Rolando”, the one-man show by Roly Serrano, delves into the world of a man who, slumped in a wheelchair, breaks the fourth wall by speaking to the public about his situation as a human being. Serrano, of course, is a face that national fiction has tattooed on more than one occasion. He is a face, a way of acting, speaking, stepping on the plane and the scene that deserves much more celebration than it already receives. And that has to do with his powerful way of understanding, from humility but also from talent, what a character can do, whatever character he is. In small and large roles, Serrano has managed to enter the popular imagination, and recover the actor from the secondary actor who steals what he tells. In his many years in the media, he has interpreted pieces by Beckett, mainstream works on Corrientes street and in season, been a fundamental part of that so-called new Argentine cinema, been a face of local prime time. Everything has been done by Roly Serrano. So, what does this one-man show with dramaturgy and direction by Alfredo Megna that opens from July 31 at the Chacarerean theater represent? Serrano himself answers: “I think it’s something very special for this moment in my life, it’s a work that I’ve been drawing up for a while, Alfredo Megna writes it, with me throwing ideas and things. It’s a kind of catharsis of my life. Yesterday the very beautiful idea became clear to me that what I was doing was combining my two passions: I always delegated my passions, theater, cinema, acting, my health. So, I saw the possibility of putting together a show with what I love the most, and with what I neglect the most. And put on a show with it. Work with it. Let’s see if I can improve what I neglect the most, even symbolically. This solo artist is called Rolando, my name, but the original idea comes from “rolling”, from rolling, from going around the same thing. We are already close to the premiere, we are going to the Chacarerean theater, we are going to go on Mondays at 8:00 p.m. and I really want to go on a tour of the interior with this, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays”.
—What did you learn from the art of counting that can only be learned from the art of counting, from the trade of counting?
—Art is something fundamental, because the first thing it does in a person is clear your head, open your head: it teaches you to see, to magnify your senses, smell, what you see, what you felt. It helps you see reality. For one reason or another, you have to go through your realities, you are doing what you are doing, and you have to go through the reality of the world, of the work, of art. You don’t externalize it, even sometimes you don’t see it. But there is the art to be able to survive those things.
—What do you feel you have achieved throughout your career and your characters?
I wouldn’t talk about pride. I was a person who all my life was quite self-sufficient, I resolved my life alone, as a child. I realized that everything I did, without being easy, I made it easy, and I grabbed, I don’t know, a musical instrument and after an hour managed to get the sound out of it. So, that was also something that did not allow me to delve into. What is certain is that I learned to enjoy each step, each thing, and especially since I discovered the theater. Thanks to that I can be a better person, a good professional, and I still am; These are the two things that worry me the most, and that I am most interested in moving through. The worst of the drugs is success, which implies wanting to be more famous or wanting to be better than someone, in my case there was no general, for me the most important thing was transit. See the path, see that you are on the path. That is what makes me most proud.
the necessary help
—What do you feel you found along the way?
– To me, who I am. Clarify my life I started living on the street at the age of 13, I was wandering through life without knowing what to do. I already did the commercial, which allowed me to grow as an artist, and I was available for what appeared, for a good contract. Now I want to talk about important things, like this criticism of me, speaking from my health, not because of the advice itself, and so that they understand that you don’t live in a cloud, that you have problems like anyone else, humanize yourself and be able to transmit it. I want to take advantage, because I am sponsoring a very nice project, from an SME, called Pancitas llenas: if half of the Argentine businessmen did what this guy does and invest, here in something called Pancitas llenas, it helps that there is kids so they eat every day. Something that I want to do in that sense, is to return to the people what the people gave me.
—What debts did Argentine culture have with its actors?
—I would separate him from the actors, and I would take him to society. I believe that there is an enormous debt of society regarding culture. Education is not within the reach of what an excellent education could be in our country. We know and realize that sometimes we are a melting pot, and that there are people who achieve wonders in their own way: if society had more culture, it would be a better society. Many are not interested in a better society. If I don’t have a cultural concern, I don’t wonder about a better society, and I don’t ask myself huge questions. And that suits them.
