Roberto Cossa
| Roberto Cossa | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 30, 1934 Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Residence | Buenos Aires |
| Occupation | playwright, theatre director |
| Known for | La nona The Deal Funny Dirty Little War Yepeto |
| Home town | Villa del Parque |
Roberto Cossa (born November 30, 1934) is a prominent Argentinian playwright and theatre director.
Roberto Cossa was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and raised in the quiet residential borough of Villa del Parque. He first performed in theatre at the age of 17 and, in 1957, he and friends founded the San Isidro Independent Theatre. An admirer of Fidel Castro, he worked secretly as a local correspondent for Cuba's state-owned press agency, Prensa Latina, between 1960 and 1970. Cossa produced his first play, Nuestro fín de semana ("Our Weekend") in 1964. The Neo-realist work earned him numerous Argentine drama prizes and secured his reputation in the field. Contributing to the cultural sections of mainstream Argentine newsdailies such as Clarín, La Opinión and La Nación between 1971 and 1976, Cossa avoided direct political references in his work. One exception to this was his 1970 play El avión negro ("The Black Plane"), a commentary on exiled populist leader Juan Perón's 1964 attempt to return to Argentina.
Following a period of a certain creative dearth, Cossa premiered La nona ("Grandma") in 1977. His most successful play, La nona represented a turn towards the grotesque in which the protagonist, a hundred-year-old Italian Argentine grandmother, burdens her working-class family with her senile dementia and ravenous appetite. La nona, still performed in Buenos Aires and elsewhere, remains among the most recognizable plays in Argentine theatre and was adapted into a film version in 1979.
The climate of repression that prevailed in Argentina during its last dictatorship eased somewhat in 1980 as General Jorge Videla prepared to transfer power to General Roberto Viola, an advocate for increased, if limited, artistic freedom. Playwright Osvaldo Dragún seized the opportunity to organize an Teatro Abierto ("Open Theatre") movement, calling on Cossa and fellow playwrights Luis Brandoni, Jorge Rivera López and Pepe Soriano, as well as receiving support from prominent intellectuals such as Nobel laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and writer Ernesto Sábato. Refurbishing a former Buenos Aires sparkplug factory into the Picadero Theatre, they premiered their first festival on July 28, 1981, featuring Cossa's Gris de ausencia ("Pale of Absence") among the evening's repertoire. During an August 6 performance, however, three fire bombs were set off in the theatre, forcing the Open Theatre to relocate (The Picadero was reopened in 2001).
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