultural virtues and the Artistic Director who has planned it, without anybody ever calling him for the dull endowments of managing and accounting; on the other hand the Hemingway's prediction, according to which the audience can not remain better than the critics for a long time, seems to be groundless in this particular case.
Nevertheless, the Tangueros Four Nights' short tour overturned the expectations with five sold outs out of five performances, despite of the no-showy stuff, the hardest Nuevo Tango, the stylized dance and Mr.Trombetta.
The Panorama insensitive readers, or the precious few who still disregard it, have crowded the stalls, the mezzanines, the balconies, the galleries, the first-tier boxes, the paths, the passages and even the chandeliers, and from these cramped positions they have delivered infinite cheers and called for several encores. Not intimidated at all by the box office bugaboo, a sleepless avalanche has besieged every stage with the name Tangueros on the bill. The news reported even an odious affair of black market on the tickets, with agiotage and reselling, that held the Authors Society Inspectors Pool in check for weeks. The case was subsequently entrusted to your friendly correspondent who solved it and routed the scalper in only five minutes: i confessed.
The local press too was unanimous for once: we will report about that on the TQR next issue, as soon as we read the reviews.

© TQR Jean Fajean - December 2000

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