This is the title of a tango, most famously sung by Carlos Gardel
It was the 11th of June 1935 when Carlos Gardel arrived at this house and Elvira Ancízar divided her life into two stages or, better said, into two movements, and as simple as before and afterwards.
It’s 11 June 1935 and the legendary tango singer, Carlos Gardel, has come to give a concert in Caracas. This is just what some people have been waiting for. Living under a dictatorship there is dissent in the home of the family Ancízar; their house is dreamy, full of exotic and decorative objects which betray something of their romantic yearning for another way of life. María Luisa invests her hope in the first Communist state in Russia and is planning to follow her political ideals and her love of ten years, Pío Miranda, to Stalin’s Ukraine. For the other members of the family – María Luisa’s brother, sister and niece – it is not Communist Russia which represents hope, but the fact that Carlos Gardel is in town, and nothing is more wonderful than when he invites himself for dinner. Everyone behaves as if they are entertaining royalty, all except for Pío Miranda who is intent on dampening the excitement. He reminds Gardel, as well as the Ancízar family, that while Caracas is entranced by a tango star, there are innocent people being tortured and imprisoned by the regime. But does Pío Miranda really have the answers? In this Chekovian family drama, Cabrujas slices through history and offers us a view of this point in time which is fascinating to reinterpret now, over seven decades later.
It’s 11 June 1935 and Carlos Gardel, the legendary tango singer, has come to give a concert in Caracas on what will be his last world tour. Only a few days later he will be killed in a ... (Read more...)
Cabrujas, José Ignacio, El día que me quieras. Caracas, Monte Avila (1979)
Cabrujas, José Ignacio, El día que me quieras / Acto Cultural. Caracas, Monte Avila (1989)
Balderston, Daniel and Gonzalez, Mike, ed. 2004. Encyclopaedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900 – 2003, p. 98. London, Routledge
Giménez, Leonardo Azparren. 1992. ‘Procesos en el teatro venezolano de los ochenta’, Latin American Theatre Review, 25: 2, 191–6
Misemer, Sarah M. 2008. Secular Saints: Performing Frida Kahlo, Carlos Gardel, Eva Peron and Selena. London, Tamesis
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Entry written by Gwendolen Mackeith. Last updated on 5 October 2010.
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