My nona and family memory, in a play

The queen of Turdera It is a play that was written while I was waiting for buses and trains and between sweet mate and chatting with my nonna, Teresina. The queen of Turdera It is a Sunday when, with a coffee and a square of pasta frola, you sit down with someone from the family to look at the photos from the camera roll, with the orange Kodak folios album with people in caps being happy, and you look again now remember and live those moments.

The queen of Turdera He was born so that I wouldn’t forget, he was born to condense in 50 minutes a whole life lived with my nonna, always me from the back house, gossiping what I was going to eat from a little window in the entrance hall and letting myself dip the bread in the sauce of a giant pot

Nonna always told me her stories, her life in Italy, in Dipignano, about the war, what her town was like, her dialect, which she stopped speaking when my nono died. She always told me about the family that I never knew, about her sisters and brothers, about her mother, about her nonna and her nono. Actually, I did meet them, through her, through her photos, through her letters.

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Nonna talked a lot and her stories were hymns that we knew by heart: how she got to Lomas de Zamora from Italy; boat; how she met Mafalda, another Italian with another future railway husband who was just going to live in Banfield and from that moment they became her best friends; how my nono was late to look for her at the port; what her house was like in Lomas, how she built her house in Turdera; the lost love of her; her daughters, who are my aunts; her son, who is my father; and us and us, the granddaughters and grandsons and the great-grandchildren and the great-granddaughter. Nonna repeated her stories so she wouldn’t forget and, at a certain point, so that when we learn it, they never forget her.

My none is the family memory. She always knew all the birthdays and the saint’s day, she kept track of how many days and months and years it had been since he lived in Turdera and had left Italy. She always remembered everything. she called the tanada with the international phone card that I bought for him at the bookstore.

How could I tell the story of my nona? How can I not forget them if she can’t tell me anymore? How can those fictional stories that I lived become real?

This is how the theater comes, a passionate job that made me find a way.

And since I cannot deny that, as a good woman born in the 90s, I carry that analogue nostalgia with me, I also add many hours of filming with a handy that I bought for him marketplace From Facebook. Instead of counting, I filmed. I filmed it all. I filmed Nonna in her house, in her nature, in her plastic garden chair that she has in her living room, which is the throne that crowns her as queen of her neighborhood, of my neighborhood, of Turdera .

With all those stories told by her, with everything I could condense, which is talking about myself, family history, immigration, a powerful, strong, neglected woman, which is talking about desires, dreams, of the miracles that happen between two women sweeping a sidewalk, is that the play is built.

The queen of Turdera It is a work with the noise of setting the table, of the summer buzzer, of the truck that buys junk and old washing machines, it is the smell of food, it is enjoying eating without guilt, it is acting with my nonna once and many times. It is to continue knowing my story and to know the memories of many of the people who come to see it. It is to continue knowing Teresina as a woman, not just as my nonna.

Thanks to the help of Juan Makowho collaborated artistically in the dramaturgy and direction of the play, we found the best way to tell this story at my nonna’s birthday celebration.

One important thing, before continuing, is that you know that the nonna asked to die at 60, she asked the little virgin who is in the cathedral of Lomas de Zamora, and on her knees. But it seems that the message came with a delay of more than thirty years. That is to say, that every year the nonna complained that she was still here on the earth of mortals and not in the paradise that she so desired.

This became a great family joke, a joke that was highlighted at every meeting on January 31 at night, every Christmas, every birthday. So that celebration, contradictorily full of life and death, is what frames the work.

With Maria Fernanda Lopeza great friend whose grandmother was a friend of my nona’s, was that we began to have nonna filming days, in which she, Teresina, began by saying that she did not know what to say, and when we turned on the camera, we had to stop it to change memories and batteries because they couldn’t cope.

Hernan Balestra, with whom I literally act in the play, is the one who was in charge of all the editing of that material. In addition to editing, he is the video operator during the play, so he is the one who makes me perform all the functions with my nona. marisol martinezan incredible partner and technician is the one who designed the lights. sun soto he built the scenery and all the details of nona’s house.

Laura Gabianmy friend from school and my life, and who has received towels with lace woven by nona for many birthdays, is the one in charge of graphic design, and Santiago Mininomy love partner, is the one who makes and reviews with me material that he edits for social networks.

As you can see, The queen of Turdera It’s a birthday, with friends and family.

It is built by people who know nona from the inside, her house, her meals, her hugs, her tune, her sea eyes.

* The queen of Turdera It is presented on Sundays in May and June at 6:00 p.m. in it Abasto Social Club (Yatay 666, CABA) with cake, coffee and praline candies at the end of the show.

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